Super fun and educational literacy resources

When we educate at home, and we see the need to initiate children in the literacy process, it is very good for us to have different literacy resources at hand that we can use to support ourselves and develop these important skills with greater skill.

In this article we will tell you about what literacy is, what literacy resources you can use and you will also have the possibility to download them to use with your home-schooled children.

What is literacy?

Literacy is the ability to learn to read and write. It is the process through which the necessary skills are developed so that a child can learn to read and write.

Many times these two processes represent a great difficulty for children, which is why we must try to develop these activities in the most playful way possible so that through play they learn and have fun.

However, it is very important that before starting a writing process with your children, you work with them on many graphomotor activities and especially graphomotor activities according to their age, to adapt their little hands to the skills required in writing.

When to start children in the literacy process?

It is advisable to develop literacy skills from an early age so that children become good readers and writers, which will also help them in everything they do in their lives.

Around 4 to 7 years of age, children usually begin to be interested in reading and ask: “Mom, what does it say there?”. If this is the case for your children, it is time to start them in the reading process.

Possibly the writing process may be delayed a little more or the opposite may happen, or the children may be interested in both skills (which by the way are very close) or they may not be interested in this range yet.

Regardless of the case of your children, the ideal is to introduce children to literacy skills in an entertaining and fun way so that they do not take it as something boring and obligatory, but rather learn while they play.

On the internet you can find a large number of reading and writing activity booklets, printable literacy worksheets pdf, reading and writing reinforcement booklet and many other preschool and primary literacy activities.

Below we will present some literacy methods that we as a family use at home with our son and that will be very useful for your children to learn to read and write naturally.

Geempa Method

This method was created by Dr. Esther Pillar Grossi, a Brazilian researcher, mathematician by profession, and student of psychologist Jean Peaget.

This method was created by Dr. Esther Pillar Grossi, a Brazilian researcher, mathematician by profession, and student of psychologist Jean Peaget.

In 1970, together with another hundred teachers, she created a Study Group on Education, Research and Action Methodology (GEEMPA) in Porto Alegre, with whom she developed in 1982 the method we are talking about here, which revolutionized public education. from Brazil.

In Colombia, the method has been successfully implemented since 2005 through the Corporación Comprende and with the support of the Ministry of Education.

The GEEMPA methodology uses play as a strategy to attract children’s interest and promote processes of written production, comprehensive reading, peaceful coexistence and logical mathematical thinking.

How does the method work?

This method is based on presenting the children with 4 cards for each word: one card with the word in print, another in cursive, another with the initial of the word and another with the picture of that word.

For example:

The words can be taken from a story that the children like and that is according to their age. For example, take 20 significant words from the story and put them on the cards as we explained in the previous paragraph.

With the cards you can work on different activities such as matching between the initial letter and the word; or between the drawing and the word in italics; or between the drawing and the initial letter. You can also spread all the cards on the floor and have the child collect the 4 cards from each subgroup.

With those same words, lotteries, focus games and others can also be built. Use your imagination!

You can download resources from the Geempa methodology, which we have built for you and which also allows the teaching of literacy even to children with Down syndrome, since the main promise of this teaching method is that “everyone can learn”.

This method is so flexible that you can build the cards yourself according to the preferences of your little ones, for example, with dinosaurs, sports, TV shows, etc. and thus, it will be more fun for the kids.

Doman

The Doman method is an early stimulation method for children (babies) to learn to read just as they learn to speak.

This methodology was created by Dr. Glenn Doman, an American doctor who dedicated himself to the treatment of children with brain injuries. The method leads the child to focus on the reflexes and the work of both hemispheres of the brain in a progressive way.

His work with children with cerebral palsy was so successful that the Doctor extended it to the rest of the children, also founding the Institutes for Human Potential Development in Philadelphia.

How does the method work?

A series of cards (approximately 200) are made on white cardboard 10 x 60 centimeters, with meaningful words for the child, for example, dad, mom, dog, cat, etc., these must be written in large and legible letters.

If you are going to present the cards to children under one year of age, you must write the word with a red marker, otherwise, you can use a black marker.

On the first day, you start by presenting five tiles to your child, read the word aloud, hold them up for 30 seconds, and pass them around. Do not ask the child anything, just show the word and read it aloud, and make sure that the child is in the best mood for the activity, otherwise, postpone the activity for another time.

The next day, you show the same tiles (in a different order) + another 5 tiles, and so on until you have 25 tiles (this happens in 5 days).

On the sixth day, you take out the first five tiles you showed and add another five new tiles and so on until you turn over 200 tiles.

Then you can combine two cards to form short phrases, for example, cute cat, and thus, increase the complexity with 3 or four words to form sentences.

The method is very visual and is based on repeating the activities several times a day (3 times), taking a break of at least 30 minutes between repetition and repetition so as not to bore the child.

Download Doman literacy resources

Here you can download and print literacy resources with the Doman method that we built for you with words related to the universe, but as in the previous method, this one is also quite flexible and you can build the cards with words of interest to your child so that it is more fun.

As you may have noticed, these two methods are different from the traditional way of teaching literacy, however they are very effective and not only for reading or writing only but also for more important skills such as reading comprehension.

We hope that this article has been of your interest and usefulness and that you can make the best use of the reading and writing resources that we leave you linked to.