Early Literacy

SAHK designed "Early Literacy" basing on the evidence-based resource package on prevention of literacy difficulties and early literacy learning developed in 2010. The app offers a convenient way for preschool children to learn early literacy skills in an integrated approach under adult’s guidance.

Principles:
1. Effective early literacy learning includes not only establishing orthography-phonology-semantic mapping of Chinese characters and self-reading skill, but also the following literacy-related cognitive and perceptual skills:
－ Ocular motor control & visual perceptual skills
－ Phonological awareness
－ Morphological awareness
－ Orthographic awareness
－ Pre-writing & writing skills

2. Context-based materials facilitate generalization of learning.

3. Interesting games increase learning motivation.

Target population:
1. Preschool children (K1-K3).
2. Older children with learning level approximate to K1-K3.

Content:
1. Six themes:
－ My Body
－ My Family
－ My School
－ I love Reading
－ Beauty of Nature
－ Ecology

2. Three parts in each theme:
－ Tutorial videos
－ Interactive literacy games
－ Mysterious reward

Characteristics:
1. Theme videos
There are 4 videos in each theme: The theme story video brings children to a specific community scenario through puppet play. Children learn to use the targeted Chinese characters in daily communication. The videos on story comprehension (basic & advance levels) and nursery rhyme reading facilitate development of listening, speaking and reading skills.

2. Interactive literacy games
"Early Literacy" provides 21 different types of games. Children have to open the 8 basic games (suitable for K1-K2 children) before they can enter the more advance games (suitable for K2-K3 children).

The games designed for each of the literacy-related cognitive and perceptual skills were listed below:
i. Ocular motor control & visual perceptual skills
－ Basic games
【Swift Eyes and Hands】：training on saccadic eye movement
【Running Balloon】：training on pursuit eye movement
【Look and Find】：training on visual discrimination & visual figure-ground
【Checkers】：training on visual spatial relationships
－ Advance games
【Locomotive】：training on visual memory & visual sequential memory
【Line Chaser】：training on visual figure-ground
【Treasure Hunting】：training on visual form constancy
【Hide and Seek】：training on visual closure

ii. Orthography-phonology-semantic mapping (Only Basic game is provided)
【Voice Recording Fairy】：training on orthography-phonology-semantic mapping

iii. Phonological awareness
－ Basic games
【Shake Shake Word Bowling】：training on character-syllable correspondence
【Miracle Speakers】：training on homophone & rhyme detection
－ Advance game
【Monster of Word Eating】：training on syllable deletion

iv. Morphological awareness (Only Advance games are provided)
【Wonderful Fish】：training on word formation
【Monster of Word Creation】：training on morpheme addition & word formation
【Vocabulary Magician】：training on morphological construction

v. Orthographic awareness (Only Advance games are provided)
【Gluttonous Dino】：training on relationship between semantic radical and meaning of the character (Theme 1-3)
【Parachute Jump】：training on relationship between phonetic radical and pronunciation of the character (Theme 4-6)

vi. Pre-writing & writing skills
－ Basic game
【Happy Bus】：training on eye-hand coordination
－ Advance games
【Stroke Order Board】：training on stroke writing
【Character Structure Pairing】：training on character structures
【Family of Logographmes】：training on logographme combination of Chinese characters

3. Mysterious reward
The games equip with a mysterious clearance reward system to motivate children play different games repeatedly, so as to enhance the effectiveness of learning. Furthermore, Facebook sharing and photo taking functions are also provided.