Environmental print materials are easily accessible and affordable. Materials can include fast food menus, cereal boxes, food and drink labels, product packaging, catalogs, and common signs like those found on restroom doors. Choose items that capture children’s attention and are relevant to their age and interests.
Research
Printed materials that are part of a child’s everyday life are considered environmental print. For example, materials can include product and restaurant logos, signs, billboards, advertising, and functional print such as street signs. Drawing children’s attention to the print in their environment is one method of reinforcing early literacy skills. By including activities and items with environmental print, educators can provide opportunities for children to connect literacy instruction to their prior knowledge of these items (Prior & Gerard, 2007). Doing so positively impacts children’s confidence in their early reading skills, while focusing instruction on print awareness and development of a variety of early decoding skills such as understanding the structure of text and distinguishing between letters (Prior & Gerard, 2010).
Application
Environmental print materials are easily accessible and affordable. Materials can include fast food menus, cereal boxes, food and drink labels, product packaging, catalogs, and common signs like those found on restroom doors. Choose items that capture children’s attention and are relevant to their age and interests.
Try one or more of these simple ways of incorporating environmental print.
- Replace pretend plastic food containers in the dramatic play center with actual boxes contributed by parents.
- Create an environmental print book for the reading center by cutting off the front of several different food boxes (cereal, crackers, chips) and joining these “pages” together with binder rings.
- Create a display of rotating material near the classroom door so children can practice recognizingthe labels and “reading” the words while they wait in line to go outside or to the bus.
- Take pictures of street signs in the community to laminate and add to the block center.
- Create a class alphabet book using environmental print materials to represent each letter.
- Play a game where children match the environmental print word with its handwritten or typed form.
Resources
Available in the T–TACODU Library
- Everyday Literacy: Environmental Print Activities for Children 3 to 8 by Stephanie Mueller
- Inclusive Literacy Lessons for Early Childhood by Pam Schiller and Clarissa Willis
- Reading is All Around Us: Using Environmental Print to Teach Beginning Literacy Skills by Jennifer Priorand Maureen Gerard
References
Prior, J., & Gerard, M. (2007). Reading is all around us: Using environmental print to teach beginning literacy skills.
Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education.
Prior, J., & Gerard, M. (2010). Environmental print for early childhood literacy skills. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell
Education.
