LISTEN, TALK, SPELL, ACT

"The project ""Listen, talk, spell, act"" (LTSA) aimed at raising awareness of preschool teachers and parents of the importance of reading to kindergarten children. Due to poor statistics about reading achievements all over Europe, a big part of this project was the exchange of good praxis and experiences among different international partners which resulted in new and innovative reading methods and strategies for enhancing early reading. The applicant organization was Kindergarten Medveščak from Croatia. Partner organizations included Turkish kindergarten Çukurova Anaokulu, Kindergarten Šiaulių r. Kuršėnų lopšelis-darželis ""Buratinas"" from Lithuania, Italian kindergarten Istituto Comprensivo Fiano, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Department of Linguistics) from Croatia, NGO Blaberon from Croatia and NGO Divja misel from Slovenia. The project aim was to make vertical connection and collaboration between different educational and civil society institutions involved in the project. Three target groups, who benefit from this project, are: preschool teachers, who got new knowledge and competences which improved their professional skills in the field of early reading area; parents, who participated in various workshops and lectures about their irreplaceable role in reading to their children and finally kindergarten children, who benefit from their teachers' and parents' awareness of the significance of early reading. After taking part in reading programs, children will be better prepared to start school, since they will develop their pre-reading skills. Books became a normal part of their lives and they continue to read every day. Parents became more aware of the importance of early reading to children, they now understand their own important role in reading to children and developing their pre-reading skills. Preschool teachers changed attitude toward reading and implemented new methods of early reading into their daily work. During the project implementation all partners had five Transnational project meetings to develop and use new strategies in the field of early reading and six Learning, teaching, training activities to exchange examples of good reading practice between partners. Project results regarding three target groups were changed daily reading routines, implemented new strategies - specific didactics games and reading methods, reading quality picture books, changes in material context and lots of specific didactic games, dramatization activities, using ICT all led to further development of creative and critical thinking among preschool children. But also preschool teacher developed their competences in field of early reading and parents raised awareness and involvement in children’s language development. At the end of the project, Handbook for reading as the final result of the project was created, in which were gathers all the results and innovative methods and strategies for other practitioners to use in future."