- Hello everybody and welcome to Classroom as Reading Teacher, Cultivating Lifelong Readers and Writers.

My name is Michelle Salcedo, and I am thrilled to be part of this Impact Early Childhood Education Summit and to talk with you about literacy in young children.

Currently, I am part of the Teaching Strategies family.

I am a senior manager of professional development there, but I also come with a whole bunch of experience in the early childhood field, starting as a preschool teacher and also working as a family educator and a trainer.

And I can tell you, I just usually tell people I'm a preschool teacher because that's what touches my heart.

But let's get started talking about literacy.

So before we start talking exactly about literacy I wanna frame this conversation with a different question and that is, how do we teach children to walk?

What are some of the strategies that we use to help children become strong readers and writers or to become strong walkers?

And as you're thinking of some of the strategies that we use, you're probably listing them in your head and most of them probably fall into these kind of categories.

The first is we support them, right?

We are there and we create a safe environment.

We remove obstacles that might be harmful to them if they fall.

We also encourage them, we say to them, you can do this.

We're here for you, you've got this.

And we provide for active learning.

We let them try and we guide them in those efforts, right?

We spend time helping them and letting them know that it's okay if you fall down, you're gonna get up again.

And if we think about that, we know that walking into sort of a complex interplay between our physical skills and our cognitive skills and the social emotional development that we bring to the process, and I promise we're gonna bring that back to literacy again.

But I wanna just start that conversation thinking about that.

And then let's switch and talk about when we talk about literacy, what do we mean?

And I like this image of a seesaw because the first thing I think about is that fulcrum in the middle.

And that's oral language, right?

That's the vocabulary and the words that children come to understand and use.

And that really is the basis when we're talking about literacy.

And then we've got this idea of reading and writing, and those sort of develop in tandem there on top of that oral language.

And we know that children who come to us with strong, robust vocabularies most of the time has a slightly easier chance with that, or an easier path with that reading and that writing.

So let's go back to that idea that we talked about with supporting how children walk and tie that into how do we build a foundation for literacy?

And if you think about it, a lot of the ideas fall into these same categories, right?

We support children, we give them tools, we provide them with opportunities.

That's what we're talking about when we talk about support.

We create a safe environment.

We're saying it's okay to make mistakes and it's okay to try things here and to try new ideas.

And if you fall, that's okay.

We're there to encourage you and say, hey, I know you got this, you're gonna be okay.

And we give them opportunities to try those things and to guide them in their efforts and perhaps ask questions like, have you tried it this way?

Or, hmm, I see that you're doing this.

Sometimes I like to try it this way, right?

We give them guidance.

And then we provide for active learning.

We give them opportunities to try and to try out new things.

And in the same way that we know that walking is an interplay between all these types of development, the same thing is true for literacy, that children have to develop the physical skills, they have to develop the cognitive skills, they have to develop the social emotional skills, and all of these skills that come together that support children in building this solid foundation.

Now, research is very clear that our brains also need intentional support when it comes to especially the reading writing part of that equation, right?

You're gonna probably hear a lot at this conference about the science of reading and what our brains need.

But this con, the session that I'm doing is going to focus on younger children, and specifically we're gonna talk about infants and toddlers and preschoolers.

And we need to be very, very cognizant and intentional about thinking with that science of reading, what is appropriate for us to do in those preschool years?

How can we best support children in building those foundations in ways that are developmentally appropriate and that also support and maintain that joy and that need for exploration that we want to cultivate in the early years.

And so we're gonna talk a lot about this idea of classroom as reading teacher.

And when I think of classroom and the learning environment, I'm really thinking about the environment that a teacher creates, right?

It's everything that impacts on a child's learning experience, learning and development experience in that classroom.

And so that's the physical space that we talk about.

It's the interactions that that teachers have with children.

It's the experiences that teachers facilitate to support children's learning.

And it's also kind of the routines that teachers put in place.

And so when we talk about this idea of classroom as reading teacher, it's that partnership with the physical space that is so important, often called the silent teacher or the third teacher in a classroom.

It's also this idea of the space and the teacher in partnership.

And much of what I'm gonna talk about today is from the work of Brian Cambourne.

