Writing in Preschool

One of my favorite ways to incorporate important literacy skills is through our Preschool Daily News.  

 As you might guess, this is a daily occurrence in our classroom; it's part of our circle time routine.  Each day, I pull two names from a cup and I ask those children to think of something they would like to share with the class.  It can be whatever they are thinking about at the time. (And sometimes it gets really interesting!) 

I write their thought on the "newspaper".  Our "newspaper" is a sheet of chart paper that I laminated.  I use dry erase markers to write on it.  If they have spoken a whole paragraph, I let them know that I am only able to fit so much, so I will only be able to write the first part of what they said.  As I am writing, I am sounding out the words, and asking for help with the initial sounds.  Later in the year, I will talk about punctuation and the difference between letters and symbols.  

After everything is written, I have another child come up and point to the words with a pointer as the class "reads" the messages together.  

I do this with both my three and four year old classes.  Even though these children are still in the pre-reading stage, this activity provides many benefits, including:

*print tracking skills

*one-to-one correspondence

*showing students that their words have importance and they can be written down

*seeing how letters are formed (discuss some of the letters as you write them)

*initial sound practice

*name recognition practice

*helps students get to know each other

*demonstrates value of each individual's thoughts

How do you promote literacy in your daily preschool routine?