Parker PreK : Pre-writing and Pre-Reading in PreK

Sometimes, when I begin to blog for the week, I think of questions that parents have asked me in the past. I'm grateful that the families that are at Parker School are here because they value the importance of play and exploration in the early years, but I also want to acknowledge the true learning that is occurring in our playful classroom!

Learning happens naturally when children are given the space and time and materials to explore and engage with their curiosity and interests. Children are naturally self motivated when they can make their own choices!

books are a free choice every day all day, and often become a social event.

cooking with children encourages listening, "reading" a recipe, and following directions.

markers and paper are always a choice, and children draw pictures for each other, model different types of drawings, and free draw as well as finding coloring sheets to color in.

There are many deliberate classroom choices to promote literacy and an interest in reading. Our job chart, and the opportunity to find you seat when it's labeled with one's name are examples. When we ask questions of the children or write a message, they are sitting with us and watching and listening as we write their words, adding weighted importance to their communication. In this way, we model writing and listening, pairing words with written communication.

"signing in", each child to their best ability.

looking for names on the job chart

our words are used to label the very happy sunflower bulletin board!

"message writers" are encouraged to write kind words to the group. There's a lot of love!

Journals are a choice for each child each day, and often they will shout and ask us to write down some words !

We have also worked on writing projects, including "me" books and our rule page. The children are helping to tell stories about "chapter one: nuts" for our guidebook, and each child willingly sits down to share with the scribe! Children are asked to be storytellers as well as listeners.

We even had a nut "expert" come in for a visit this week.

The opportunities for dramatic play both in and out of the classroom allow the children to communicate with words, create stories and games with each other, and thus develop their brain's executive function capabilities in a very motivating way.