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Thank You for reading our newsletter about 'Children's language Learning at our Centre' and becoming an associate member of our 'Sunshine Family'. I hope you like to learn more about our centre and children's learning and development. You can read more newsletters on other interesting topics at newsletters@sunshineelc.org. If you have any general queries, questions or valuable suggestions related to this newsletter topic, please do not hesitate to contact us. You are more than welcome to contact us at
Sunshine Early Learning Centre
Monday to Friday- 6:30 am - 6:30 pm (excluding public holidays)

Address:123 ABC Boulevard, Craigieburn, VIC 3064
Phone: (03) 1234 5678
Email: craigieburn@sunshineelc.com
Website: www.sunshineelc.craigieburn.com

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As we discussed earlier, the environment acts as a third teacher to a child in which the children are nurtured and spend their time while playing, living and learning about the world. Thus, a positive multiliteracy-rich environment influences the children's growth and development positively. Let's shed some more light on the impact of a Multiliteracy-rich environment on the learning and skills development of children through the following literacy-rich play areas:
Reading Everywhere:
Reading skills are fundamental for the development of language and literacy skills as it promotes their vocabulary, thinking process, and receptive and expressive skills in form of writing, visual arts and so on (Loyola, Grimberg & Colomer 2020). Using names, labels, pictures and signs everywhere helps children to become familiar with the language letters, numbers, and pictures of different things and signs which they use to make meaning of the things happening around them.
Write for a purpose:  As we know writing is one of the most important communication skills every child should acquire for lifetime achievements. Writing for this purpose helps children to express their ideas, and feelings and to communicate (Loyola, Grimberg & Colomer 2020). It also supports them to learn about their identity, socialize with one another, learn about the world, and become more capable, confident, and effective communicators.
Fun with Music and Multimedia: Music and Multimedia not only make children learning more interesting and happy but also long-lasting. Children enjoy playing, dancing to music and even writing while listening to music. It improves their memory retention power, concentration, meaning making ability and understanding of patterns, beats, sounds, pitch, tones, lyrics and actions to the songs or rhymes. Multimedia also enhance their ability to express themselves in different ways such as by communicating simple talk by singing, dancing, dialogue and theatre style, mimicking sounds, creating their own imaginative stories and so on (VEYLDF 2016, pp. 22).
Children's Reflection and communication skills: Through reflection and working on communicative skills, children learn to convey their ideas, beliefs, likes and dislikes, needs, interests, feelings and emotions to obtain a sense of their identity and well-being and also of their friends, parents, relatives, teachers and connected places by knowing about them (VEYLDF, 2016, pp. 11). Reflecting on themselves, and their near and dear ones by speaking up, writing, doing actions, drawing, playing and showing interest in particular areas makes them more knowledgeable through number of play activities and adapt their learnings in their real-world lives successfully.
For more information, you can explore the VEYLDF framework link given above.

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With the rapidly changing world, we need to construct a multiliteracy-rich environment for the development of today's young minds as multiliterate. And this puts a huge responsibility on the teachers to design such a productive environment that acts as a third teacher to a child (Loyola, Grimberg & Colomer 2020). In the current times, early childhood education teachers struggle and put their lots of smart and efficient efforts to create a such multiliteracy-rich environment. As per Loyola, Grimberg & Colomer (2020), Literacy Teaching Toolkit(2019) and VEYLDF(2016) , some of the roles, that most Early Childhood Education Teachers including Sun-Shiner teachers are playing in bringing Multiliteracy into classrooms playfully and interestingly, are presented below:

Reading Everywhere:  We try to incorporate reading into children's regular play activities naturally. We include reading everywhere by:

1. using pictures and names labels on toys such as blocks(wooden blocks, different shaped blocks, lego blocks); musical instruments(Tabla, Piano, Guitar, Drum, Violin, Xylophone); Children's lockers and personal belongings( such as bottles, bags, hats, sunscreen, face towels, lunch boxes); different play corners and related stuff(Kitchen corner, science area, art & craft corner, reading corner, gardening area, Aboriginal art corner, dining area and Toilets).

