4-5 Reading, Writing & Literacy
Our 4-5 pre-reading program uses a combination of phonics and whole language. It starts with the presentation of both upper and lower case letters. Writing activities begin with tracing sandpaper letters and numbers and progress to paper and pencil work at each child’s individualized pace. During this year children practice writing their names as well as individual letters.
Newcastle Pre-K students practice writing regularly
Each week, students practice letter recognition and writing on paper and then place their work in a Portfolio, a systematic collection of their accumulated papers which can be used to observe progress over time. These activities are reinforced with weekly social studies themes to increase vocabulary. Listening and comprehension activities, rhyming, and language experience stories add to giving children the sense that words have meaning and literature is fun. By mid-year pre-reading centers are added where children are exposed to beginning readers, phonics, word families and sight words. Literacy songs, phonics games and hands-on learning centers increase each child’s attention-span and independent learning skills.
