• The children at this level will not understand the symbolism of the heart, but they will enjoy the tactile experience of kissing hands.

• Stick hearts on the back of these children’s hands, so they can feel the heart as well as see it.

• Depending on their fine motor skills, the children at this level may benefit from learning the signs for words even if their hearing is intact. The signs serve as reinforcers and as an alternative means of communicating that is easier for some children to learn. Children with severe oral motor disabilities may also feel less pressured in their communication with signs as a supplement to their oral communication.

• Encourage these children to observe and imitate the actions of their peers.

Functional Level

• Everything mentioned for the sensorimotor level applies to children at the functional level as well.

• In addition, you should encourage these children to identify and name the animals, trees, moon, grass, and so forth. Point out the details of the pictures, and talk about the actions (e.g., “climb,” “swing,” “play”).

• Describe the colors of the animals and elements of nature to children at this level. Talk about the features of the animals, such as feathers, fur, and so forth.

• Develop phonemic awareness by emphasizing the sounds and patterns of words and the rhythm of sentences.

• Signing words may also assist children at this level in communicating as a support to their verbalization.

• These children can be encouraged to become involved in “reading” the story by looking at the pictures and telling what is happening.

• After these children become familiar with the story, pointing to the words as the story is read may help them see that the words that are being said are conveyed through print.

Symbolic Level

• Children at this level are becoming interested in the relation between the story and the reading process. The symbolic level encompasses the broad range of the emerging literacy substages. You can observe these children to determine at which level each child is in relation to emerging literacy development.

• Some of these children will be able to tell about the pictures, describing the characters and the actions. You can help these children to think about the pictures in relation to what happened before and what is going to happen next so that the children will begin to link the ideas in the pictures into a story.

• Some of these children will be able to tell the story from the pictures. You can help these children see the connection between the story and the words on the page by pointing to the words as they are read. Showing the children words on the page that they have said (e.g., “I love you”) will also enable them to acquire the concept of wordness (i.e., one spoken word for each written word).

• Work on increasing these children’s vocabularies by introducing more difficult words (e.g., “fox,” “firefly”).

• Some children at this level will “read” the story in a storytelling fashion, whereas others will sound as if they are actually reading using a reading intonation and inflection. You can encourage reading behavior through modeling of inflection and intonation as the story is read.

• Some of these children may be beginning to identify words or letters as they “read.” Respond to questions from these children, such as asking about what a word “says,” by saying the word and pointing out the sounds involved.

• A few of these children may be able to truly read, but they may make errors in word identification, guessing through context, or word pattern similarity. Help these children to break down the word into sounds and patterns of sounds.

• Emphasize the joy of the story rather than the process of reading. The process of reading will be addressed more specifically at other times of the day.

• Help these children to develop the concepts related to a story, including author, illustrator, characters, plot, dialogue, and so forth.

• Assist these children in using a variety of thinking strategies, such as comparison (“How did you feel on the first day of school?”), inference (“I wonder if Chester and the skunk are friends. What makes you think so?”), hypothesis (“Now that Chester knows about the Kissing Hand, how do you think he feels?”), prediction (“Tell me what you think is going to happen next”), association (“Children go to school in the day, and raccoons go to school at night. Why is this?”), and divergent thinking (“Let’s think of all the ways to get to school”).

Increase the vocabulary and concept development of these children through a discussion of synonyms (“Frightened is another way to say scared”) and categories (“Animals that eat and play at night are called nocturnal”).