2. use of charts, flashcards, picture posters and signs for providing useful information and directions for doing different tasks and accessing different play spaces.

3. provision of real-life material for the play activities to promote reading skills such as restaurant menus, picture recipe books, measurement-related picture books and tools, measuring scales (weighing, length/height, liquid volume) and different kinds of books (stories, rhymes, pictures, and so on).

Write for a purpose: We encourage them to write for a purpose to create their interest in writing such as we motivate children to:

1. write their names on their produced works. (They get started by copying their names from their respective name tags)

2. plan their daily schedules or play activities. They just scribble, write in their innovative way or narrate their plan to the educators.

3. write letters to their friends and family members. Sometimes they just love to write or draw something and surprise their friends by placing their handwritten letters or cards in their friends' lockers.

Fun with music and multimedia: Music and multimedia always add fun to children's learning. Our teachers support children to learn new words and their meanings by participating in music and multimedia-related activities such as:

1. listening to music, rhymes, and cultural songs.

2. enjoy singing and dancing to different kinds of music.

3. watching motivational, social, science & math or art & craft, based age-appropriate short movies and videos fortnightly.

4. playing musical instruments along with their favourite songs. (At younger age they just get started with experimenting and making different sounds.

5. writing or drawing different patterns of beats and pictures to convey the story of the song.

Children's reflection & Communication skills: We as teachers always evaluate and reflect on our planning and actions by knowing the children's interests, needs, learning and development, and other attributes. We always build and maintain a trustful relationship with children. We record their information through keen observations, communicating with them and their constructive reflection which in turn improves their multiliteracy skills. We encourage them to:

1. share their interests in their favourite play areas by speaking and sometimes we observe their way and time of engagement in a particular play which shows their level of interest.

2. express their emotions, needs and feelings during social/group play either verbally or non-verbally and during group/circle time by putting their names in different sections on boards such as excited, happy, upset, angry, silly and so on.

3. speak up about their morning news, friends, teachers and family members, holidays spent, visited places, excursions, routines, favourite clothes and food and so on during group time and other activities. such as show and tell activity.

4. draw pictures of whatever they see on excursions and learnt through different life experiences.

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Our all-dedicated staff put their smart and effective efforts to enrich language & emergent literacy and multiliteracy learning of children through various play-based strategies. In this context, our main motive is to embed literacies by expressing ideas in meaningful ways, exploring the variety of phonological awareness, texts, graphics, symbols, and prints. Concerning language and literacy learning and development, we follow the most effective strategies such as play-based learning, visual representation, repetition of linking words to their daily routines, sound mimicking, asking probing and open-ended questions and social-dramatic or pretend plays. All such kinds of strategies with examples of learning experiences following the Literacy Teaching Toolkit( 2019) are elaborated and represented in an easy and compact tabular form. This table of strategies is attached here as a word document.
Above all these strategies is the meaningful interaction of teachers with children through out the day wherever necessary. It does not mean that every time teacher will follow them and keep guiding them because it could take the children's freedom of learning on their own. Rather teacher supports them to enhance their thinking process, learning about new and complex things by communicating with them in meaningful ways, role-modelling and scaffolding techniques.

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Bell, E 2019, Multiliteracies in the 21st Century, online video, You Tube, retrieved from <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on2XyAlWh64>.

Department of Education and Child Development 2018, Emergent Literacy-Investing Early for exponential Outcomes, Save the children, US, retrieved from https://www.savethechildren.org/content/dam/global/reports/education-and-child-protection/edu-elm-13.pdf

Grimes, J 2022, Session 2 - What does language & emergent literacy look like in ECE ? , lecture notes, Languages and Literacy in Early Childhood ECE6004, Victoria University, delivered 2 November 2022.

Hill, S 2007, ‘Multiliteracies: towards the future’, in L Makin, C Jones Diaz & C McLachlan (eds), Literacies in childhood: changing views, challenging practice, 2nd edn, Elsevier Australia, Marrickville, NSW, pp. 56–70, retrieved from <https://vucollaborate.vu.edu.au/d2l/le/content/1625149/viewContent/7924588/View>. ISBN: 978072953783

Literacy Teaching Toolkit 2019, Literacy Teaching Toolkit for early childhood-Play ( emergent literacy), Department of education and Training, Melbourne, Victoria, retrieved from <https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/professionals/learning/ecliteracy/emergentliteracy/Pages/play.aspx>.

