Throughout the year, Moriah’s pre-k has been working with a multi-sensory literacy program called Zoo-phonics. The children have learned the sound of each letter of the alphabet by associating the letter with a Zoo-phonics animal and a special symbol that they make with their hands, feet, bodies, etc. As they become more advanced, the children use the symbols and sounds to create words. The children played a game with their classroom “zoo,” a collection of animal beanie babies. Each child held one beanie baby, stood in order of their letter in a word. They not only did the Zoo-phonics symbol and sounded out that letter to form the whole word, they wrote each letter to see the word visually, making the connection between reading and writing.