From babbling to bantering, children love to play with the sounds of language. That play is valuable as well as entertaining. It helps scaffold children to the next level of language development. This workshop will encourage educators to explore ways to support language development by understanding the theories and applying them to classroom practices.

Objectives
At the completion of this workshop, the participants will be able to:

• Define in their own words, the vocabulary of phonological awareness
• Produce examples of the various components of phonology
• Choose children’s books that best support specific phonological skills
• Recognize the importance of including songs, games, and activities to encourage phonological awareness in young children and have a wide variety to immediately include in their curriculum
• Focus conversations to scaffold language skills
• Regularly plan phonological awareness activities for their classes

Outline
Day 1:

• The vocabulary of phonology
• Theory and practice of infant/toddler language development
• Teacher talk that helps and some that doesn’t
• Developing listening skills
• Pre-schoolers language development
• Hierarchy of phonological awareness
• Rhymes, songs, poems, books, and games to support language development

Day 2:

• The continuum of language development.
• Developing a repertoire of classroom activities
• A variety of teacher roles that support language development
• Homonyms, antonyms, and synonyms
• More word games, tongue twisters, puns, and jokes to support language development
• Choosing and using quality children’s books to develop language skills

Trainer’s Profile
Dr. Laurie N. is a college instructor, coordinator of the Early Childhood Education program at Housatonic Community College, an early childhood consultant and a speaker. She has been an adjunct instructor for Nova Southeastern University and Sacred Heart University, a preschool teacher, a preschool director and the executive director of a nonprofit agency that created the Literacy Caravan. Dr. Laurie has written preschool curriculum; published articles in Journal of Staff Development, NAEYC’s Young Children, and NAEYC’s Beyond the Journal; and created workshops for early childhood teachers, directors, supervisors, managers, and parents.

Methodology
This interactive workshop will have a lot of hands-on activities, multimedia presentations, and reflective practice.

Target Audience
This workshop is designed for educators who work with children aged 0 – 9 years of age.

Duration: 2 days, 12 hours
Closing Date:  1 Oct 08