Early Literacies

Explore the multiple forms of literacy in early childhood education settings, including embodied, spoken, and written literacies, including:
- The importance of teachers partnering with families to understand and build on home literacy practices
- How literacies are situated in cultural practices and the importance of affirming indigenous parenting practices and giving children a sense of connection, identity, and belonging

This part explores some of the ways that children learn to understand and express their meaning in embodied, nonverbal ways. This includes:
- Connections between embodied literacies and everyday play and social interactions
- Ways that early childhood teachers can encourage children to develop embodied literacies
The role of digital technologies in supporting children to make and share meaning

This part focuses on ways that early childhood teachers can encourage children to develop spoken and written literacies through everyday interactions. This includes:
- Oral languages, including speaking and listening, vocabulary and comprehension
- Phonological awareness, or building awareness of sounds in words by playing with rhythm, syllables, rhyme, and phonemes (sounds)
- Print awareness, or building awareness that written symbols carry meaning, and that sounds correspond with letters

This part examines why stories are such an important aspect of literacy for young children. This includes:
- Different ways that children might experience stories in ECE settings in oral, written, and embodied ways, including their role as storytellers
- How ECE teachers can support children’s learning about and through stories