And what he defined were eight conditions of a literate environment.

And I've taken that work and really taken it down to what does that mean for the preschool years, for the toddler years, and for the infant years.

And so let's dive in and talk about those conditions.

And the first condition is immersion.

And immersion is this idea of surrounding children with meaningful print.

And one of those key words there is meaningful.

Sometimes we start labeling everything and it just becomes like white noise.

But helping children see what there is and naming those ideas that have meaning to children.

And then it's an idea of demonstration, drawing attention to literacy practices that we use, helping make visible which sometimes is invisible.

Like when we read a book and move our fingers across the lines, or we're writing a note and say, oh, I'm gonna write a capital R, I need to start with a straight line, right?

That's making visible the magic that happens behind literacy.

And then there's this idea of engagement actively involving children.

Too often we think that learning happens as children are passively sitting there, receiving information.

But we need to look for opportunities for children to be actively involved in what we're doing.

And the expectation is treating children, respecting children as competent learners and giving them opportunities to show and to be readers and to be writers.

So in the preschool classroom, having a reading chair, and children can take turns, or once a week or whatever, that they're the readers, they're the ones who are reading the stories.

And saying, hey, I know you can do this, I trust you for this.

And then it's the idea of responsibility.

And that's giving children partnership in the onus of learning and saying to them, hey, I'm gonna be here with you, but you also have a role in this and we're gonna do this together.

And then approximation.

And approximation is to accept and to scaffold, to see what children are doing, to see those strings of scribbles that they're doing and saying, hey, it looks like you're telling me a story with those.

We gonna read it to me?

Approximation is accepting that and then scaffolding and then use.

And that's to show how we use literacy in our daily life.

And it may sound a lot like sort of demonstration, but this one is to show how it's useful, to say oh wow, I need to remember to take this home today.

I'm gonna write a note and I'm gonna put it on my purse so that I remember this, right?

We're showing how we use literacy and why it's important.

And the last one is response.

And that's about celebrating, about saying to kids, oh, this is so exciting that I'm part of your learning experience.

And that's a wonderful, wonderful picture that you drew.

And the words and that story that you told me.

It's about celebrating with children.

And now let's look at that and look at some concrete examples of what that looks like in an infant classroom, because we don't often talk about, at conferences such as this one, about this idea of infants and how can we start to build that strong foundation from day one when children are part of our learning communities?

And so first, let's talk about this idea of immersion and say, look at you.

You're awake.

Let's go and look at the menu and see what we have for snack today, right?

We're showing children meaningful print and what's around us.

Or look at that, you brought me a book.

Oh, this is your favorite book.

Let's open the cover so we can read the story inside.

Or engagement, actively involving children in joyful experiences.

And ah, yay, Uber's here.

How exciting.

Let's sing the name game with his name like we were doing earlier with your name, right?

Involving children in that and having fun with it.

Expectation, oh, it's your turn.

Can you see what's on this page?

What do you see?

What can you tell me about the story in this book?

Responsibility, that's sharing that onus and giving children opportunities as well.

And oh, I see your shirt has a ball on it.

There's a ball in this book too, can you find it?

I'll wait.

Approximation, you're holding a baby and you're looking out the window and the baby says dog.

And you say, oh, that does look like a dog.

I see that squirrel.

That squirrel has a bushy tail and it's running up the tree, right?

We don't have to correct them right away.

We can just scaffold their learning.

And use and saying, oh, it's time for your nap.

I'll put this blanket away in your cubby.

Oh, let me find the one with your name on it, right?

We're showing children the ways that we use it.

And then response.

When that baby starts cooling to us and talking to us we can say, ah, that is such a wonderful story.

I love it when you talk to me, tell me more.

We're taking these conditions, we're taking these ideas and partnering with the classroom so that we have what we would call a literacy rich classroom.

But a literacy rich classroom goes beyond all these ideas of just labeling things or having lots of books.

It's also in the way that we design our classroom and that we interact with children.

And so you see here a QR code, I encourage you to scan it there.

You'll find kind of all the definitions that I gave you as well as the infant examples that I gave you.

And there's also space there is for you to think about the age group that you work in, that you work with.

