MODULE 1 (LTS 2)

• Literacy training Service (LTS)

  Component of the National Service Training Program (NSTP) that aims to teach four to eight year old children or even out of school youths the basic literacy and numeracy skills
• Implementation of the LTS program

  • Potential problems: lack of available rooms for teaching, inadequate number of chairs, teaching equipment and materials, lack of support and coordination with the local government officials
• Positive reinforcement


  Value that the student trainer/facilitator should bear in mind
• Tutorial class


  Upon the instruction of the teacher/facilitator so that every student enrolled in the LTS class will be given a chance to experience teaching literacy and numeracy skills among the children of the barangay
• Emerging literacy


  Begins in infancy when parents and teachers respond to babies' coos and smiles, sing lullabies, and play games such as peek-a-boo
• Listening and Speaking


  Natural interactions that help children learn about the give and take of conversation and the pleasures of communicating with other people
• Reading and Writing

  Young children are exploring reading and writing through activities like playing with alphabet blocks, pointing out logos, listening to books and retelling stories, using drawing and writing tools, and watching an adult write their spoken words
• Emergent Literacy Skills and Activities

  • Print motivation - child's interest in and enjoyment of books and reading
  • Building Vocabulary - creating word families and activities
  • Show and Tell - strategy for building oral language and vocabulary
  • Songs, rhymes, and poems - improve memory, vocabulary, and creative uses of language
  • Print awareness - expose child to printed materials and draw attention to words and letters
  • Narrative skills - read aloud stories to develop oral language and vocabulary
  • Letter knowledge - recognizing letters, letter names and sounds
  • Phonological awareness - awareness of the sound structure of words
• Essential components of early literacy development

  • Oral language - developing listening and speaking skills
  • Phonological awareness - ability to recognize and work with sounds in spoken language
  • Print knowledge - letter names, letter sounds, concepts of print
• Children's home languages

  Children associate the words, tones, and expressions of their home language with feelings of security. Home language allows them to feel connected to their families and cultures.
• Progress in Language Development

  Every child develops at their own pace. Home, community and Head Start environments play a role in determining how and when a child develops language skills.
• Link to Cognitive Development

  Listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills are primarily avenues for cognitive development. Language allows children to talk about their experiences and discoveries and modify their understanding of the world.
• Language and Social Competence

  Language skills are essential elements of social competence. Children use their listening and speaking skills to play, get along with others, make friends, negotiate, take turns, and express anger with words.
• All children, including children with disabilities, can learn to communicate and develop literacy-related skills
• How Young Children Learn

  They watch and imitate adults, they explore materials, and they make their own discoveries about how written language works. Through trial and error, problem solving, and forming and testing hypotheses, they learn about written language.
• Roles of Teacher When Interacting with Children

  • Director - tell children what to do, make suggestions, ask questions
  • Entertainer - join in with the children, keep talking so they cannot talk
  • Timekeeper - rush through the activity to stay on schedule, do not listen
  • Watcher - sit with the children but do not talk to them
  • Rescuer - assume children cannot speak for themselves, repeatedly offer help
  • Responder - watch, listen, and respond in ways that allow individual children to talk with you and each other
• Importance of Reading Aloud

  Reading aloud to children every day, beginning in infancy and continuing into the elementary school years, fosters literacy development. It supports children's emerging literacy in many ways.
• Ways Reading Aloud Supports Emerging Literacy

  • Children add new words to their vocabularies
  • They understand more spoken words
  • They learn how to handle books
  • They compare and connect their own experiences to those in books
  • They are motivated to look at books on their own
  • They discover the connections between spoken and written words
  • They learn about the world and are encouraged to use their imaginations
  • They understand that spoken language is made up of discrete sounds
  • They notice how written language differs from spoken language
  • They begin to connect sounds of words to words on the page
  • They begin to explore writing and read their own writing to others
• Emergent Reading


  Children who are read to often are likely to pretend to read, just as they pretend to do other things they have experienced with adults.
• Sharing Books Without Reading the Words

  1. Model how to look at and talk about a wordless picture book

  2. Model how to look at books and talk about the pictures, telling the story in your own words

  3. Include books on tape in your lending library or suggest families borrow them, listening while looking at the book
• Writing is an important part of literacy development
• Sharing Books Without Reading the Words
• Families who do not read aloud to children

  • They cannot read or feel that their reading skills are so limited that the read-aloud experience will be frustrating and unpleasant
  • Many programs have linkages with their communities' family literacy projects
• Strategies to show families how to share books with their children without reading the words

  1. Model how to look at and talk about a wordless picture book

  2. Model how to look at books and talk about the pictures

  3. Include books on tape in your lending library or suggest that families borrow them from your local library
• Telling stories to their children is an opportunity for families to pass on their history, reinforce cultural values and beliefs, or create imaginary characters and situations
• Writing


  Communicating with others by putting ideas in print
• Most young children find it easier to learn to form the letters of the alphabet than to read them
• Development of writing skills

  • Depends on eye-hand coordination and visual perception
  • Children can distinguish between letter forms before they have the skills needed to write them
• Stages of drawing and writing

  1. Early scribbling

  2. Controlled scribbling

  3. Basic forms stage

  4. Pictorial stage
• When children begin writing letters on purpose, they may make them backward or upside down
• Handwriting comes later as children experiment with the mechanics of forming letters and words in conventional ways
• Activity 1: What Makes a Good Book Good?


  Student trainers define reading, learn about emerging literacy, discuss individually and developmentally appropriate books for young children, and plan ways to use their local library as well as barangay halls as a resource for families, classrooms, and group socialization sessions
• Outcomes of Activity 1

  • Students/trainers and facilitators encourage children to develop a love of reading
  • Student/trainers and facilitators select books that reflect children's interests, skills, abilities, cultures, and families
  • Student/trainers as well as facilitators collaborate with families to ensure that every child has access to books at home and has a regular time for reading
• Steps in preparation for teaching in the barangay

  1. Put together a collection of pictures and photographs of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers looking at books

  2. Make sure that each students/trainers bring children's book that they can use when teaching with preschoolers

  3. Collect pamphlets, brochures, book lists, and other materials about the early childhood services offered by the local library
• All adults, regardless of their reading skills, can share books with children
• When read to from infancy, children learn to associate reading with warm, caring feelings
• Young children who are read to frequently and regularly are likely to master conventional reading in the early elementary years and have successful learning experiences in school
• Young children enjoy books with repetition and rhyme
• Factors to consider when choosing books for young children

  • Home languages
  • Skills
  • Family and life experiences
  • Interests
  • Cultures
  • Background knowledge
• Ways teachers and student/trainers can enhance children's enjoyment and understanding of a book's characters and plot

  • Providing props children can use to act out the story
  • Planning activities and experiences tied to the book's theme and characters
  • Creating an appealing library area where children can explore the book on their own