Language, Literacy, and Young Children: A Parents’ and Teachers’ Role

User Generated

xznegva1972

Humanities

Ashford Univeristy

Description

his week’s required reading includes two articles: Can babies read and write? and The essentials of early literacy instruction.

For this Discussion, select one of these articles. Discuss the insights and information shared in the article you selected. What did you learn from the article? What did you find especially interesting? Are there insights in the article with which you especially agree and/or disagree? Did the article provide effective teaching or coaching strategies for fostering infant and toddler development?

Unformatted Attachment Preview

YOUNG CHILDREN AND WRITING exchange Beginnings Workshop 42 JULY/AUGUST 2009 Reprinted with permission from Exchange magazine. Visit us at www.ChildCareExchange.com or call (800) 221-2864. Multiple use copy agreement available for educators by request. can babies read and write? by Deb Curtis Deb Curtis currently works with toddlers at Milgard Child Development Center. She is co-author with Margie Carter of the book Learning Together with Young Children (Redleaf Press, 2007). She and Margie have been leading professional development institutes to help teachers study with the Thinking Lens. explicitly pointing to the letters in the book. What did someone so young know about letters? When Sofia’s mom arrived to pick her up I described my curiosity and asked her to tell me about Sofia’s knowledge of books and letters. She excitedly told me the story of how she and Sofia’s older brother do homework each night, focusing on reading, writing, and phonics and Sofia eagerly wants to join in. She told me, “Sofia knows letter sounds now, almost as much as her brother does and she loves to write them, too.” At that point she got out her cell phone and proudly showed me multiple photos of Sofia with clipboard and pen, intensely focused on writing lines of letters. Adult concerns about literacy development in early childhood fill the airwaves and have begun to trickle down and impact experiences for children under three. Infomercials promote the notion that “your baby can read,” showing happy babies identifying words on flashcards and toddlers writing letters. My first reaction is dismay: Why on earth would someone spend the precious, short time of babyhood forcing attention on isolated literacy skills and drills? But then my curiosity is piqued; the children look joyful and excited to be playing these games. Rather than worrying about what the children are learning, I want to discover what they see and understand about these interactions and the lines and squiggles that we call reading and writing. What is the baby’s point of view in these moments? Recently, I was reviewing a toddler teacher’s documentation story describing two-year-old Sofia reading a book to a stuffed animal. As I studied the photos, it was obvious that Sofia knew a lot about reading books. She had carefully placed the animal next to her, purposefully holding the book and turning the pages so the animal could see as she read. I was curious to notice in one of the photos that Sofia was Children care about what adults care about In my own informal research about children’s points of view about reading and writing, what jumps out at me is not the children’s interest in pen, paper, and letters, but their palpable joy in connecting with people as they engage in these activities. The adults on television with the babies who can read are smiling, clapping in celebration, and showing total, positive attention to the children during each interaction with the flashcards. And it was apparent to me that Sofia’s interest and skill in reading and writing came from her desire to be a part of the important ‘real work’ in her family as well as her mother’s pride and attention. Children care about what the significant adults in their lives care about and will do what we think is important. Make it meaningful I’ve also discovered from my informal research that children pay closer attention to the lines and squiggles of literacy if they are connected to meaningful aspects of their lives. I playfully began to point to and say the letters of my one-year-olds’ names on the I experimented further by writing the children’s names and saying the letters as I wrote when we were exploring markers. Again, the children would imitate me making lines with the markers as they repeated the letter sounds. But still, I wondered, did they do this because they wanted to further a relationship with me through this fun game, or were they connecting meaning to the marks and sounds and themselves? After a few months of playing these games, I noticed 22-month-old Oona looking at a book that had the word LOOK on the cover. At one point she glanced at me and pointed to the two O’s and exclaimed “Oona.” Of course I was all over her with excitement and praise and eagerly told her dad the story when he picked her up. A week later she was painting at the easel, enjoying the movement of her arm and brush, inadvertently making swirling, circle shapes with the paint. She stopped; looked closely and pointed to the big O on her paper and said, “Oona.” I can’t say that my focus on letter sounds and writing led to Oona’s discoveries, but it has been an engaging process that I will continue studying. I also worry that what I’ve described here could be perceived as overemphasizing literacy skills at this young age. That’s not my intent. What I’ve learned from observing my group of one year olds is that they are making meaning all of the time. So if I make reading and writing a meaningful part of our daily lives, they are just as interested in this as in everything else. I’ve come to see that what we do together is a part of identity development, not just literacy development. Each child’s face can be connected to their name, the sound of it, the letters and how it is written, as well as to their JULY/AUGUST 2009 family name, and their friends’ names. Making it meaningful in this way is the most important element. Adults have the power Adults have all the power in children’s lives. We are their window and access to safety, comfort, and engaging experiences. Children are smart enough to know this from the time they are babies. They have laser-like attention to what we care about and they want to imitate, please, and be a part of what we say and do. If you look at cultures around the world, children learn to do what adults value and believe children can accomplish because this is what they focus on and take time to teach children to do. But with this power comes responsibility. Young children can learn about literacy if that is what we care about and focus on with eager attention in a playful, loving relationship. But we should ask ourselves: What are we and they missing when we spend so much of our time focused on literacy skills? What about the scientific discoveries and magic in a puddle of water, the complex, creative work of pretend play, the deep, spiritual connections from time together in the natural world or the adventure and sense of accomplishment in toddling up a hill? Babies can read and write, but should they? PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 43 EXCHANGE Beginnings Workshop tags that identified their diaper bin as I was changing diapers. To my surprise and delight the children eagerly took up this game, pointing and repeating the sounds with me. I would read and point “H-A-N-N-A-H, Hannah,” and then point to her photo next to her name and say, that’s your name. Hannah would follow me saying, “hch-hch-hch.” Most of the children loved this game, even requesting it by calling out a few sounds when we got to the diaper table. But what did they really understand about the letters? Did they see the connection between themselves and these sounds and squiggles? My best guess was that developmentally the work the children were doing at the time was learning to speak and make sounds, so this sound game was a perfect match for their interests and ability. YOUNG CHILDREN AND WRITING Children care about what the significant adults in their lives care about and will do what we think is important.
Purchase answer to see full attachment
Tags: ece 345
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Explanation & Answer

Attached.

Running head: LANGUAGE, LITERACY, AND YOUNG CHILDREN

Language, Literacy, and Young Children
Student Name
University
Course Title
Date

1

LANGUAGE, LITERACY, AND YOUNG CHILDREN
Language, Literacy, and Young Children
In the article by Curtis (2009) entitled “Can Babies Read and Write” the author shares
her observations with the audience. Curtis (2009) in her study of babies’ interest in reading
and writing made some interesting findings. Throughout the article, the author shares the ...


Anonymous
I was struggling with this subject, and this helped me a ton!

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4

Similar Content

Related Tags