DESIGNING TWO LITERACY ACTIVITIES FOR PRESCHOOLERS AND

KINDERGARTENS

Literacy activity for preschoolers

How to promote print awareness;

It is the knowledge of the alphabetic system and the difference between letters and words.
Also it is the understanding that print conveys a message.

1. Encourage preschool children to play with print such as writing a shopping list, letters,
or making a birthday card.
2. Label objects and centers in your classroom.
3. Reinforce the forms and functions of prints
4. Teach and reinforce print conventions such as discussing print directionality, word
boundaries, capital letters, and end punctuation.
5. Reading a storybook and modelling and/or identifying features of text while reading,
for example differences between words and letters, directionality, return sweep, front
and back cover of book.
6. Building a print rich classroom environment - using labels, alphabet posters, word
walls, reading corners also contributes to the development of concepts of print.
7. Alphabet Knowledge includes recognizing all the letters of the alphabet by name. This
includes recognizing upper and lower case letters. The metalinguistic awareness of
knowing the difference between a "word" and a "letter" is also important for alphabet
knowledge.

Preschool children’s emergent literacy skills;

1. Awareness of sound patterns and individual sounds in words

2. Associating sounds with letters of the Alphabet
3. Invented spelling: children’s early attempts to represent specific sounds by using the
letters of alphabet. This is also called prephonemic spelling that has no phonetic
relationship between the letters and sounds.
4. Creating narratives: children’s narratives become more coherent and more cohesive
during preschool years. This promotes children’s storytelling and retelling skills.
5. Developing a concept of book language: preschool children indicate their awareness
that book language is different from oral language when they pretend read books.
6. Developing book related concepts: include that text is stable, the text, not the picture is
read, and there are different types of texts.
7. Developing a concept of how to read: preschool children can involve in shared book
activities.
8. Developing a concept of how to write: writing is a form of communication.
Preschoolers’ use of prephonemic spelling indicates they know letters are used in
writing. They are beginning to create messages by drawing, scribbling, using letter
like forms and letters. Writing has many purposes. Preschoolers have an awareness
that writing has many purposes is evident that they use emergent writing in daily
activities such as making lists, sharing stories, and writing notes. For example, they
learn how to write their names provide a very personal purpose to writing.