September 16th Blog Post

In Chapter three of Classrooms That Work, the focus is building on the literacy foundation. To build a foundation, it is important to make the basics of learning fun. When teaching the alphabet in my future classroom, I plan to teach it in unconventional ways, rather than singing the rote alphabet song solely for memorization. There are several ways I plan to integrate learning letters.

1. Finding letters in nature and objects. 

2.Young children love movement according to Cunningham and Allington. Combining the alphabet with music and movement gets children moving while they act out each letter. Something I like about this version of the alphabet is that "S sits silently" and this could be used as an ending or in classroom management after the students begin to know the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tepwi3-lAAM.

3. Make the alphabet eatable! Giving students a healthy snack to teach them about words beginning with each letter is a great way to relate the alphabet to everyday words. 

Building the foundation of literacy by combining the alphabet and reading into everyday life and making it exciting stresses in importance of literacy in all areas.
As future teachers, what do you think of these ideas? How will you build foundations of literacy in your classroom?

Cunningham, Patricia M. and Richard L. Allington. Classrooms That Work: They Can All Read and Write. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 2011. 28-47. Print