Literacy Lane activities are carefully and intentionally developed to dovetail with the information outlined by the American National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) and by the Canadian Language and Literacy Research Network to offer activities relevant to alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, and language development (i.e., vocabulary and grammar).  Numerous opportunities within the Lane focus on the following emergent skills: 

Phonological awareness:

Rhyming

Reading sight words

Blending

Segmenting

Alphabet knowledge:

Sound/symbol association

Letter identification

Language, by definition, is a communicative system that gives people the means to share knowledge, opinions, and feelings. Communication (listening and speaking) lays the foundation for later developed reading, writing, and comprehension skills. 

Literacy Lane offers opportunities for adults to connect with children individuallyor in small groups to build relationships through extended conversations.  Common themes and vocabulary are used to spark special interests the child may have.

Language skills are fundamental to literacy.  The following skills are targeted to support both literacy and oral language acquisition:

Oral language:

Vocabulary extensions

Concept development

Comparing/Contrasting

Grammar (pronouns, verb tenses)

Categorization

Recognition of Words, Shapes and Colours

Like Literacy, early skills in Mathematics are a strong indicator for later academic success.  In consideration of The National Academy of Science's guidelines in Eager to Learn: Educating our Preschoolers, Literacy Lane's objectives go beyond reciting numbers from 1-10 and simple counting.  Literacy Lane addresses the following Early Math skills using fun, motivating activities:

Number recognition

Counting (i.e., number sense)

Understanding concepts related to:  

Shapes

Patterns and Predicting

Size 

Time/Sequence

Quantity 

Spatial 

Estimating

Comparison

Movement, a universal classroom strategy, is a key component of Literacy Lane. Movement has been reported to benefit all children to help them gain control over their behavior (i.e., self-regulation), to improve their ability to engage in learning and to aid in the retention of information.  Literacy Lane provides physical exercise and a variety of "heavy work" movements throughout.  Heavy work is known to support all children to help them become more organized, calm, alert, and regulated.  The following movements are incorporated:

Marching

Bear Crawling

Hopping

Jumping

Crab Crawl

Push ups

Researchers from the Center on the Developing Child through the Harvard Institute describe executive function (EF) as "being able to focus, hold, and work with information in mind, filter distractions, and switch gears".  They compare these skills to "having an air traffic control system at a busy airport to manage the arrivals and departures of dozens of planes on multiple runways. In the brain, this air traffic control mechanism is called executive functioning, a group of skills that helps us to focus on multiple streams of information at the same time, and revise plans as necessary."  Sited from https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-executive-function-skills-for-life-and-learning/.  Many activities throughout the Lane target the following Executive Functions: 

Working memory

Inhibition

Turn taking

Impulse control 

Select attention

Emotional regulation

Flexible thinking

Self-monitoring