2.+Teachers+of+Literacy+in+the+Early+Years

**Teacher of Literacy in the early years**.  Every child has encountered text in some way before they begin school. Some parents set the foundations of reading and writing by taking it upon themselves to teach their child, where as other children may only experience text through labels, signs etc they see in their daily life. For teachers this mean all children will enter schools with varied levels of competency, some with a very high degree of skill, and other who have little to no understanding of reading and writing. This is why teachers need to have an understanding of the class as a whole and of each individual child when it comes to teaching reading and writing. With this in mind teachers can develop ways to conduct entire class sessions of literacy where each child can extract knowledge to enhance their literacy skills. The aim is that is the more advanced students will not tire of going over concepts they already have a grasp of, while the students who are struggling do not feel as if they are getting left behind. Teachers can then take small groups or individual students aside to consolidate what was brought up in the group lesson and give further instruction to the students who are less confident in their literacy skills.  A good relationship between teacher and student is vital for teaching literacy. The teacher needs to know how the child best learns new concepts and what are their strengths and weaknesses to best communicate the ideas of literacy. Also the teacher needs to have an understanding of the child’s background and some insight to their home life. A teacher may well have to modify their teaching practices and strategies to accommodate for children’s; ethnicity, race, socio economic background, learning disabilities and so on. The development of literacy is not solely done in the classroom by the teacher. Rather it is a process that begins at a very young age and is made up of all the various forms of literacy a young person comes across. It is necessary for the teacher to have an insight to how much, and what kind of exposure their students are getting in there home life. With this knowledge a teacher can decipher; what areas of literacy does each child need the most assistance with as well as predicting which students with struggle and to what degree. 