This week in our Kindergarten, we are celebrating “International Literacy Day”. If you are reading this, you might think that Literature is a very big word for a kindergarten student. As Dr. Allers has said in her post about the International Day of Literacy:
“Literacy gives a person the ability to communicate effectively with others and to understand written information”
Dr. Allers, Grade 3 Homeroom Teacher.
How can we promote literacy at an early age when children still cannot read? What activities can we do in Pre-k and k to work literacy?
At CISS we have been working with the little ones all week. Depending on the age of our students and their level of understanding of English we have developed different activities to promote the taste for reading.
We have mainly worked on the emotional part, that is, feeling interested and enjoying the story and images of a book. It is important to work on this part since I have seen with my experience that children learn and internalize better the knowledge they enjoy. An IB school like ours aims to create a learning community in which the learning process is based on the student. Therefore, it is important to observe their interests and connect them with their learning.
Although we are a Canadian International school whose first language is English, in our language policy we value the mother tongue as a vehicular language for learning English and for learning in general. We also have to take into account the young age of our Pre-k students, they are starting to speak in their own language as well so we need to keep using Mandarin in the classroom.
As a teacher in an international school, I want my students to be open-minded and respect their classmates, their cultures and their languages. That is why it is important for me that they feel valued. I can do that listening to them, reading their books with them although sometimes I don’t understand them because is a language that I don’t speak.
With this in mind, this week I have asked my families to send me photos and videos reading their favorite books at home. We have seen these images here and all the children were very happy to remember this special moment. Reading is not just knowing a new story, it is sharing moments with dad and mom, it is what the book makes you feel, it is practicing my mother tongue (or languages), and much more.
On Wednesday we all came dressed as the main character from our favorite book and we also brought this book to school. You can read more about this school activity in the Teacher’s blog. This activity was a lot of fun for the little ones. The teachers prepared a display outside the classroom to share our learning with other students and school community members.
The children shared their books and talked among themselves. Thus, promoting the communicative intention. The books were not in English but with the help of teacher Beryl We were able to translate the stories and I repeated them in English. Then we asked the children to draw their favorite character or the part they liked the most about their books. This artistic expression is also evidence of her reading comprehension.
We also watched an episode of Peppa Pig about the International Book day that you can see here. And you know what Peppa also dress up to go to school and show her favorite book there to her classmates and Madame Gazelle. Is very nice for kids when their cartoons are doing the same things as them. Watching this cartoon the students can observe and compare that is a thinking routine very important from their process of learning, we can compare and look at the similarities and differences which are math curriculum and they also can practise vocabulary.
While they were focused on their books, I was secretly making a very special book called “The Magic Kindergarten” where all the children in our kindergarten are protagonists. This was a real success! It was fun to see their faces when seeing their photos in the book, understanding how they themselves were part of the story.
This very special book will be sent home so that families can also participate in this activity. They will add sentences or pictures in their kids pages. We have to remember that an IB school is not just a building but a community in which all the members who are important to the student participate in their learning process.
To finish, today we have visited the library, that magical place with so many stories! Jessica has helped us find books that the children might like. The children have had a great time there! For IB schools, the library it’s a very important place. The IB expects the school library “to play a central role in the implementation of the programme(s)”. It should act as a bridge in which students are supported in their learning journey towards developing self-confidence and academic progress.
With my K students, we have worked on the parts of the book this week. “Do you know that books and people have a spine?” Yes, that was fun for them. They were also able to write some of the phrases from the book “The Magic Kindergarten”, which in addition to practicing their writing, made them feel very special.
Our special project has been to write their own book. And we had a great time using the “Rory’s story cubes” as story prompts. The main characters of my student N. were, Pam and Ham, of course, her loyal “battle” companions and favorite stuffed animals. Also, N. has been reading at home this week her first library book “Chrysanthemum” a beautiful story about a mouse starting school. With this book, we have worked the parts of a story for the very first time and we will keep practising this every week with a new book from the library.
As you can see a whole week of hard work at CISS Kindergarten!
CISS Kindergarten 