Literacy is a very important ability in everyday life of all individuals. Its importance has a great impact on the society, development and quality of life. Students have to have well developed ability to read throughout educational system to reach minimal standards of knowledge. This is the reason why we have to start developing literacy in early years. Parents and teachers have an important role, as their attitude against literacy has an important effect on the children. They are the first, who teach children to read, and that is why they have to be conscious of their role so they can help children to develop literacy as much as they can.
Teachers in preschool education have a task to prepare children for learning literacy later in school – with developing early writing and early reading skills, reading books and visiting bookstores and libraries. It is to be noted, that children learn the most through play and experiences.
Theoretical part of my thesis includes characteristics of literacy and different models, which explain the development of literacy. All of the described models emphasize the importance of early stages, that start in preschool year. This is the reason why we have to start with teaching literacy early and not miss out on the beginning. I have also described factors, which have influence on the development on reading and writing and the role of adults in the process of literacy. There are presented different strategical documents, which study literacy and its importance.
Because of the very important meaning of literacy, I wanted to find a way, how to prepare different activities, which children would gladly do and return to them on their own accord. I used picture book The Gruffalo (J. Donaldson) and 9 different activities, that help develop prereading and prewriting skills and gave them theme goals. Theme goals are important to children and that is why their motivation was quite high. In empirical part I described children's response when doing activities, their opinions and what could I do, to make activities better.
Activities were well accepted among children and they showed lots of enthusiasm and interest, so I think that this is a good way to give children prereading and prewriting activiteis. I think it's important to include literacy in everyday activities, also with the help of symbolic game, different play corners and adults setting an example.
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