Children in an early childhood education setting need support in their learning and development with regards to literacy knowledge and skills. This is supported in several ways with a key element being a literacy rich environment. This environment will consist of three areas: materials that contain print, materials and tools that produce print and materials that facilitate reading (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014).These print-rich classrooms that have print available throughout the environment that are meaningful and are used throughout the day, enrich children’s learning experiences (Guo, Justice, Kaderavek, & McGinty, 2012). This environment helps to nurture and facilitate three key areas of a child’s literacy development; oral communication; …show more content…
These learning areas are of contextual importance to the children and are simulations of places they understand and are familiar with, such as a post office, café, construction are or hospital scenario which allows them to ‘experiment with purpose for literacy’ and ‘produce a variety of texts’ (Justice & Pullen, 2003; Carey, 2008). In these various settings and scenarios, the educator is deliberately integrating props and materials into the play area so that specific skills are targeted and developed through that play (Justice& Pullen, 2003). O’Leary, Cockburn, Powell, & Diamond (2010), communicate how the placement of appropriate materials and/or verbal prompts and questioning, informally produced by the educator, can extend the children’s learning, particularly the consolidation of words that are taught in a previous whole class setting. The literacy materials that are engaged with through socio-dramatic play may be items such as notepads, clipboards, shopping lists, menus, signs or telephones and are used in ways that they have witnessed adults do, e.g. holding a telephone to their ear or carrying a clipboard to write down important …show more content…
This provides a functional way to expose children to print whilst creating an environment that contributes to self-directed and independent learning (Dorell, n.d.). To induce this learning, signs should be understandable and accessible to children with the words printed neatly, pictures with the words and proper use upper and lowercase (Dorell, n.d.). Labelling assists children as they infuse environment with print which in turn, allows children to recognise that words have meaning (Dorell, n.d.). For example, by labelling common items that the children use daily, consisting of a variety of objects, walls and areas, it gives children a visual cue of location whilst creating responsibility as they care and work with the materials they use (Salinas-Gonzalez, Arreguin-Anderson, & Alanís, 2015). This is suggested by Dorell (n.d.) where it is suggested items and areas such as the clock, bathroom and block play area are labelled as it promotes word recognition and encourages