September Nanny Training Recap: Literacy Development, part 1

This past Sunday, we had a great turnout of nannies motivated to help their charges develop early reading skills.

By “early reading skills” we are referring to Preschool to End-of-Kindergarten level, no matter the child’s age. A child at this level may just be becoming aware of things like letters and sounds, or they may be able to sound out simple words, such as shop, that, and chip. 

Anything in between these two points is the target of discussion in our Emergent Literacy series.

September’s class was the first in a two-part series on literacy development; the focus was on one component that is the foundation of literacy: Phonological Awareness. 

Many people confuse phonological awareness and phonics, after all the words look and sound similar and are both about literacy. The difference is that phonological awareness is all about the sounds of words, whereas phonics is about the relationship between letters and sounds. A good way to remember the difference is that you can do phonological awareness activities with your eyes closed, or in the dark, since it is not tied to anything visual. 

 Some phonological awareness skills that we discussed were: rhyming, syllables, identifying beginning sounds and ending sounds in words, as well as manipulating the sounds in words to make new words. 

Our handouts included links to some helpful resources and a packet that we made with 17 different phonological awareness activities that nannies can do with the children they care for to help them build this essential reading skill.

Are you a nanny or do you employ a nanny who might want to learn more about early literacy games and activities? If so, it’s not too late! All of our trainings are recorded and available at this link:

https://thrivenannies.com/nanny-training-request-form