Preschool, kindergarten, and first grade are essential years in children's lives for learning to read and understanding the fundamentals of language arts. Some of these concepts include letter recognition, sight word recognition, capitalization, punctuation, and reading fluency. Everything children learn during these important years will stay with them for the rest of their lives. Reading and writing should start with the very basics of identifying letters and then progress to writing and reading words and sentences. It is important that children have a positive learning experience because reading is a very important skill that will continually be needed in everyday life. Whole language and balanced literacy are two commonly used methods for teaching language arts to beginning students. There are many activities used to teach young children to read and write, including using music in the classroom, sight words, games, and worksheets. There are two main approaches to teaching reading to young students. A common approach is the whole language. Kate Walsh states that whole language “emphasizes connecting children with meaningful text as a primary pathway to developing fluent readers” (10). In a whole language, it is essential to use the context of the sentence to understand a word. Walsh further explains the importance of identifying context across language by describing it as “asking children to identify new words by discerning their meaning in the context of the text” (10). Another approach to reading instruction is balanced literacy which, unlike whole language, "merges the literature-based approach with some phonological instruction, but only on an 'as needed' basis" ( Walsh, Glaser, Dunne 10). By mixing these two conc...... middle of paper...... the student must understand the difference between an uppercase and lowercase letter and when to use them in different situations. Independent exercises are important in children's learning process because they give them a feeling of having accomplished something on their own and they show what the child really knows. There are many different approaches to teaching language arts to young learners. It is important to understand that every class and every child is different. Different activities and methods should be used with different children and different situations. Learning the basics of language arts will carry children through their school years and throughout their lives. Learning to read and write for a young student should be a positive and fun experience. Through different methods, many teachers have made learning fun!