This week our family celebrated Valentine's Day. I love this holiday because the heart symbol is my "letter link." The children call me "Ms. Harmony Heart" and I love it! I love that my personal symbol means love, and I certainly give all my heart to the kids.
"What is a letter link," you may ask. These handy little symbols are part of the High Scope Curriculum for early childhood. Every child and teacher has a symbol that begins with the same letter and sound as the name.
This serves multiple functions:
- children that are not developmentally ready to recognize letters, can still "read" their name and friends' names
- letter links teach letter identification and sounds
- letter links build phonemic awareness (hearing the sounds letters and blends make in words)
Phonemically speaking, some letters can make more than one sound. A "letter link" must match the sound to be correct.
For example, a child could be "Cathy Cookie" but not "Cathy Circle" because it's not the same sound.
A child could be "Kody Kangaroo," but not "Kody Carrot" because while it's a matching sound, it's not the same letter.
The children explore letter sounds, inventing new letter links for self and others, test out whether the sounds match, look in books to see if the letters match up, match letter links to friends' names, use letter links to "write" to one another, and so much more.
Baby "K" got her letter link before leaving the hospital: a Koala. She looked like a tiny baby koala snuggled up with her dad, so it became her letter link. Here she is sending Valentine love to you and yours! Yes, she is koala-fied to be your valentine. ;)
