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Welcome to Stories That Stick with me, Laura, as your resident storyteller. I'm here to show you how oral stories inspire and captivate minds young and old. Tune in each week to hear a compelling story and join in meaningful conversations. I'll be digging deep into the heart of storytelling, connection, and listening.
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Laura: Welcome to today's episode. I have Melissa McCall here from Moving Little Minds, and I'm going to let her introduce herself and share a bit about what's brought her to where she is in her life and career now before we dive in and talk about literacy and explicit instruction and how we can honor children's play while also teaching them all the foundational skills that they need.
So, Melissa, so glad to have you.
Melissa: Thank you so much for having me. Yes, so I'm Melissa McCall and I'm with Moving Little Minds. I'm really dedicated to building an early literacy foundation that merges instruction with play, so really just educating parents and teachers about the amazing capabilities of our children.
I think a lot of times we don't know everything that they can do, and so I try to open up parents minds to what they are capable of and Make it fun.
Laura: Awesome. So before we dive in, I know that you and I align in our world of thinking and everything, but I want to make sure that we kind of have a shared understanding with our listeners about some of the concepts that we'll talk about in relation to early literacy development.
So can you talk a little bit about like what early literacy is in when you speak about it and then what explicit instruction is.
Melissa: Absolutely. So I am a preschool literacy teacher. So one of the things that's been really fun is I get to practice these early little literacy skills every day in the classroom.
But what we really want to look at is those four, six main components of literacy. So we're looking at writing, we're looking at oral language, we're looking at vocabulary, text comprehension. So those are kind of those beginning ones that We start from the day they're born. We talk to our Children.
We play with them. We build those,, we read to them. We're building those skills, hopefully, naturally whenever they're born. But then there's kind of a second side of that, which really often they found through the science of reading. is what is necessary for children to become strong readers.
And those are the ones that sometimes we don't know what to do as parents. So that's looking at alphabetic knowledge. So understanding what the alphabet looks like. Those phonological awareness skills. So that's building rhyming words, syllables, and even further those phonemes. So looking at like the word cat and understanding that's cat.
So those are the main, and then writing also. So all of those are the main six. components of early literacy. And they can, of course, be taught through play, but there are some that really do need some more attention for children to really make those connections in the brain.
Laura: Awesome, so yeah, I think that for me, when I think about early literacy, the way I try to think about it is pretty much.
Anything that's happening, that's going, that's happening before the actual skill of reading and writing, which we know for young children can be developing anywhere from, four to seven years old, right? And so, in that span of time from birth to, let's say, six, my son is six and a half and he's still, I wouldn't say, reading with confidence, but everything that he's been learning in relation to letters, words, sounds, understanding the world, vocabulary, all of that is,, this idea of, right, early literacy.
And it's so huge. And for me, this explicit instruction is almost like the defining of things, right? So taking when he's, pretending to be a paleontologist and acting out something and like me grabbing a textbook and being like, maybe I'm grabbing one of his nonfiction books about dinosaurs and explicitly talking about the index and how I'm going to look for the word paleontologist and then being like, Oh, this is a nonfiction book.
It gives us real information about the world. And I'm using this to, , Find something about,, paleontologists, right? And so it's like integrating that, like, I'm explicitly and directly telling you what I'm doing and what this purpose is serving and while you're playing, right? Exactly, exactly.
Melissa: And really thinking of it as when you're incorporated into play, just like those teachable moments, just taking the next step to say, okay, this is a time that I can have that discussion to make those greater connections.
Laura: Right. And then what I am also, gently learning, I've, I've made this shift from being a teacher in a, in a public school system to now being mostly just teacher of my own children, which is naturally very different.
And, for whatever reason, children in a classroom are much more eager to hear what I have to explain my child, but also picking up on those cues. Right. So if I'm getting out the nonfiction book and he's like completely like. This is not what I'm doing. This is not what I'm interested in. I don't care, right?
