Worms Like to Wiggle

Becoming a successful reader is dependent upon children’s experiences and knowledge in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Given quality opportunities to interact with responsive adults and peers in language and print rich environments, young children develop knowledge of the world around them through listening and speaking skills, phonological awareness, letter knowledge and print awareness, comprehension, vocabulary and word meanings, and writing. The following are definitions based on scientifically based reading research that will help frame the categories of Literacy Foundation Blocks. Oral language experiences include communication activities that focus on speaking and listening. Educators and caregivers of young children must engage them in conversation throughout a daily and consistent routine, asking open-ended questions and presenting new words to allow expansion of vocabulary. In addition, being responsive to children’s questions and allowing them to lead the conversation are essential in building oral language skills. Reading begins early with the connection that print and sound are related, and occurs through daily experiences predictive of early success in reading. Phonological awareness or the ability to notice and manipulate sounds in spoken language includes alliteration, or identifying the same beginning consonant sounds in a group of words, recognizing and producing rhymes, and segmenting, or separating individual syllables into sounds. Through these kinds of daily routine activities, young children begin to develop initial understandings about reading and how it relates to their surroundings. Writing is intriguing to children as adults around them use it as a means of communication. Reading, language, and writing become intertwined as children develop and follow a sequence of progression through routine practice in classroom activities. Thus, it is imperative for teachers to allow this progression to take place and offer it in relation to other literacy activities. Research concludes that children who progress well in literacy development are immersed in environments consisting of rich children’s literature, varied and frequent language experiences, and many opportunities to write. Conversely, children who are not progressing to expectations benefit from more of these kinds of activities in addition to more explicit classroom experiences. By listening and telling stories, reading aloud on a routine basis, rereading familiar texts, and providing repeated opportunities to write, children will develop literacy.

Block One	Block Two	Block Three
Oral Expression: The child will develop listening and speaking skills by communicating experiences and ideas through oral expression.	Vocabulary: The child will develop an understanding of words and word meanings through the use of appropriate vocabulary.	Phonological Awareness: The child will manipulate the various units of sounds in words.
Block Four	Block Five	Block Six
Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition: The child will demonstrate basic knowledge of the alphabetic principle.	Print and Book Awareness: The child will demonstrate knowledge of print concepts.	Written Expression: The child will write using a variety of materials.

Block One: Oral Expression

Children gain language and vocabulary skills by having multiple and frequent opportunities to talk, as well as, listen to adults and peers. These opportunities must be daily and routine as the children begin to read and write.

a) Listen with increasing attention to spoken language, conversations, and stories read aloud.	Literacy: Oral Expression A
b) Correctly identify characters, objects, and actions in a picture book, as well as stories read aloud, and begin to comment about each	Literacy: Oral Expression B
c) Make predictions about what might happen in a story	Literacy: Oral Expression C
d) Use two words to ask and answer questions that include actions	Literacy: Oral Expression D
e) Use appropriate language for a variety of purposes, e.g., ask questions, express needs, get information	Literacy: Oral Expression E
f) Engage in turn taking exchanges and rules of polite conversation with adults and peers	Literacy: Oral Expression F
g) Listen attentively to stories in a wholeclass setting	Literacy: Oral Expression G

Block Two: Vocabulary

The more children know about the world around them, the easier it is for them to express new information, ideas and vocabulary in communicating this knowledge. Helping children to relate experiences to new ideas and concepts also assists in the development of vocabulary and related skills.

a) Use single words to label objects	Literacy: Vocabulary A
b) Listen with increasing understanding to conversations and directions	Literacy: Vocabulary B
c) Follow simple, one-step oral directions	Literacy: Vocabulary C
d) Engage in turn taking exchanges with adults and peers	Literacy: Vocabulary D
e) Use new vocabulary with increasing frequency to express and describe feelings and ideas	Literacy: Vocabulary E
f) Expose children to a wide-variety of experiences to build vocabulary	Literacy: Vocabulary F

Block Three: Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness involves the understanding of sounds in spoken words, and is highly predictive of a young child’s success in beginning to read. Children’s abilities to manipulate sounds in spoken words and learning to read are connected through rhyming, common initial sounds (alliteration), blending and segmentation, all of which are equally important. Research shows that how quickly children learn to read often depends on how much phonological awareness they have when entering kindergarten.

a) Discriminate similarities and differences in sounds (environmental, letter)	Literacy: Phonological Awareness A
b) Identify words that rhyme, generate simple rhymes	Literacy: Phonological Awareness B
c) Successfully detect beginning sounds in words	Literacy: Phonological Awareness C
d) Listen to multi-syllable words	Literacy: Phonological Awareness D

Block Four: Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition

Letter knowledge is an essential component to begin reading and writing successfully. Functions of letters in writing and their connection to sounds are critical components in children’s success in learning to read. In combination with phonological awareness, letter knowledge is the critical indicator to children’s understanding of the alphabetic principle and the beginning connection to printed words.

a) Correctly identify 10-18 alphabet (uppercase) letters by name in random order	Literacy: Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition A
b) Select a letter to represent a sound (8-10 letters)	Literacy: Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition B
c) Follow simple, one-step oral directions	Literacy: Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition C
d) Read simple/familiar high-frequency words, including his or her name	Literacy: Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition D
e) Notice letters around him/her in familiar, everyday life, and ask how to spell words, names or titles	Literacy: Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition E

Block Five: Print and Book Awareness

Through daily experiences with reading and writing, young children learn basic concepts regarding the printed word. They learn that print conveys meaning and pictures are representations of print. Young children begin to understand there is a correlation between spoken and written words by following the print as it is read aloud. An understanding that reading and writing are ways to obtain information and knowledge, generate and communicate thoughts and ideas, and solve problems is developed as young children routinely and consistently experiment with exploring books and print.

a) Identify the front of a book	Literacy: Print and Book Awareness A
b) Identify the location of the title of a book	Literacy: Print and Book Awareness B
c) Identify where reading begins on a page (first word or group of words)	Literacy: Print and Book Awareness C
d) Demonstrate directionality of reading left to right on a page	Literacy: Print and Book Awareness D
e) Identify part of the book that “tells the story” (print as opposed to pictures)	Literacy: Print and Book Awareness E
f) Turn pages one at a time from the front to the back of a book	Literacy: Print and Book Awareness F

Block Six: Written Expression

Through early writing experiences, young children develop understandings about the functions of written language. Children develop an awareness that ideas can be written. They begin to generate ideas about how written language works and explore its uses. Young children’s attempts to write through scribbling, forms, and inventive spellings help them to understand writing as a means to communicate ideas and information. Over time, attempts at early writing will more closely align to conventional writing.

a) Distinguish print from pictures	Literacy: Written Expression A
b) Copy or write letters using various materials	Literacy: Written Expression B
c) Print first name independently	Literacy: Written Expression C
d) Print 5 - 8 letters with a writing tool	Literacy: Written Expression D
e) Copy 3 - 5 letter words	Literacy: Written Expression E
f) Use inventive spellings to convey messages or tell story	Literacy: Written Expression F

Text on this page has been taken from and adapted to use for instructional purposes in Virginia classrooms. To access to Virginia Foundation Blocks for Early Learning: Comprehensive Standards for Four-Year-Olds go to:
http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Instruction/Elem_M/FoundationBlocks.pdf. The acutal lesson plans are copyrighted by Curriculum Enrichment Publications LLC.