PLaY! - Ingham ISD

Playful Literacy and You! (PLaY!) is a unique training program specifically designed by the Ingham Regional Literacy Training Center for people who work with children birth through age five to improve the literacy environment of and promote early literacy learning for children in early childhood settings. The PLaY! curriculum was developed and piloted by a subcommittee of the Ingham Early Childhood Literacy Coalition, assisted by Kara Gregory, Ph.D., an early childhood literacy consultant and adjunct assistant professor at MSU. PLaY! training takes place in eight modules:

Module 1: An overview of the curriculum
Module 2: Building a literacy playground
Module 3: Supporting play to support children’s literacy development
Module 4: Increasing children’s oral language, part 1
Module 5: Increasing children’s oral language, part 2
Module 6: Increasing children’s phonological awareness
Module 7: Increasing children’s print awareness
Module 8: Enhancing writing development

Login to the PLaY! Modules. (For Instructors)

The modules are based on extensive current research on the literacy needs of children from birth through age five. The modules have been written, published, and tested with center/program staff in the community. PLaY! capitalizes on the insight that not only is play a child’s usual way of learning about his or her environment, but play and literacy are closely related activities in that both involve the rule-based manipulation of symbols in order to communicate meaning.

Early childhood educators who have participated in the piloting of this curriculum have reported through evaluation tools, the degree to which it heightens their consciousness about the importance of early literacy skills. The result is that they begin to make changes in the environment and in the curriculum of their early learning programs to increase children’s oral language awareness, phonological awareness and print awareness.

For more information contact Michelle Nicholson (517) 244-1384.

2630 West Howell Road Mason, Michigan 48854	Phone: 517.676.1051 Fax: 517.676.1277
Copyright 2008. Ingham Intermediate School District.