Trainer’s Notes:
The following are the literacy stations:
Station 1: Phonemic Awareness
Station 2: Letter Stations
Station 3: Letter Posters/Books
Station 4: Color/Shape Poster/Books
Station 5: Word Games
Station 6: Playdough
Station 7: Painting
Key Learning Points:
 Reading is not a natural ability. Speaking is innate, reading is not.
 Our brain is hardwired for speech, not reading.
 There is an existing neural system that is in place for listening and speaking.
 To read, we need to use this same system to create a new pathway that
Processes print for meaning.
 Our brain interprets signals that are received from the visual cortex.
 The reading system must be developed as there are no naturally designed neural
mechanisms for reading.
 Learning to read starts with the AWARENESS that speech is composed of individual sounds
(phonemes) and a recognition that written spellings represent those sounds. (Alphabetic
Principle)
 Before children learn to read, they acquire vocabulary by LISTENING TO OTHERS and
PRACTICING HOW TO SAY AND USE those words
 Because ability to read is strongly dependent on the word forms learned during this period, a
child’s beginning reading will be successful if most of the reading materials contains words the
child is already using.
 The phoneme-grapheme connection is made easier if most of the reading materials he is
exposed to at the early stages of reading contain words the child is already using.
The following are essential components for literacy learning:
A. Early Literacy Concepts
 An important investment in supporting literacy development is help build their
understanding of early literacy concepts.
 Most children enter school with some knowledge of early literacy concepts. If they do
not, explicit and systematic instruction is necessary to help them acquire understanding
of these concepts.
 Early literacy concepts are basic to the child’s understanding of print and should be
mastered early.
Early literacy concepts include:
Distinguishing between print and pictures
Print and pictures are different but are connected
You read the print, not the picture.
Understanding a concept of a letter
There is a difference between a word and a letter.
A letter has a name and a shape.
A letter or a group of letters represent a sound.
A letter has a shape and has features.
A letter is always the same and you look at the parts to identify it.
There are uppercase and lowercase letters.
Understanding a concept of a word
A word is a group of letters that mean something.
A word in writing is a group of letters with space on either side.
Directionality
You read and write from left to right.
You turn pages to read and look at the left page first
You read left to right and then go back to the left to start a new line
The first letter in a word is on the left and the last letter is right before the space or ending
punctuation
The first word on a page is on top. The last part is at the bottom.
Understanding the concept of the first and last in written language
 first word in a sentence- left
 last word is before a period or question mark
 first letter of a word is on the left
 the first part of a page is on top
 the last part is at the bottom
Understanding that one spoken word matches one group of letters
 We say one word for each word we see in writing.
B. Letter Knowledge - refers to what children need to learn about the graphic characters that
correspond with the sounds of language. Children need to learn the names and purposes of
letters as well as the particular features of each:
 Identifying Letters
 Recognizing Letters in Words and Sentences
 Forming Letters
C. Letter-Sound Relationships - The sounds of language are related in simple and complex ways to
the 26 letters of the alphabet
D. Vocabulary
 Children need to know the meaning of the words they are learning to read and write
 Children need to have multiple encounters with these words
 Accuracy in spelling requires knowing the meaning of the word you want to write.
 Comprehension and accurate pronunciation are also related to knowing word meanings.
 Knowing synonyms, antonyms and homonyms will help students build more powerful
systems for connecting and categorizing words
 Concept Words ex days of the week, color and shape words, seasons, number words
 Related Words
 Some words go together because of how they sound e.g. sleep/slip, ate/eight
 Some words go together because of how they look e.g.
 Some words go together because of what they mean e.g. family – mother,father
E. High Frequency Words


There are just about a hundred words that account for half of all the words we read and
write in English. (Fry, Fountoukidis & Polk,1985). In fact, only 10 words actually account
for one quarter of all the words we read and write (the, of, and, a, to, inn, is, you, that,
it)
Children need opportunities to learn to recognize and automatically spell high frequency
words ( most frequently occurring) so that they can focus their energies on decoding
only those that are less frequently occurring and more importantly for processing
meaning of what they read.
o
Reading will become so tedious and labored when they need to stop to figure
out how to decode each word in a sentence as well as figure out how to spell it
while writing.
o
When all attention is devoted to figuring out words, the mental energy becomes
easily depleted and leaves little left to put together meaning.
 Children need to automatically recognize and spell high frequency words is that many of
the most frequent words are not pronounced or spelled in logical ways. Ex. If the word
to was to be pronounced like other words, it would rhyme with no, go, and so ; said
would rhyme with maid, paid.
 One particular challenge in learning high frequency words is that most of them have no
meaning. Unlike concept words, words like, is, are, for, from are “functional, connecting
abstract words which children cannot connect any meaning to? (Cunningham,2009).
o
A critical investment on associative learning is essential because this is
more effective than rote learning or simply memorizing the high frequency
words as most teachers often require teachers to do. For example the word
“of “ can be introduced by showing pictures of a piece of cake and box of
cookies. Then children can be asked to think of other things they like to eat
or drink with the word “of”. Doing simple exercises like this “could help
children associate meaning with an abstract word. “ (Cunningham,2009).
o
o
Once an abstract word has been associated with meaning, it is important to
provide opportunities for practice using a variety of learning modes e.g.
auditory, visual, kinesthetic
Then set up word walls to display words being studied. These words are
written by the children themselves but make sure they are written legibly
and correctly spelled as the word wall will serve as a visual reference for
children. (see appendix for a list of high frequency words)