Putting that aside, even though that's kind of my, my agenda, and knowing that that's not the time for it, and trying to find a different time or way to bring it up, because in that moment, it's not, serving any purpose if he's not actually interested in it. But if he's like, oh yeah, wait, can you look up blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, then going, going with it from there for sure.
I'm curious, because for me, being, being a previous, kindergarten and preschool teacher and also having my master's in teaching, reading all the things of early literacy, especially like phonemic awareness and phonemes and segmenting and blending and all that is like, so second nature to me. I'm curious.
Since you work with parents and maybe some educators that aren't as aware of this, like, what's your biggest I don't know, like, your bang, your biggest bang for your buck? Like, what do families seem to, like, when you explain it to them or teach it to them, is their, like, biggest aha moment? Because to me it all, I know it all.
So it's hard to imagine being, just a person that's in a different field trying to help support my child's literacy development without knowing any of this.
Melissa: Exactly. Well, and what I've even, I do professional developments at the preschools, and I think the biggest thing that lacks is phonological awareness.
And so, what I've found is that I'll be at some private preschools, and they're not really even aware of the term. We think of rhymes, and Maybe some sounds and that's what that's what we do a lot of times in preschool. We focus on letter names and sounds and rhyming words. And that's all that we think that children can do.
But I would say using like sound boxes or even, , while you're having a snack, segmenting and pushing those sounds, I would say that is like the easiest way to simplest thing that I tell parents and teachers to try that will completely change their children's abilities when it comes to reading.
Just so many of them, I mean, that is, that is a skill that you're not just going to naturally know to do or know how to do. So I would say of all the things, if I can get people to, even just like when you're playing blocks, Just say, oh, cat and tap your blocks like just naturally. I would say that's the biggest thing and I love when my parents on my preschool, they're like telling me in car rider line, like we were doing our sounds speak and it's just amazing to see once they're exposed to that skill to how quickly.
They pick up on it,
Laura: right? Yeah, it's funny because so for those of you that don't know what what Melissa and I are talking about right now is this like one, one of the many skills under this umbrella of phonological awareness. And so all phonological awareness falls under like hearing sounds and there's a mix of Information out there on whether we should be using it with or without print.
But I think regardless of whether you're introducing the word or letters with it, the important thing is that what you're drawing the child's attention to are the sounds. And I think for me, when I was in my master's program, the biggest like aha moment for me was when they were like, We start this so young when we're playing with our children and we're like, what does the cat say?
Right? We're like teaching them that a cat makes a sound, which is the same thing that later we're going to teach them. , the letter B makes a sound book, right? And so this, we're like laying all these foundations where we don't even really realize it. But then also this idea that. We can just be playing around with words and sounds without having to make it, like, laborious, right?
And so taking, exactly, whether, maybe you're not always, I struggle because, I mean, it's really easy, it's really hard, I think, sometimes in play to come up with CVC words that are, like, authentically what they're in. Exactly, yeah. So, I, I actually normally will fall to doing syllables, and because my children are three to six, like, syllables feels like the good in between for them, because it makes sense.
Exposing my three year old to like words are made up of sounds, which eventually we're going to get to like, it's parts of sounds and then it's individual sounds and things like that. But like she was trying to say paleontologist, as I was saying the other day, and it was like the funniest thing when she was trying to put together those sounds, like, , she was not putting those six syllables together and then really breaking them down.
But for me, I think exactly the, as much as we can just be building in that awareness that. , That words are made up of sounds, right? And so I think that's, that's not surprising to me. That's, that's like your biggest aha. I actually am about to teach this course. I, I like adjunct professor for this college in Seattle.
And it's like a foundations of literacy and I was shocked. So this textbook or, I don't know, it says it's a curriculum, a classroom curriculum, phonemic awareness in children. And I was like, this looks a little old school and I've never seen it. It's from, let me double check, it's from the 90s, I want to say.
It was first printed in 1997 and it actually has the word, the sound wall in it. And I imagine that. And I'm just like, I just got that and I was so frustrated because it's like, Okay, this is just further proof that in 1997, People knew that we should be explicitly teaching phonics and, like, mouth position to young children and here we are in 2023.
