Winter Literacy In Reggio Inspired Kindergarten

As a Reggio Inspired educator I appreciate our beautiful  BC Kindergarten curriculum which is at the same time emergent. This provides a base for design and implementation of a developmentally appropriate program which challenges and supports all of my students. The program I offer my students and families is emergent and includes a lot of exploration while being highly structured.

Every time I have travelled to Reggio Emilia to study I have returned to my practice excited and eager to transform the space and flow to better meet the interests and needs of my students.  My last visit inspired me to move towards playful literacy and continue to deepen my understanding of pedagogical documentation by connecting with other teachers and sharing what I have been documenting. While this takes more time, the collaboration from my critical colleagues is valuable and worth the time.

I ensure that my documentation remains current by being intentional about collection of photos, videos and interviews with my learnings, I invest time in observations and support so that they are independent, risk takers who have a good understanding of their job. Literacy exploration is one of the areas that I feel confident that I am providing lots of materials, time and structure for them to explore. By knowing my students I can set up materials that will engage them.

I have refreshed the literacy activities this month to support students interests and align with my assessment. Currently the children have literacy exploration four times a week; two as soft starts and two as part of Daily Four. This is ample time for them to play with letter names, sounds and words. Because they are so excited about rhyme (almost every book prompts rhyming chants). I have also included some rhyming activities for literacy play.

I have organized the literacy resources so that the jars of letters are easily accessed, the activities are in tubs (because of Covid 19 we have eliminated baskets this year) on deep shelves. I have also placed baskets of wooden 3D letters in the construction area, gel letters at the light table and wooden consumable letters in the atelier, Clipboards are throughout the room as is different types of paper.

Here are some of the exploration that the children are enjoying:

Rhyming Go Fish

Letter/Object Match

Make a Word and Sort It Out

Letter Building (sensory materials)

CVC Word Puzzles

Bingo Marker Sight Words

A few circle games that we are playing this month is Rhyming I Have Who Has, Rhyming Basket, Pocket Chart Sound Sort,  and CVC Crosswords.

What are some of your winter literacy activities?

Thanks for stopping by,  LIz