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New York City
December 2002

Looking at Literacy for Ages 0–3
By Pamela Wheeler-Civita

As a teacher in a mixed age inclusion-setting classroom for the very youngest children, what does literacy look like for my students? Letter and number recognition is not always the most important goal for these children. It is really more about the shared experience of reading together, as well as increasing the child’s knowledge base of his or her expanding world. So how do I instill and support a new and growing love of reading and curiosity about the world?

We have a variety of books that are readily available to all the children in the classroom. They are facing outward on our bookshelf. Some are board books, and some are the more traditional paper paged. Even our youngest babies and our children with fine and/or gross motor delays enjoy maneuvering the heft of the board books and learning how to turn pages to get to the next picture. We have stories that reflect our community, with characters that look like the children and situations that may sound familiar to them. For example, if a child is expecting a new sibling, we make sure to have stories about that in the classroom. There are a number of children’s books that reflect growing diversity in our communities and we try to tap into as many of these wonderful resources as we can. Beautiful pictures, colorful pages, poetry, rhyming books, and fun and silly books are wonderful ways to entice children to pick one up. But I don’t think a literacy rich environment is simply about the materials you make available to the children.

Literacy for young children really comes alive when it is experiential. The loveliest of examples is The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats. In this story a little boy experiences the

joy and wonder of newly fallen snow. He drags a stick through it, leaving his own trail, and makes snow angels and a snowman. He fully feels the presence of the snow and feels his own presence in it as well. Imagine reading this story to young children, and then going out into the snow with them. They can drag sticks, and make snow angels, and snow people. Snow will have so much more meaning for the listener now, and so will the story, because it all has become part of her or his personal experience.

Another aspect of experiential literacy, and one of the most rewarding as a teacher, is the sharing of the experience. A favorite story in my classroom is Eric Carle’s Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You See? The children love to hear it over and over again, at almost every circle time. Recently, while on a walk together, we saw a peacock that one of our neighborhood churches keeps in their garden. The excitement and recognition that even the youngest toddlers had was tangible. “Peacock, peacock what do you see?” someone shouted out, mirroring the text of Carle’s book. That day back on the carpet, our favorite book was pulled out, and we talked a great deal about the peacock we saw in the garden on our walk. I shared in their excitement as we talked and remembered seeing that beautiful, large bird. We discovered that it was much bigger than even our biggest picture in the book! Literacy in a mixed-age, mixed ability group is essential and joyful, especially if it is a shared experience.

Our growing coziness and intimacy as a group had been enhanced, as we all snuggled in a little closer and read the story again.#

Pamela Wheeler-Civita is a teacher at the Bank Street Family Center.

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