That's getting
Melissa: back to it, yeah.
Laura: And adults, like, I bet you come across this too, like, adults don't realize that if you plug your nose you can't make the sound.
Melissa: Yeah.
Laura: Right? Like, adults don't realize that because we're so disconnected but, What I find is like as much as we can make multi sensory, , learning experiences like with literacy, the more they're gonna build that in.
And so I think I've seen a lot of this out in like what you share and how you use kind of multi sensory explicit instruction with play. Do you want to give us some examples or? Times that like stand out in your mind where things like clicked and you, it just was like this beautiful marriage of things, I think.
Melissa: Yeah, I think one of the easy things that you can do is using Play-Doh. So you're playing with Play-Doh and just naturally taking it and smashing a word. That would be an example of like doing the phonemic awareness. So when you're outside at. recess at preschool or playing at the park with your child, like you could get three rocks and use them to segment the word rock just naturally that way.
Or like bouncing a ball with rhyming words, like throwing the ball back and forth and rhyming to a pattern. So it's, It's those things that you are intentionally doing, but your child does not really know that it's, it's there. I love to use like nursery rhymes and putting, I think nursery rhymes have like fallen.
So aside and they are, that's another thing I tell parents just like play nursery rhymes again and again and again in your car. I think it's one of the best, easiest things that you can do. And clap, clap to the song or, Really encourage them to chime in or add a drum to the song. Just very, what we see maybe as basic things, but just adding that little extra in that they don't even realize that they're learning.
Laura: Right. One of the nursery rhymes that I used to love doing in my classroom was Jack be nimble, right? It's like that, what, like four lines. It was so simple. It had that. Rhyming word at the end and you could easily set up like a little provocation of, , a little magnet tile structure with a, , light up candle and kids are pretending to jump over it and you're changing out the kids names for Jack and they do.
I mean, my daughter was just asking for Mary had a little lamb the other day and sometimes like I forget. Right? Like we don't sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Mary Had a Little Lamb at home, , as, as much as probably she would love. And I mean, nursery rhymes are around and have been around for so long for a reason, right?
I don't know whoever crafted them way back when, but they knew something about the brain and the way that children pick up on language and the way that they, , integrate things. A question that I have so I mean I think that there's this like, , this big debate and and like dichotomy of thought like allowing a child's play to play and then like teacher and or adult directed things right so there's the difference between if it's just like you and a child right if you're outside and you're bouncing a ball back and forth and you start saying rhyming words and they can You Kind of they're going to take it or leave it, right?
So if they're interested, they're going to do it. And then they're intrinsically motivated and they want to keep doing it. But if they're not, they're not, and they're going to move on and whatever. But when you're like with a group of children, like what, how are you, , how are you walking that fine line, especially with the attention span of three to four year olds?
Like, what is that kind of like looking like? What are those misconceptions there about merging explicit instruction with that adult led time and the child led. exploration of their own play.
Melissa: So it's a little bit different for me. I would say as like a literacy teacher because they're coming to me for 30 minutes.
So it may be a for literacy. So it's a very focused time, but it wouldn't be, it would, it would just be like if you were a preschool teacher and you had your circle time, , so I guess it's not really that different, but the biggest thing is multisensory. Keeping them engaged up and down movement song and just doing multiple activities.
When I first started in my preschool, there were several teachers who've been there for years and they came the first day and they were like, this isn't going to work. Not that they were like, They just weren't used to me doing certain things that they and now they sing my biggest praises because they're like, I had no idea that children were even capable of doing these things.
So the biggest thing that I do is I just make it fun. So there are, I personally believe like, There are things that we have to be explicit with, like for a brief moment, like, like syllables, and then we can go around and clap everybody's names. And they love that because they get to stand up and the spotlight's on them.
I, I still struggle with the battle between play and explicit instruction every day because people hear teach and they think you're sitting at a table doing worksheets. And that is just simply not the case. But I also do struggle because sometimes I feel like we teach our kids so many things, we teach them how to be kind.
