Learning about print

Print Awareness: An Introduction | Reading Rockets

Children with print awareness can begin to understand that written language is related to oral language. They see that, like spoken language, printed language carries messages and is a source of both enjoyment and information. Children who lack print awareness are unlikely to become successful readers. Indeed, children's performance on print awareness tasks is a very reliable predictor of their future reading achievement.

Most children become aware of print long before they enter school. They see print all around them, on signs and billboards, in alphabet books and storybooks, and in labels, magazines, and newspapers. Seeing print and observing adults' reactions to print helps children recognize its various forms.

The ability to understand how print works does not emerge magically and unaided. This understanding comes about through the active intervention of adults and other children who point out letters, words, and other features of the print that surrounds children. It is when children are read to regularly, when they play with letters and engage in word games, and later, when they receive formal reading instruction, that they begin to understand how the system of print functions; that is, print on a page is read from left to right and from top to bottom; that sentences start with capital letters and end with periods, and much, much more.

As they participate in interactive reading with adults, children also learn about books author's and illustrators names, titles, tables of content, page numbers, and so forth. They also learn about book handling how to turn pages, how to find the top and bottom on a page, how to identify the front and back cover of a book, and so forth. As part of this learning, they begin to develop the very important concept "word" that meaning is conveyed through words; that printed words are separated by spaces; and that some words in print look longer (because they have more letters) than other words.

Books with predictable and patterned text can play a significant role in helping children develop and expand print awareness. Typically these books are not decodable that is, they are not based on the sound-letter relationships, spelling patterns, and irregular/high frequency words that have been taught, as in decodable texts. Rather, predictable and patterned books, as the names implies, are composed of repetitive or predictable text, for example:

Two cats play on the grass.
Two cats play together in the sunlight.
Two cats play with a ball.
Two cats play with a toy train.
Two cats too tired to play.

Most often, the illustrations in such books are tied closely to the text, in that the illustrations represent the content words that change from page to page.

As they hear and participate in the reading of the simple stories found in predictable and patterned books, children become familiar with how print looks on a page. They develop book awareness and book-handling skills, and begin to become aware of print features such as capital letters, punctuation marks, word boundaries, and differences in word lengths.

Awareness of print concepts provides the backdrop against which reading and writing are best learned.

Print Awareness: Guidelines for Instruction

By: Texas Education Agency

Print awareness is a child's earliest understanding that written language carries meaning. The foundation of all other literacy learning builds upon this knowledge. The following are guidelines for teachers in how to promote print awareness and a sample activity for assessing print awareness in young children.

Guidelines for promoting print awareness

The organization of books
Make sure students know how books are organized. They should be taught the basics about books – that they are read from left to right and top to bottom, that print may be accompanied by pictures or graphics, that the pages are numbered, and that the purpose of reading is to gain meaning from the text and understand ideas that words convey.
Read to students
Read to children from books with easy-to-read large print. Use stories that have predictable words in the text.
Use "big books" and draw attention to words and letters
Help children notice and learn to recognize words that occur frequently, such as a, the, is, was, and you. Draw attention to letters and punctuation marks within the story.
Label objects and centers in your classroom
Use an index card to label objects and centers within the classroom with words and pictures. Use an index card with the word "house" for the house center and draw a picture of a house. Draw students' attention to these words when showing them the different centers.
Encourage preschool children to play with print
They can pretend to write a shopping list, construct a stop sign, write a letter, make a birthday card, etc.
Help children understand the relationship between spoken and written language
Encourage students to find on a page letters that are in their names: "Look at this word, 'big. ' It begins with the same letter as the name of someone in this room, 'Ben.'"
Play with letters of the alphabet
Read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Place several copies of each letter of the alphabet in a bowl and ask students to withdraw one letter. When everyone has a letter, ask each student to say the letter's name and, if the letter is in his or her own name, have the child keep the letter. Continue until the first child to spell his or her name wins.
Reinforce the forms and functions of print
Point them out in classroom signs, labels, posters, calendars, and so forth.
Teach and reinforce print conventions
Discuss print directionality (print is written and read from left to right), word boundaries, capital letters, and end punctuation.
Teach and reinforce book awareness and book handling
Promote word awareness by helping children identify word boundaries and compare words
Allow children to practice what they are learning
Ask them to listen to and participate in the reading of predictable and patterned stories and books.
Provide practice with predictable and patterned books
Also try using a wordless picture book like Pancakes. Go through each page asking the children to tell the story from the pictures. Write their narration on a large piece of paper. Celebrate the story they authored by eating pancakes!
Provide many opportunities for children to hear good books and to participate in read-aloud activities

A sample activity for assessing print awareness

Give a student a storybook and ask him or her to show you:

The front of the book
The title of the book
Where you should begin reading
A letter
A word
The first word of a sentence
The last word of a sentence
The first and last word on a page
Punctuation marks
A capital letter
A lowercase letter
The back of the book

Excerpted and adapted from: Guidelines for Examining Phonics and Word Recognition Programs, Texas Reading Initiative, Texas Education Agency (2002). And from: Tips for Teaching Kids to Read; by Ed Kame'enui, Marilyn Adams, & G. Reid Lyon.

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The main idea of touch typing is that each finger has its own key zone. This allows you to type without looking at the keyboard. Exercise regularly and thanks to muscle memory, all your ten fingers will know where to press.

Typing posture

Sit straight and keep your back straight.
Keep your elbows bent at a right angle.
Head should be slightly tilted forward.
Distance between eyes and screen should be 45-70 cm.
Relax the muscles of the shoulders, arms and hands. The brushes may slightly touch the table at the bottom of the keyboard, but do not transfer
body weight on the hands, so as not to overstrain the hands.

Starting position

Bend your fingers a little and place them on the keys FYVA and OLDJ, which are in the middle row. This line is called the BASIC LINE because you will always start with these keys and return to them.

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The position of the fingers on the keyboard

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Always return your fingers to the starting position "FYVA - OLJ".
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