Respond

Model the use of cultural literacies (e.g., in karakia kai, lotu, and mihi/pepeha) during everyday routines and experiences.

Provide frequent, open-ended opportunities for children to explore cultural literacies (e.g., via kōwhaiwhai patterns, dance traditions), using multiple senses. Tune in to what children are focusing on, and provide descriptive language that reflect their experiences.

Let children observe, or participate in their own way, in the social literacy practices required to document routines and experiences (e.g., sleep charts, reading instructions and signage).

Draw attention to social literacy forms and functions in the environment (e.g., discuss photos and point to labels and talk about what they say).

Make connections with children’s social literacy experiences at home and in the community. Introduce language and resources that reflect the people, places, and things familiar to each child.

Invent stories out of children’s everyday experiences (e.g., “It was a rainy day. We slowly put on our coats, hats, and gumboots and went out to splash in puddles. Then, guess what …”). Match your storytelling to the children and the context. Let children add to the stories you tell in their own way.

Respond to children’s requests for stories, including those that reflect their home and culture. Follow children’s lead when selecting stories and deciding when to end a story reading.

Provide opportunities involving all the senses for children to engage in storytelling (e.g., use puppets and props that integrate speech, sound, movement, sight, and touch).

Offer a range of literacy forms and modes of expression, including photos, picture books, waiata, and supporting tactile resources that reflect familiar people, places, and things.

Encourage children to make choices about the literacy experiences they engage in. Follow their lead, responding to their focus and decisions about what, how and how long they engage.

While reading books or sharing stories, highlight the connections and similarities to children’s lives and your own (e.g., “Look, Moana is laughing. You like to laugh too, don’t you? So do I”.).

Encourage mokopuna to participate in familiar cultural literacy practices in their own way, both individually and with others. Provide prompts and resources to scaffold participation.

Build a repertoire of new and familiar cultural literacy practices. Include those shared by visitors or that are part of community events and excursions.

Encourage mokopuna to explore social literacy forms and their functions within their play (e.g., using a block as a phone, and pretending to read a story recipe).

Talk about the ways literacy can be used in daily life (e.g., to remember things, share ideas, stay safe, find answers to questions, and learn how to do tasks).

Go on small-group ‘literacy discovery walks’ in the local neighbourhood, talking about the meaning and design of the signs and symbols you encounter.

Co-construct stories with mokopuna by drawing on their imagination and everyday experiences. Draw children’s attention to the elements that make a story work well (e.g., grammar, voice intonation, repetition, and the order of events).

Encourage mokopuna to tell stories about their lives. Support them with active listening and verbalising non-spoken messages to check meaning.

Make props and resources available over an extended time, so that mokopuna can experiment and grow in confidence with storytelling, using a range of modes.

Provide resources to represent children’s ideas through a range of modes (e.g., drawing, drama, and movement). Include literacy forms that reflect children’s interests, identity, language, and culture.

Demonstrate through story reading and other activities that ideas can be questioned or critiqued.

Use strategies such as modelling and active listening to encourage children to express their preferences. Give a voice and value to different points of view, using questions and comments such as, “Here’s another thought…”.

Ensure all children have opportunities and encouragement to express their cultural identities through literacy practices such as song, oration, or performance. Invite children to share their special interests and strengths with their peers.

Foster children’s creativity by offering props and resources associated with cultural forms of artistic expression. Talk about the meaning, values, and significance of these and how they are communicated through elements such as patterns or movements.

Prompt mokopuna to draw on literacy forms and functions as part of their play as they create, express, and explore (e.g., by using reference books for ideas, and making signs, lists, plans and maps).

Ensure that resources are accessible throughout the setting, both indoors and outdoors, to prompt engagement with diverse literacy forms and functions (e.g., clipboards, paper and pens near the sandpit or woodwork area for recording plans; recipes, note pads and pens for use in dramatic play).

Draw attention to different types of texts, their specific form and purposes (e.g., how a recipe looks and functions compared with a story in a picture book, or how finding information on a digital device differs from using a book).

Encourage mokopuna to create and tell stories to others based on current or recent events, cultural references, favourite movies, and books. Facilitate the use of props, both found and purpose-made.

Model ways to record stories using a range of media, including print, art, audio, and still and moving images. Encourage mokopuna to dictate their stories or record them in their own way.

Incorporate storytelling into regular routines such as group times, so that mokopuna are able to relate their own stories as well as listen to the stories of others.

Expand the range of literacy forms and resources mokopuna experience to reflect diverse cultures, abilities, gender roles, family structures, feelings, and experiences.

Allow time for mokopuna to think about the perspectives posed by various texts and to consider alternative (e.g., how the gender of a story's hero could be different, or how an advertisement’s image could be altered to better represent them and their whānau).

Scaffold mokopuna to check the reliability of information (e.g., “Does that sound right to you?”; “I wonder what other people say about that?”). Model the habit of looking for information from more than one source.

Encourage mokopuna to share different points of view and different understandings of the media they use in the centre.

Invite children to take a lead in cultural literacy practices during everyday routines and experiences (e.g., leading karakia kai, or welcoming a visitor).

Encourage children, individually or collaboratively, to explore and create their own expressions of cultural stories, values, and history, through movement, art, and performance. Draw out their thinking through comments, wonderings, and questions.

Provide time, space, and resources for extended collaborative investigations incorporating literacy.

Provide a variety of media, including digital devices, for children to take a lead in designing and creating texts such as stories, props, signage. Observe, comment, offer suggestions and wonderings to validate their efforts and foster ongoing confidence.

Encourage children to reflect on and evaluate their use of literacy forms and functions. For example, use prompts such as photos or videos to revisit the texts that resulted from an investigation.

Encourage mokopuna to take leadership in retelling stories of cultural significance to small or larger groups.

Use approaches such as storyboarding to help mokopuna plan stories, inviting them to consider key elements such as setting, characters, sequence, and action. Include conversations about the ways in which drama, image, props, music, and movement can add to meaning and audience enjoyment.

Support mokopuna to document and evaluate their story telling using a range of modes and media (e.g., video, art, audio, photography, and print).

Use strategies such as active listening, wondering, open-ended questions, commenting, and recapping ideas to help mokopuna explore messages of social justice, fairness, and equity occurring in various literacy forms.

Encourage mokopuna to collaboratively critique, create and adapt texts such as advertisements, stories, and poems. Support this by scaffolding possibility thinking and listening to each other’s ideas.

Provide time and encouragement for mokopuna to ask questions and communicate their thoughts about differences and similarities between their own and others’ experiences and understandings of texts.

Encourage mokopuna to consider the accuracy and reliability of information, using questions such as “Who wrote that?”, “Is there similar information elsewhere?” and “Does that sound reasonable?”