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Inclusive Literacy 26 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES Back-to-School 2008 THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION
Lessons Building a solid foundation Listening, oral language development, phonological awareness, letter knowledge and recognition, print awareness, and comprehension: These are widely accepted as the six foundational skills that are needed by all children — including children with special needs and those from high-risk environments — in order to become successful readers. After we brie y examine each one, we’ll look at some simple literacy lessons that apply these components and how those lessons might be adapted for children with special needs. Listening Listening — which is considered to be the foundation for all literacy development and an essential skill for building language and enhancing overall communication — begins in the womb. During the h month of pregnancy, a fetus’s auditory system is developed enough to hear sounds from outside the womb. Generally, the more a child is spoken to during the early years, the better his listening skills become. Clarissa Willis Associate Director Center of Excellence East Tennessee State University Johnson City, Tennessee Pam Schiller Early Childhood Consultant and Author Schiller Educational Resources Cypress, Texas for All! One important factor in listening skills is a child’s attention span. Young children typically have the ability to focus their attention one minute for each year of development up to the age of 5, at which point the child picks up an additional minute. Like adults, children typically use their attention spans for three rounds before becoming so exhausted that listening becomes too di - cult to continue. is means that a 4-yearold can listen for about 12 minutes before losing attention (that is, three rounds of four minutes each) while a 5-year-old can listen for approximately 18 minutes before losing attention. Practice, by doing things like following directions, listening to stories, and participating in conversations, can also help children increase their ability to listen. However, this may not apply to children with special needs, who, depending on the type and severity of their need, may have much shorter attention spans than their same age peers. Even so, children with special needs do need to learn how to listen. In fact, depending on the type of special need, a child’s ability to understand what is happening might hinge on the child’s ability to listen for cues. For example, a child with signi - cant visual impairment will learn to depend THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION Back-to-School 2008 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 27
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