THE FOUNDATIONS OF LITERACY
The Fall Gateways will focus on how we prepare the foundations of literacy with children and prepare them to enter academic instruction in the grade school years. The booklet Speech Development in the Digital Age explains that this is not accomplished through screen exposure.
Rather, through live, human speech and encounters, the foundation for literacy is created. Articulate speech, as well as the ability to listen, and to understand non-verbal communication through movement and gesture, depend upon being with worthy human models in real time and real space. We teachers are the models. When we truly understand this phenomenon, we can help to evoke amazing developments within the child.
Speech is a movement process. As Rainer Patzlaff puts it in Speech Development in the Digital Age, “This movement process, which remains unconscious, takes hold of the listener’s muscles and limbs so that they join into the same movements. Literally, the whole person is listening. Even our larynx speaks and sings along constantly when someone is speaking or singing... And this is only the first stage of the listening process. In the next stage, this movement progresses from unconscious, purely muscular activity to the rhythmic system of heart and lungs. Storytellers can observe the effect it has in human listeners, where it manifests tension and relaxation and in the acceleration and deceleration of natural rhythms. These subtle nuances take hold of the soul and become vibrant experiences.”
What we bring through the word is powerful, indeed. For our Fall issue, Gateways invites observations and examples around the following themes, and any others that support the age-appropriate cultivation of literacy in early childhood.
Please bring your own questions as well.
With your submission, please include a short bio of yourself, including the age group you work with, where you work, and anything else that is relevant to your submission (5-6 sentences).
Please send submissions or questions about contributions to [email protected] by August 10, 2025.
The Fall Gateways will focus on how we prepare the foundations of literacy with children and prepare them to enter academic instruction in the grade school years. The booklet Speech Development in the Digital Age explains that this is not accomplished through screen exposure.
Rather, through live, human speech and encounters, the foundation for literacy is created. Articulate speech, as well as the ability to listen, and to understand non-verbal communication through movement and gesture, depend upon being with worthy human models in real time and real space. We teachers are the models. When we truly understand this phenomenon, we can help to evoke amazing developments within the child.
Speech is a movement process. As Rainer Patzlaff puts it in Speech Development in the Digital Age, “This movement process, which remains unconscious, takes hold of the listener’s muscles and limbs so that they join into the same movements. Literally, the whole person is listening. Even our larynx speaks and sings along constantly when someone is speaking or singing... And this is only the first stage of the listening process. In the next stage, this movement progresses from unconscious, purely muscular activity to the rhythmic system of heart and lungs. Storytellers can observe the effect it has in human listeners, where it manifests tension and relaxation and in the acceleration and deceleration of natural rhythms. These subtle nuances take hold of the soul and become vibrant experiences.”
What we bring through the word is powerful, indeed. For our Fall issue, Gateways invites observations and examples around the following themes, and any others that support the age-appropriate cultivation of literacy in early childhood.
Please bring your own questions as well.
- Where and when do we use speech to open the door to literacy?
- How do we see movement in the early years forming the basis for later academic learning?
- What are we doing that we can build upon further and extend to offer more enrichment?
- How can we understand and pass on to parents and colleagues the benefits of delaying formal literacy instruction during the early childhood years?
With your submission, please include a short bio of yourself, including the age group you work with, where you work, and anything else that is relevant to your submission (5-6 sentences).
Please send submissions or questions about contributions to [email protected] by August 10, 2025.
