Logos Revisited: Beyond the Basics
By Dr. Shelley B. Wepner

To read Maryann Manning's related article "A World of Words" click here

Whether we like it or not, or young children are growing up in a technological age where information overload will be the hallmark of their existence. To help them cope with this situation,why not capitalize on their environmental experiences to channel early intellectual energies.We are discovering that with appropriate stimulation, children can learn to read at an earlier age. Since early readers are developed, not born, it simply is as matter of providing an effective instructional tool in an encouraging, non-threatening learning environment.

Having had the good fortune of parenting fraternal twins with expectedly differing abilities, I have been able to nurture them by using environmental logos to facilitate beginning reading instruction. Logos, those colorfully adorned symbols or signs that advertise products and services,can be used as tools of communication to help preschoolers discover the world of meaningful print (Goodman and Altwerger, 1981).1 By linking environmental logos of places and things with important people in children's lives through a language-experience reading strategy, preschoolers will approach reading enthusiastically and competently.This approach supports the notion that children should be exposed to reading in meaningful, manageable and personalized ways )Smith, 1982;Goodman and Goodman, 1981;Weaver,1980). 2-4

Discussed in its beginning stages in the May 19835 issue of Early Years, this idea has continued to be explored with my own children as well as with urban/suburban pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children.After my opportunity to work with 20 threeand four-year- olds in a suburban New Jersey nursery school, teachers in St. Louis, MO and Irvington, NJ volunteered to work with their pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students. While teacher style and experimental procedures varied in each classroom situation, the teachers reported that the group exposed tot he idea acquired a beginning reading vocabulary and, mor importantly, responded enthusiastically to the experience.

Marie C.Williams,a kindergarten teacher in St.Louis, MO, said she noticed increased attention spans and improved memory development with her students. What impressed the teachers most were the zealous efforts of children and parents to collect logos for classroom use.The following guidelines are a compilation of ideas generated by all of us involved in working with this idea.

Logo book ideas. A logo book combines environmental logos with personalized print. Each page contains a sentence about the logo, pasted in the appropriate space.Here are some logo book ideas to consider:

1. Since a personal logo book is a helpful start for linking environmental logos with standard print, consider the following logo categories to include in your booklet: Places to Eat (e.g. McDonald's, Burger King, Roy Rogers, The Ground Round, Denny's); Places to Shop (e.g. Toys R Us, A & P,Caldor, Bradlees, Sears, KMart); Gas Stations (e.g. Exxon, Mobil, Gulf, Texaco, Arco, Getty); Things to Eat or Drink (e.g. Cheerios, Sun Maid raisins, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sanka, Ritz crackers, Bumble Bee tuna);Things We Use (e.g. Crest and Colgate toothpastes, Dial, Coast and Ivory soaps). Try to involve the child in collecting logos. Particularly thrilling for a preschooler is the ability to engineer the collection,cutting and pasting logos for his or her booklet.
2. When working with logos, point out striking features of the logo (e.g. the sunset in the Roy Rogers logo,the backwards "R"in the Toys R Us logo).When working with the words, point out differences in printed words such as "likes"or "loves."
3. Consider making different kinds of logo books. Using themes such as a child's birthday party, Halloween, Thanksgiving, My Favorite Restaurants or My Favorite Foods, helps children to categorize the logos used and to expand their reading vocabulary. I remember the excitement expressed by my children when we were able to take their Halloween candy wrappers to make a Halloween Book. I was more excited to discover that the unwrapped,uneaten candy became stale before it became ingested. Thanksgiving Book could include the stores where items and ingredients are purchased for the Thanksgiving dinner as well as items used to prepare the dinner (e.g. labels from turkey, cranberry sauce, vegetables and desserts). Another adaptation, used by Elizabeth Magraw, a preschool teacher in St. Louis, MO, is to make a "loves" and "likes" book of whatever the child loves or likes.This naturally lends itself to including important people in the child's life.
4. Introduce sentences with two or more subjects so the child can become familiar with the word "and" (e.g."Mommy and Daddy love to go to Sears"). Use different verbs, adjectives and pronouns whenever appropriate (e.g. "Little Susan and Big Daddy like Cheerios;" "Everybody goes to KMart;" "Everybody shops at Shop Rite;" "Big Daddy drinks Coca-Cola at McDonalds;" "Timmy and Samantha play with their Cabbage Patch Kids.").

