Language Experience

Question: What is a basic reading/writing experience for kindergarten classrooms?

Answer/Quote: “Experiences with reading and writing have always been a part of some pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. For many years, the Language Experience Approach (LEA), described by Allen (1974) and Stauffer (1980), led the way in helping teachers design developmentally appropriate literacy experiences for young children. A hallmark of the language experience approach is the dictation process. Through dictation children learn that what they experience and think about may be verbalized, what they say can be written down, and what has been written can be read by others or by themselves.” P. 422.

Comment: With language experience, the teacher with groups of students, or individually, has the students decide on a title which is recorded on chart paper and then dictate what they know or think about the topic, which is also recorded. The teacher then reads the recorded ideas as a model and the students as a group read the recorded ideas. A variety of other activities can be used with the recorded material, including vocabulary. The language experience approach can also be used with older students and with students whose native language is not English. RayS.

Title: “The Daily Journal: Using Language Experience Strategies in an Emergent Literacy Curriculum.” DS Strickland and LM Morrow. The Reading Teacher (February 1990), 422-423.