Environmental Print...Beginning Stages of Reading

Has your child ever the seen the golden arches with the word McDonalds and said "McDonalds" or maybe the Walmart sign and said Walmart?  

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Children learn to recognize and "read" signs they see everyday in their environment, called environmental print.  This is one of the beginning stages of reading.  Children begin to learn that the string of letters make up a word and the word they see they know from their life experience.

Encourage your child to read words that they know from day to day life.  Even cut these words out and put them on the refrigerator for them to practice reading.

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When young children begin to see themselves as readers, they want to learn more about the black squiggly lines called letters and how when they are grouped together make words that adults read.

Children will become more observant about print they say and may begin asking you what the word says.  These are all great discussion to have about letters and how letters make up words.

Things to do with environmental print:
1.  Collect the words your child knows: cereal names, store names, candy bar names, etc.
2.  Place the words in a bag for your child to practice reading.
3.  Collect two of each word to match together or play memory with them where you glue the words on cards and turn them over and your child tries to flip two over at a time to see if they match.
4.  Have your child read environmental print when you are out running errands.  This will give them educational busy time during the drive.
5.  Write simple sentences using the enviromental print.  Ex.  I like __word__ . (Glue the environmental print on a card in the sentence.  Then help your child to read the simple sentences.  Point to each word as you read the sentence to help you child learn the concept of a word and how you say one word each time your move your finger.  This is called voice to print matching.