Learning in a Literacy Rich Environment

Hello again friends! Let’s continue our topic about literacy, learning, and reading success.

As we know, language development and literacy experiences begin at birth. And immersing learners in language and literacy rich environments early will have a lasting impact on their school success, their overall development, and will promote early reading success. The importance of a literacy rich environment can’t be understated.

Through play, exploration, interaction, and hands-on activities young learners will make lots language and literacy discoveries. Let’s make sure we provide them with enough opportunities.

And I’m sure you’ve heard it before:

“A language and literacy rich environment is important for student success, and encourages early reading.”

Everyone!

But what does a literacy rich environment really mean? What does it look like? And how can we support literacy in the classroom or learning environment?

What are Literacy Rich Environments?

On the surface it’s really simple. Creating a literacy rich environment means to create an environment that provides ample opportunities for your learner to engage with literacy. It stimulates participation in oral communication and allows learners to frequently engage with interest-based literacy activities.

Broadly speaking, literacy rich environments:

• Offer ample amounts of, and examples of, literacy within the environment
• Are engaging, inviting, and comfortable
• Are accessible to for all learners

Having a language and literacy rich environment as their learning environment (at school or home), learners will talk about their play experiences, listen to and retell their favorite stories, play with alphabet blocks, draw pictures, scribble, write letters and words, and even watch as adults read and write for pleasure, knowledge, and to get stuff done.

Whats Does a Literacy Rich Environment Look Like?

In a literacy rich environment, you can see literacy everywhere. On walls and shelves with labelling and posters, books, resources, and even within the activities and/or centres.

There are so many play experiences that will support your learner’s literacy skills. Many of which I am sure you’re already doing. If not, here are just a few you can start implementing now:

• Sorting letters
• Matching letters
• Classifying, and sequencing language materials
• Participating in songs
• Rolling playdough
• Doing finger plays
• Reading books
• Dramatic play experiences
• Block experiences

A combination of these activities will help your learner strengthen and improve the coordination of their fine motor skills (which they will need to control writing tools to write letters and words), and provide hands-on experiences to practice letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and much more.

What’s in a Literacy Rich Environment?

• Print Materials
• Reading Materials
• Writing Materials
• Literacy Centers
  • Whether in a classroom or home, students and learners should be provided with a distinct area that fosters early literacy learning
• You! The facilitator who will model the proper use of print, reading, and writing.

Print Materials in a Literacy Rich Environment

An environment that is rich in literacy will have many different kinds of print materials available for learners to engage with. At the minimum learners should see and/or have access to:

• Calendars
• Daily Schedules
• Labels
• Signs
• Menus
• Job Charts
• Dictionaries
• Printed Directions
• Alphabet Displays
• Word Walls
• Posters

Immersing the learning environment with print materials allows learners to see that there is a connection between written words and spoken language. They also get hands-on experiences that allow them to understand how written language is used in the real life situations. It’s important to make sure that they engage with literacy at every checkpoint within the environment.

Just think about dramatic play for younger age groups. Postal offices, restaurants, floral shops, grocery stores, etc. In dramatic play, provide literacy-related props that encourage learners to either read and write, or pretend to read and write. Both are equally important.

Such engaging experiences develop an awareness of print, and allow them to practice communication skills (listening, comprehension, oral language). These fun encounters help to develop an overall positive attitude towards learning. When learners are engaged and having fun, learning occurs!

Reading Materials in Literacy Rich Environment

• Books
• Magazines
• Pamphlets
• Recipes
• Catalogs
• Tactile Books
• Homemade books and posters
  • These are my favorite! And there is soooo much hands-on learning that goes into creating your own book or poster. Just think about all the planning and execution!

Writing Materials in a Literacy Rich Environment

• Pencils
• Markers
• Crayons
• Chalk
• Paint
• Brushes
• Paper
• Easels
• Chalkboards
• Magnetic boards and letters
• Playdough and/or modelling clay

Writing materials encourage a hands-on experience within the environment. You will soon start to see your learners mimicking language and literacy experiences that they’ve come in contact with.

Some will write down orders in the dramatic centre, others will create stop signs in the block centre, and some with draw pictures for their book.

Making sure that we have lots of different writing materials available ties everything in the literacy rich environment together, and ensures that laughing and learning happens!

Creating a Rich Environment

I should note: it’s important to create a language and literacy rich environment for all learners; from birth to upper grade levels. Your literacy rich environment will ensure that your learners are exposed to the basic skills needed for literacy development. And all learners progress through stages differently, regardless of age.

For instance, for learners who were not exposed to literacy rich environments from an early age, yours will make sure that they too have access to the general information being taught. Because reading and comprehension skills are fundamental to school success. Remember, first learners learn to read, then they read to learn.

Here are 3 things you should do to create a literacy rich environment:

1. Include a High Variety of Print, Reading, and Writing Materials

No surprise here, right? I mean that’s what this post is all about 🙂

Your environment should be immersed in print, reading, and writing materials. Fully immersed. At every checkpoint. Literacy shouldn’t be excluded from any area within the environment.

Just think about your home. Because we already know how to read and manipulative the literacy around us, it’s easy to take it for granted. But many of us have literacy everywhere in our homes. Cookbooks and calendars in the kitchen, magazines or books in the washroom, and books, posters in the garage, magazines or TV guides in the living room, etc.

For your learning environment, make sure that the literacy materials are inviting (to encourage engagement), interest based (to spark emotion), interesting (to maintain engagement), and accessible to all learners.

But also remember that you are a vital component to a literacy rich environment. So you need to make sure that you are demonstrating how to properly engage with the materials… and that you enjoy it!

2. Create a Classroom Library

This is important. Creating a diverse classroom library so that your learners have access to all forms of literature is a must! The more options that learners have, the more likely they are to engage with them. Whether this means ‘reading’ the pictures, requesting specific stories, displaying pleasure and enjoyment during activities, or simply mimicking reading. All of these things are important aspects of enjoying and understanding the power of literacy.

3. Put Language and Literacy in Unexpected Places

Expose your learners to language and literacy as much as possible. Place posters, labels, and printed materials in all areas of the learning environment. Even in the places learners wouldn’t expect – block center, smart board, white board, art area, walls, science, sensory, etc. Remember, no area is off limits.

We’ll get into more detail about some activities to do with your learners in your literacy rich environment in another post, but here are a few:

Activities that Promote a Literacy Rich Environment

• Meaningful writing
  • Lists
  • Questions
  • Postcards
  • Thank you cards
  • Instructions
• Letter and sound games and activities
• Reading
• Fingerplays
• Painting
• Board Games
• Daily Communication Books
• Letter and Sound Activities

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So, are you excited?! I am. I’m pretty confident that your environment already includes literacy, but there’s always more room for improvement, laughing, and learning right?

So to help you create (or enhance) your literacy rich environment, I have created some classroom labels and calendar signs to get you started.

32 colourful classroom labels that will help your learners make the connection between the object or space, and the word.

Colorful calendar labels to talk about the months of the year, and days of the week. Colored and black line calendar numbers are also included.

A colorful ABC Bunting Banner to start either a word wall, or a letter wall where you display objects and images that have the same beginning letter. I have also added a black line version that you can use to print on colored paper, to make it even more colorful!

If you haven’t started incorporating literacy within your environment yet, this set will get you started! After you’ve downloaded, printed, and prepped the signs and labels, don’t forget to think about some reading, and writing materials you can add to enhance your learning environment.

Until next time!