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Engaging in early literacy at BestStart Omahu Road
Kia Ora families, whanau and tamariki. Since coming back from the Christmas break, the Rimu room tamariki have enjoyed engaging in the many early literacy experiences we have available and set up for them to continue to engage in their passion for drawing, writing and painting and puzzles.
These various experiences provide lots of opportunities for our tamariki to continuously develop, practice and refine their fine motor movement, which will enable them to move through the various stages of drawing. These stages begin with simple mark making, and continue to develop over time, with each moment our tamariki engage in these experiences. This eventually leads to tamariki being able to form shapes and letters to be able to form their names and draw things that symbolise and express their thoughts, ideas and feelings.
Many puzzles introduce our tamariki to early literacy, through learning the alphabet in English, Te Reo Māori and NZ Sign Language, which are New Zealand’s official languages. Puzzles also help our tamariki to develop their fine motor movement abilities and their ability to persist with difficulties as they try to work out how and where to fit the pieces in. One such puzzle we have in the Rimu room is our NZ Sign Language alphabet puzzle, with wonderful pictures showing our tamariki and Kaiako how to sign the alphabet.