During calendar time, what concept is Mrs. Nelson demonstrating while singing and tapping her pointer on the words?

Mrs. Nelson is demonstrating the concept of print, which encompasses a variety of understandings that are essential for young readers. This includes recognizing that print conveys meaning, understanding the organization of print (such as reading from left to right and top to bottom), and becoming familiar with elements such as words, sentences, and punctuation.

By singing and tapping her pointer on the words, she is helping her students make connections between the spoken language and the written form. This reinforces the understanding that words are made up of letters that come together to form larger units of meaning, and that they have specific locations on a page. Engaging in this practice provides a visual and auditory experience, allowing students to notice how words are structured and how they can follow along with text, which is crucial for developing early literacy skills.

The other options focus on different aspects of literacy skills: decoding specifically relates to the ability to translate text to spoken language, think aloud involves verbalizing thoughts to model comprehension processes, and the alphabetic principle denotes the understanding that letters represent sounds in words. While important, those concepts are not being directly demonstrated in the context described with Mrs. Nelson's actions.