These range from pre-writing activities, through letters, words, and sentences to the text level. The book recognizes that literacy is not developed overnight, and that time is a crucial ingredient: hence the gradual approach.It is easy for children to become discouraged when learning to write (and to read).The authors are at pains to make the activities
pleasurable, personalized, and meaningful, in a learning atmosphere which values the attempts the children make.The activities draw on the full range of sensory modalities, and are integrated into the overall framework of language learning. The situations in which children are taught to read English (or any other foreign language) are clearly extremely varied, ranging from those where the children cannot yet read in their own language (and which may have a different script from English), to those where they are already fairly proficient readers in their first language, and share a Latin script. The activities in the book offer useful ideas for the full range of situations teachers are likely to meet.The information age in which we live, if anything, reinforces the need for literacy skills. This book makes literacy a key element in the overall teaching of the foreign language from an early age. It will be an invaluable support to teachers in helping their learners ‘think literacy’.