And in that column, start to take pause for this presentation for a minute and jot down some ideas, jot down some ideas that that will start to say, what are things that I can do?

How can I make these conditions come to life in my classroom?

And when we think about the learning environment, and if you did pause, welcome back and I hope that that was a helpful experience for you.

It's really a part of an intentional approach to literacy learning.

It's really one sort of circle of this idea.

And so the learning environment is one circle.

The other are the experiences that we plan and facilitate for children, specifically for this presentation around literacy learning.

We talked earlier about this idea of active learning and what does that look like?

And I wanna dig into that just a little bit here.

And so when I think about active learning, I often think about the acronym HOMES, right?

And this is how, when I was in the classroom, when I was a trainer, when I was a director, I looked for any activity that teachers had planned or that I had planned and I measured it as a five point scale using these points.

And so the H was for hands on, are children, do they have real things in their hands?

Are they manipulating real objects to learn about it?

And is it open-ended?

Too often we give children things and say, this is what I want you to do with it, instead of giving them things and saying, show me what you can do, let's see what you're gonna do with this.

And then that helps me understand your learning and scaffold it and asking interesting questions and giving you opportunities to think and to be creative.

The M is for meaningful.

This idea that learning, when we connect it to what children are interested in and their experiences, it's going to be that much more meaningful.

And you know, when we think about, when we talk about, for example, Arctic animals, most children don't have experiences with that.

And that means that as a teacher, I have to sit or I have to talk and teach children about that because they can't offer any knowledge about that.

But buildings, most children have experience with a building, and when we start with there we can start to build from their experiences.

But we start with the foundation of what can you offer to this conversation and to this learning?

Engaging, in the same way that we want hands on, we want brains on.

We want children to be able to think about things.

And in this, you know, asking them questions that we don't necessarily already know the answer to, but saying, hmm, why do you think that happened?

Or, what do you think will happen next?

Or how does that happen, right?

Giving them opportunities to truly think.

And then the last one is sensory oriented.

What senses are we engaging, as we look at our classrooms and saying, what do I have in my classroom that's interesting for a three-year-old child to listen to, to touch, to look at, right?

And so that scale, that active learning scale is really looking about when we want learning experiences to be effective and to really, you know, help children develop the skills and the thinking skills they need, we wanna measure it against that five point scale.

And then this last idea that I wanna touch on sort of as this triad of what we know that children need to be successful in a classroom is the idea of relationships.

And I have never found a quote that more shows this idea than this one from Gordon Neufeld that says, "Children learn best when they like their teacher and when they think their teacher likes them", right?

That children's brains, when they feel like they're in a safe place, when they feel like they belong, when they feel like they are a valued member of a learning community, that is the foundation for everything else.

And that kind of, again, ties back to what we were talking about with walking, right?

When a child feels safe, when there's somebody that's there to say, hey, I removed these sharp edges.

Hey, I made it safe for you.

In the same way, if we want children to be strong readers and writers, the first investment we need to make is spending the time and understanding who they are.

What values do they bring to the classroom?

How are they unique?

And then how can I reflect that in the classroom so that they know that they belong?

'Cause every child and every family deserves to walk into a classroom and see themselves and their experiences reflected there.

And so when we think about that triad, the environment that we create, the physical space, the routines, the learning experiences, looking at those, are we making active learning come to life in our classroom?

And in those relationships, are we prioritizing a sense of belonging?

Because when we do that and when those all come together, that's when we know that we are creating those conditions in which learning and literacy and all of those wonderful things that we know children are going to really have to focus on when they move into the kindergarten and first grade and all of that, we know that they'll be able to handle that.

And we know that they're more likely to be successful because we've made these intentional investments in all of these things in the early years.

And I wanted to end with this quote from Malala, "I believe in the power of stories to bring families together, to forge friendships, to build movements, and inspire children to dream."

And ultimately, I think the goal of literacy is to help children be able to tie into that power of story and to be able to find themselves and to connect with others and to build a future based on that.

And so I thank you so much for your time and for your investment in children and for the work you do because it's because of you that wonderful things happen for children and families every day.

I have my email address here if you'd like to contact me.

If you're interested in, you know, more about teaching strategies, we're on all the social media platforms.

And thank you so much.