I need help creating a literacy center focusing on CONCEPTS ABOUT PRINT, does anybody have any good ideas?

Question

This center if for NOVICE learners.

My theme for this center is farm animals.

Answer 1

* Little booklets for them to make books and print the title, author, illustrator, and story.

* Sticky stars to put by the first and last word in a sentence.

* Letter tiles and word cards for matching.

* Highlighters for marking the first and last letters in words.

* Highlighter tape for marking a sentence within a paragraph.

Answer 2

Well, I've never seen a literacy center focused only on the concepts of print and I think the answer is because these concepts are better taught by example/demonstration.

What we are wanting to teach the children is how text works, how readers read etc and often that is done through Read Alouds, during small/large group etc.  It's very difficult to learn as an individual exploring.

During a read aloud book we demonstrate how to hold, to open, and read the book.

During a read aloud book we demonstrate that we are reading words not pictures and that we read from left to right and top to bottom and that there are spaces between words.

When we teach vocab that is related to books it's all demonstrated...front, back, first, last, beginning, ending, cover, title, author, illustrator, words, pictures, and letters.

We demonstrate how to move through the book and use the table of contents, index, headings page numbers and so on.  

So really, can that be done at a center where children will be exploring independently?  Not really but I'll be back to check what other people have to say about it.

At your literacy center, you could have books about farms/animals...non-fiction, fiction, pointers to point to the print.  You could have simple sentences such as "This is a cow." under a picture of a cow with a green dot to the left of the sentence as a cue to start there.  I guess you could record a tape about a farm book and the children listen and find each of the parts of the book but would it be very beneficial if somebody is not there to guide them?  Not really.  

I would suggest your create a literacy center that covers various literacy components and focus on the concepts of print during small group, at story time, or on an individual basis in the classroom's library. Good luck!