Transition plan. Acknowledging the ephemeral nature of linking logos with print, it's critical to continually make the transition from reading with logos to reading without them. Evelyn Schwartz, a kindergarten teacher in Irvington, NJ, tried to elicit sentences with the words to be encountered in first grade. Sentences such as "Jesse likes to play in his Jordache jeans" or "Samantha runs to White Castle" would lend themselves to working with the words "play" and "run" respectively (two words in their first grade basal texts).While her children were thinking about their Jordache experiences, they were also committing to memory important words on their first grade list.

Parent and child. Since scope and sequence charts for reading should be left to the teachers, parent can do some of the following activities with their youngsters' limited reading vocabulary:

1. My favorite activity has been to leave notes around the house for my children (e.g. "Mommy love Leslie," "Daddy and Mommy love Meredith and Leslie." "Happy Birthday, Leslie and Meredith," "I love you, Meredith"). They particularly like to receive these notes when they come down for breakfast or after returning from nursery school.
2. Another activity is to make up funny sentences for them to read such as "Little Daddy and Big Leslie go to Exxon;" "Meredith drinks Leslie" or "Big Meredith likes to eat Little Mommy." Their humorous responses not only excite them about the printed page but also enlightens you with respect to their comprehension ability.The important thing is to use familiar words, but occasionally include a new word.
3. Also important is the use of trade books at home in a way that encourages children to read whatever words they can recognize.As I read to my children, I have them chime in whenever a familiar word appears. I also point to words as I read so they can begin to recognize new words in a variety of contexts.
4. Remember that magazines, newspapers, adult books and labels contain words from the child's limited reading vocabulary. On occasion, my children have picked up whatever source of print my husband and I were reading and called out "their" words. To reinforce their interest, we ask them to highlight these words with their favorite writing implement of the moment.Then they count all the words they know and their delight is well worth our investment of time and reading material (it may have turned out to be 20 highlighted words,but only five different words).

   This type of activity help children to become aware of the existence and frequency of words in different contexts.This transfer ability also becomes obvious when children try to play such games as "ABC" by Scrabble. Many of the words have already become dearly beloved sight words to them.

5. Another enjoyable activity is the use of word cards, with or without logos, arranged into sentences. Similar to using Sesame Street or ABC word cards, children use a few cards to arrange them into meaningful sentences (e.g., "Mommy likes to go to Wendy's," "Uncle Tom loves Danny"). Not only does this reinforce their sight vocabulary strengths, but it also develops their sequencing skills – a necessary component of comprehension.
6. Spelling words can become a savored activity, particularly if approached positively. After seeing the words often enough, children can spell their small repertoire of sight words as easily as they can spell their names. Spelling can also act as a catalyst for getting children to write their own logo books in preschool style.Presently, my children design their own books. They cut out the logos (I have a box of favorites), paste them in their books, think of their own sentences and write down their thoughts (albeit muddled to the average person). I know, though, that even with missing articles and shuffled nouns, there is a logical representation of their thoughts.Whatever they do know can be used as a springboard to learning more, a basic premise in teaching.

Frequently,we assume that our children will learn to read when the time comes – after all, the preschool years are for play.. We allow children's absorbent minds to soak up scattered bits of information without funneling them into more productive activities, since we think of reading as a chore to be postponed until someone else can guide their learning pursuits. Never mind that the traditional "see Jane run" approach may contradict everything with which the child is familiar. We learned to read, no matter how painful our first experiences were, but why not expose children to the rewards of reading as soon as they are developmentally ready? Using environmental logos with personalized print is one way to help youngsters realize that reading is a skill to be enjoyed.

References.

1. Goodman,Yetta M., and Altwerger, Bess. A Study of Literacy in Preschool Children,Research Report No. 4, University of Arizona,Arizona Center for Research and Development,September 1981.
2. Smith, Frank, Understanding Reading (3rd Ed.) New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1982.
3. Goodman, Kenneth S., and Goodman,Yetta M., A Whole Language, Comprehension-Centered Reading Program, Research Report No. 1, University of Arizona: Arizona Center for Research and Development, February 1981.
4. Weaver, Constance, Psycholinguistics and Reading: From Process to Practice. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,1980.
5. Wepner, Shelley B. "Logos:Signs of the Times Help Beginning Readers" Early Years,May 1983,Vol.13,No. 9, pp. 36, 59.

To read Maryann Manning's related article "A World of Words" click here

Dr. Shelley B. Wepner is an Assistant Professor of Education at William Paterson College, Wayne, NJ.