"The young child learns to read!" "The older child reads to learn!"

Early communication skills develop into the ability to read and write.  Reading is the ability to decode and comprehend written material.  Writing is the ability to express ideas, thoughts, knowledge, or information through the use of fine motor skills and writing utensils to combine symbols in a meaningful way.

Young learners quickly master all aspects of communication to become a literate individual.  Children demonstrate success in literacy when the following four pieces are put together:

• Rich vocabulary (This is why we read to our children, often, so they can develop a love for the language)
• Letter knowledge (We introduce a new "letter of the week", while also reviewing previous letters taught & learned)
• Sound knowledge (We help children identify objects with beginning letter sounds)
• Fine motor skills (We help children learn pre-writing skills through, drawing, drwriting, and hand-over-hand guidance, as well as provide children with play-doh, fingerpaint, moonsand, etc, crayons, arts & crafts, etc, for the development of fine motor skills) 

These are all essential skills for the young learner because we use literacy every day.  At Seeds of Tomorrow Learning Academy, we we build on a rich vocabulary, letter knowledge, sound recognition, and fine motor skills by providing various types of opportunities for our early learners with consideration to variations in development.

Our focus on enhancing reading readiness skills are implemented by enforcing initial consonant knowledge & sound recognition.  These activities naturally develop a child's language, vocabulary and fine motr skills, as well as incorporate ideas that expose children to mathematical concepts and science properties.  These ideas and activities support the child's growth across the five developmental domains (communication, adaptive, motor/physical, cognitive, and social/personal/emotional).

We consider the following letter/sound recognition skills when assessing the children before, during, and after implementing the activities:

• recites the alphabet
• discriminates between letters and other designs
• matches letters
• points to letters when named
• names letters when pointed to
• uses inventive spelling
• points to labels in classroom
• recognizes beginning letter sound
• understands that letters/words carry a message
• reads some words by sight