We teach them how to potty train, teach them how to hold a fork. But then it's like, No, you can't teach them their sounds. Like, , like we do explicitly teach children so many things, but then when you come to bring up the word of like teaching, I, it just, it's, it's hard for me sometimes to, to, to battle the two, but the biggest thing is just like, We do a quick little introduction, then we play a game with it, and then we do a song, and then we do a group activity.
So really getting them up, moving, dancing, using different tools and materials is the biggest thing.
Laura: Yeah, I think, , I absolutely hear what you're saying. , it is. We, because we know that young children learn through play, we want to honor that, and I think I interviewed Stacey Binge a couple weeks ago, who wrote The Whole Child Alphabet, and she also advocates and says like, , reading isn't a skill that evolutionarily children are going to learn, right?
Like, storytelling is. Like, we are innately born storytellers. You do not need to sit a child down and tell them this is how to tell a story. You start with an arc and you create some action and then it ends, right? They're naturally going to learn that and they know it and they're going to tell it. But, reading or and decoding and knowing that letters represent sounds and they're going to put them together to, , that can't be learned on its own.
However, I think the thing that we have to hold on to and, , it sounds like your role is slightly different because this is your role and you have these 30 minutes, but if we're in a classroom where, , the children are ours for six or seven hours, it's kind of like for every one minute that you are, , Quote unquote, taking from them to be explicitly teaching a skill, whatever it may be, , walking, , safely from A to B or counting with one to one correspondence or that syllables are parts of words that you can hear, you should also be then giving that back to them in play, right?
So, so long as I think what we have to. Like not let us, , let there be this division that it's one or the other. It can be, and right, it doesn't have to be, be play based or be explicit. It has to be an, an, and you, you have to exactly, like you said, you have to teach the skill to be able to apply it.
And, and then also like recognizing, yeah, there are three to five and. Some are going to be super into it and want to keep engaging with it and sit with you and clap out every syllable in every child's name, and some might just want to clap their own syllable and go on their way and not revisit it, , and I think that that is, it is this really hard thing.
For some of us, for whatever reason, right? There's this like, scrutiny, like, you can't be play based while also explicitly teaching something. But, like you said, yeah, yeah, we can. Because we ha we do. That's what we do all the time. My child doesn't just know what a birch tree is. Because he saw it one day and knew he knows because I explicitly taught him one day by get , he noticed the white markings on it and I got a field guide and then we looked at it and then he held on to that maybe we painted a birch tree.
So I explicitly taught him what a birch tree was. And the same way that I would teach him what the letter B is and the sound that it makes and it wasn't at the expense. Of, , him engaging in his own free play. It was in addition to and I think that's important. I like that
Melissa: word of in addition to, like, we can teach these few things.
Just as an extra to play. So I love that. Yeah, I also, when you were bringing up your last interview, how you said there's a quote that's like, the human brain is wired for language, but The alphabet is a human invention, so, , the, we're, we're wired to talk and speak and play, but we aren't really wired to learn the alphabet and I think that if we don't recognize that we will do our children a disservice.
Laura: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. I know that you have a tool that you use with or offer to families. We, we used your third, I can't remember, whatever you offered in December. We had our little countdown and I would, , pull them out. , my, my son and my children like took it or leave it, but I would love to hear a little bit about your hundred days of, of literacy and what brought that idea to fruition and, and tell us about it.
Melissa: So as a preschool literacy teacher, I also do professional developments at my school with the parents and I would find those are super hit or miss. I made a big literacy kit and that was a flop. And so what I realized is what parents need is simple. easy ways to to deliver fun literacy activities that just take a few minutes.
So it's a hundred activities that go through the six main components of literacy. So it might be oral language and you're playing a little brainstorm game. So like when I say go name as many animals as you can that remind you of the zoo. And so it just really has fun, engaging and easy activities.
You tear off a page. every day that you complete the activity and you go on your way. So just a fun, easy way to learn and engage.
Laura: I think that my, my appeal to it is like, it could be such a great thing to just either use in your classroom, right? If you sometimes need, like you're transitioning and you're just like, Like, , sometimes we all just like brain fart, right?
