Tuesday’s morning message in Pre-K began, “Good Morning, Mogs! Moday is Muesday.” For Ms. Andrick’s group, fondly known as the “Dogs,” the colorfully written note was an exciting invitation to find the “letter-of-the-week” in the words that form the greetings, daily schedule, and questions of their first business of the day. “M” is the fifth [...]
An essential aim of our literacy program is to instill a love of reading in our students. We approach this goal in many ways—by sharing engaging stories, by modeling our own literary interests, by finding “just-right” books for our students, and by creating opportunities for focused independent reading. We also take our time to explain [...]
Are you aware of the graphomorphological features of the words you read? Before we address that question, let’s step into the lower school reading room. On Tuesday, a group of first graders sat on Ms. Atwood’s rug while she shared a new big book called Hairy Bear. Before she began reading, Ms. Atwood encouraged the [...]
Have you ever attended a morning meeting? Your idea of such a gathering might be a bit different from our Kindergartners’ experience. The agenda includes reports on attendance, weather, and calendar, and a morning message. The meeting also features community-focused activities woven together with a great deal of math and literacy. Often, these lessons begin [...]
Identifying individual sounds in our spoken language is an essential first step in emergent literacy. From infancy, children are surrounded by the sounds of speech, and they begin vocalizing these sounds within their first year of life. Early linguistic activities such as songs, rhymes, and other wordplay help to build children’s oral and aural repertoires. [...]