Bryant Elementary kindergarteners received a memorable reading and writing lesson recently when 24 University of Michigan education majors visited them dressed as letters of the alphabet.
The children had fun guessing each letter and then watching their clipboards stamped for each correct answer.
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he event was another win-win collaboration between U-M and AAPS. A similar event was held at Mitchell Elementary School the same day.
“For U-M interns, the partnership provides opportunities to observe students and teachers and to apply their developing teaching skills,” said Nell Duke, a professor of literacy, language, and culture at U-M. “For AAPS, the partnership provides opportunities for AAPS teachers and students to receive extra support.”
According to Duke, the event provided an opportunity for interns to help children associate letters and sounds, for example by stretching words to make the sounds within them easier for children to hear. In preparing for the event, interns had to think carefully about good key words for alphabet letters.
“For example, apple is a good key word for A, but art is not because art does not have a sound commonly associated with the letter a,” she said.
The younger children got to develop and reinforce their ability to hear sounds in words and associate those with specific letters while interacting with college students.
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