Like, okay. And you start singing wheels on the bus, or you start saying like, if your name starts with a lineup, right? Like there's some of those things we just have in our back pocket, but if you had this little calendar, you could just, , each day, like you just rip it off. I know that, creative curriculum had these when I was teaching in a pre k and they had these little cards and I can't remember what they were, but they were, you could keep them like around your belt and they just were like little transition things that built in, , literacy.
Sometimes it was math, but mostly it was like literacy, , explicit skills that you would use in a transition moment or whatever. But I think that they could also be really valuable, , within a child's home, keeping it like on the dinner table. We have at our house like little cards. It's like a deck of cards for conversation.
And , like last night's question was like, if you could be anything you want, what would you be? But how awesome would it also be to have something that is just like, Hey, exactly like you said, like on the count of three, let's all, , go around the table and name as many colors as we can or whatever it is, little ways to integrate that, which reminds me, I think one of the first ways that I found you was it must've just been something that you posted.
And then I signed up for your newsletter and your coffee chats. were like my lifesaver last summer. So like every Monday, Melissa, every, I think every Monday is like a email about like a question to ask your child while you're drinking your coffee. And every like Thursday is like a thing you can do in the tub with them.
And I was home, , I'm a teacher, so I had the summer off and I was home, my two kids, and it was just like that. , you just kind of hit that wall sometimes and it was just like, so nice every Monday to be like, oh, okay. I don't have to think of something. It's how you do. It's just like, oh, I get to ask you, like, if you could be any bird, what bird would you be?
And I just think it's so nice to have. , more things in our back pocket that we can just pull because we don't have to always be recreating the wheel and being super creative. Really simple things can be really powerful for our children. What I always say as far as, , engaging and telling stories with our children is it's not 95 percent of the time, it's not actually the content of the story that I'm telling that's important.
It's It's the like one on one moment. It's the being super present with my child. And so whether that be, , I'm like, Hey, name all the colors that you see right now. I'm asking them a question and I'm actively listening, or I'm telling a made up story. It's like, I'm there with them in that moment.
And that's so much of what, , young children need and want from us. And the more that. , we show them that we're interested in what they have to say and do, the more that they're going to constantly, , just keep showing up and surprising and impressing us. So,
Melissa: and that's, that's what I always say.
It's like, if you can give five intentional minutes, I know that sounds so small, but like just five minutes of that conversation or of , hunting for the egg, just five simple minutes. It's just a game changer and it is
Laura: right. And it, and it adds up. It's the same as, , we, as adults, if we, you, , you meditate for five minutes a day over the span of a year, I don't know how many minutes that is, but five minutes times 365, that's a lot of minutes.
So if you spend just five minutes a day each, , weekday on, , some explicit literacy skills that just builds up over time, and that is so much more meaningful and powerful than putting out worksheets or drilling with flashcards and trying to get a child to engage rotely and memorizing something that has no meaning to them is not interesting.
And they're Disengaged with before we even start. Exactly.
Melissa: A hundred percent. Agree.
Laura: Well, it was so nice to chat with you. I really appreciate having you here. Where can people find you and get on your, , get your calendar or get your, on your email list?
Melissa: So my website is. movinglittleminds. com and that's where you can sign up for those free weekly emails to do the fun coffee chat and literacy in the bathtub activities with your child.
And then I'm also on Facebook and Instagram and it's moving little minds.
Laura: Perfect. I'll have all those in the show notes. And again, thanks so much for coming and chatting with me all things literacy and I appreciate it.
Melissa: All right. Have a good
day.
The end. But really, that's it for today's episode of Stories That Stick. Inspiring and captivating minds, young and old. Remember, stories have the incredible ability to spark conversations, ignite imagination, and create lasting connections. If you loved what you heard, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and leave a five star review.
It really does make a difference. And, if you have a story to share or a topic you want me to explore, reach out to me on Instagram at LittleStoriesThatStick. Until next time, keep working that storytelling muscle and tell stories every day.
