Literacy
literacy environment
We take care to stock our preschool with high quality picture books-both fiction and non-fiction. We provide a lending library of level readers, and make sure that story time is part of our daily routine.
We believe that by introducing components of reading and writing through games and songs, that children can develop skills and confidence at an early age.
- Our program is based on two key components, synthetic phonics and sight words.
PHONICS
We have an original phonics system, with cute, easy-to-remember characters for each phonetic sound making it easier for children to remember the sounds. This means that even very young children can learn the building blocks of phonics. From our Junior Kindergarten year, children begin reading level readers and find instant success due to their strong phonics base. This builds confidence and ensures enjoyment in the reading process.
- Children also experience early success in spelling, with our structured introduction to sounds and words. This helps when they come to produce their own pieces of writing, as they are soon able to write easily decodable spellings and communicate through their writing.
Sight Words
A sight word is a word that frequently occurs in literature and cannot necessarily be decoded using phonics skills alone. At Daisy Kids, we choose to teach children a set of words to read from memory. This increases their reading efficiency, and therefore their confidence.
- In addition to the phonics and sight words elements, we also have a Handwriting program for practicing letter formation, which begins as early as Toddler, with manipulation of play dough, followed by tracing of lines and shapes, and continued through the older grades with focused writing practice.
- Children learn to apply these phonics, sight words, handwriting and sentence building skills by writing sentences in their journals. We are very proud of the level that the children can achieve, and of their enjoyment of the writing process.