📖 The book already knows the way

What you’ll learn

1. The book has a frontHold a book the right way up, find the front cover, name the spine, and point to the author's name as print that names who wrote the words.Orientation first. The cover already talks. The spine keeps the pages in order. Development Matters wants the parts named before anyone turns a leaf.
2. The page has a roadFollow English print left to right and top to bottom, use a return sweep, and turn one page at a time from the front toward the back.Common Core RF.K.1.a is three moves. Start at the top left, walk right, drop a line, then turn one leaf. Page sequencing is a finger skill.
3. Pictures sit. Print talks.Tell print from pictures, see a written word as a sequence of letters, and treat the space before and after a word as part of the writing.The words carry the exact meaning. Pictures hint. Letters in a fixed order make a word. Spaces cut the line into words. Cover the print and the sentence vanishes.
4. Print has a job outside the bookNotice that print has different purposes — story, order, choice, name — and go find a piece of print that is not a book.A STOP sign orders. A cereal box names. A menu helps you choose. Tonight look for print on the street, then ask why some languages walk the line the other way.

Questions this course answers

Grounded in trusted sources

• Department for Education (England), Development Matters — 3 and 4-year-olds: the 5 key concepts about print (print has meaning; print can have different purposes; we read English text from left to right and from top to bottom; the names of the different parts of a book; page sequencing); show children how to handle books and turn pages one at a time; show where the text is; explain the idea of a word and that there is always a space before and after a word; draw attention to print with different functions (bus-stop sign, danger sign, menu, shop logo), https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-matters--2/development-matters
• Common Core State Standards Initiative, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.K.1 — Demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print; RF.K.1.a Follow words from left to right, top to bottom, and page by page; RF.K.1.b Recognize that spoken words are represented in written language by specific sequences of letters; RF.K.1.c Understand that words are separated by spaces in print, https://www.thecorestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/K/
• Department for Education (England), Help for early years providers: Exploring words — enjoyment of printed books; words carry meaning; notice signs, symbols, notices, numbers, books; Statutory EYFS: reading consists of language comprehension and word reading, https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/areas-of-learning/literacy/exploring-words
• Department for Education (England), Help for early years providers: Writing — when you read texts you show that print carries meaning; by pointing out words and labels in the environment children begin to understand how the written word conveys meaning; model the direction of print when writing labels, https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/areas-of-learning/literacy/writing
• LibreTexts, Early Language and Literacy (NWTC), §6.1 Concepts of Print — orientation (how to hold the book); directionality (left to right); the words on the page, not the pictures, convey the meaning; print referencing during read-alouds, https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Courses/Northeast_Wisconsin_Technical_College/Early_Language_and_Literacy_(NWTC)/06%3A_Concepts_of_Print/6.01%3A_Concepts_of_Print
• National Early Literacy Panel (Lonigan & Shanahan, 2008), Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel, Executive Summary — concepts about print (left–right, front–back, book cover, author, text) as a predictor of later literacy; shared-reading interventions produced moderate effects on print knowledge, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED508381.pdf
• Institute of Education Sciences, What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide: Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade (Foorman et al., 2016, revised 2019), https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide/21
• Department for Education (England), The reading framework — talk about books; stories start and finish; systematic phonics taught from Reception after these foundations, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-reading-framework-teaching-the-foundations-of-literacy

Every Wunder lesson is built from real, reputable sources — never invented.

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