Integrating Literacy Naturally

Book excerpt: Integrating Literacy Naturally is a guide for nurturing a love of literacy in both teachers and young children. More than a hundred children’s book titles and other resources serve as springboards for cultivating that love and meeting individual literacy needs in developmentally appropriate ways. And, educator spotlight stories show how theories move to practice. Pinkerton and Hewitt draw on their love of literacy and over four decades of combined experience to help readers navigate individualized instruction, purposeful play, literacy integration, classroom libraries, and a reimagined workshop approach. Examples for how to do all of this with children’s texts are presented throughout the book. Eight guiding principles provide an easy path to becoming an intentional, authentic teacher who focuses on the individual needs of children and avoids one-sized literacy instruction. The principles grew from heart to heart conversations the authors had about joyful reading and writing experiences being reduced to worksheets and rote memorization in many classrooms. This book moves teachers far away from drill the skill literacy. Use it as a guide on your path to making literacy learning both playful and intentional in the early childhood classroom.