Loyola, CC, Grimberg, CA & Colomer, UB 2020, ‘Early childhood teachers making multiliterate learning environments: The emergence of a spatial design thinking process’, Thinking Skills and Creativity, vol. 36, Elsevier Ltd, pp. 1–20, retrieved from <https://go.openathens.net/redirector/vu.edu.au?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fpii%2FS1871187119303347>. ISSN: 1878-0423

VEYLDF 2016, Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework- For all children from Birth to Eight years, Department of Education and Training, Melbourne, Victoria, retrieved from <https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/childhood/providers/edcare/veyldframework.pdf>. ISBN: 978-0-7594-0800-5

References for Images:

Image 1, Source: https://theearlyyearstraininghub.com/en/course/developing-high-quality-outdoor-play-provision-childminding

Image 2, Source: https://www.freepik.com/premium-photo/child-expressing-surprise-happiness_4829369.htm

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Multiliteracy? Do we really need it?
Multiliteracies  is the term used  for the "multimodal ways of communicating" which includes

numerous symbolic forms

various modes of information(e.g. linguistic, audio and visual graphics, digital, artistic, spatial, gestural)

recurring "communicative and cognitive processes"(e.g. face -time and virtual conversations, operating texts, graphics, videos, animations, coding  and decoding information) (Hill 2007, p. 57)

Multiliteracy represents the effective form of literacy that aims to create meaningful information for all people regardless of their cultures, social backgrounds, genders and age groups (Bell 2019). In this technical era, everyone(especially future generations) must analyze different kinds of electronic and print based texts, signs, symbols and icons; use advanced digital platforms to receive and express themselves; confidently use multi-modal ways of communication (Hill 2007) and manage their living and working both in real and virtual worlds. Children must be benefitted from digital media platforms to acquire multiliteracies including language literacy, numeracy, and technology so that they can confidently explore, interpret and contribute to the more advanced and changing world. Thus, children need to be multiliterate instead of just literate.

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Emergent Literacy? What is it?
Emergent Literacy is the term that encircles certain information, various expressive and receptive skills and attitudes related to reading, writing, listening and talking that are developed by children during the early childhood period. It starts as early as the child takes birth and some say even from the womb of  a mother and remains up to the standard reading and writing instructions before the school entry. The instances such as, reading a book or singing to a child, babbling with a baby, talking with children and so on add up to children's learning experiences. Emergent literacy plays a significant role as it helps children to acquire the basic skills of languages which lays the foundation for mastering more complex skills in future and is responsible for their success in life (Department of Education and Child Development 2018).
For more information in this context please check out the above PDF link.

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Language Literacy is the term used for our ability to use all forms of language effectively either verbally or non-verbally. Traditionally, it was limited to reading, writing, speaking and listening but now it expanded with the inclusion of other modes of communication such as visual arts, music, theatre, dancing, movements and gestures (Grimes 2022). Early Language Literacy is significantly beneficial for children as it helps them to build a strong vocabulary, ways of self-expression, receptive and understanding skills and become more knowledgeable which further leads them to become lifelong affluent learners and confident citizens.

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What does this all about?                                                                     

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What does this all about?                                                                     

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Hi, I am Jaspreet Kaur working as a Kindergarten teacher at Sunshine Early Learning Centre. We all Sun-Shiners are feeling deep pleasure to share some fantastic previous achievements, current ongoing programs and some future planning for our children's overall development through the medium of newsletters. In today's newsletter, we are going to discuss our children's (from birth to 6 years) languages and literacy acquisition process at our Centre.
Main Coverings:

Do you Know

- Early Language Literacy?
- Emergent Literacy? What is it?
- Multiliteracy? Do we really need it?

Our Strategies to Support

Our Teachers' roles and actions

Impact on Children's Learning