Early Literacy

In “The Literacy Myth”, Harvey Graff and John Duffy argue that the standard way of thinking about literacy has been that it is mandatory for achieving wealth, appreciating democratic ideals, improving intellectual capabilities, and gaining social status. I agree with the myth that one can only receive these results through literacy because it has become the foundation of growth as evidenced by Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me” and Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read”. In “Superman and Me”, Alexie uses his passion for reading to attain literacy at an early age. Using his own success, he strives to change the ways society has set up for Native Americans to fail. Likewise, in “Learning to Read”, Malcom reflects on his past of utilizing

The learning provisions for development in literacy are extremely important and can be reached by using their language skills. They learn to communicate with others through three main ways: they are Speaking, Reading and Writing. These three areas interact with each other and develop the Childs self-expression and imagination. They must be given the opportunity within all different subject areas to use and extend their language so that their thinking skills progress to a higher level.

Theoretical Perspectives and Contexts of Language Developments are discussed in this chapter of Beverly Otto’s Language Development in Early Childhood Education (2014).

It has been shown that if students start at an early age to learn to read and write their learning in all content areas will improve. It is for this reason it is important for secondary teachers to understand early reading acquisition as to incorporate those reading skills in lesson to accommodate students with reading deficiencies. Educators can understand the building blocks of how a student learns and develops into a successful reader in order to help them develop their reading skills. If teachers understand reading acquisition they can better assess their students’ reading level. As such, the role of professional judgement in understanding the selection of reading or writing material is to know their students reading needs and select materials

What do you consider the most important reason that attempting to teach infants to read is not a good practice? Explain your response.

The first literacy unit EDC131 Language and Literacy for teachers, opened a greater way of thinking about language for me. It diversified my thinking, and the the way I looked at literacy by introducing multiliteracies, englishes, culture, and language development. In chapter one of the current text we take another look at the developmental process which is important to understand as a guide to assist teachers on students level of development. This guide is useful when assesing children and understanding a child's individual development. As a preservice teacher I have learnt the importance of considering all potential factors that may affect this development, during the first unit. Within chapter two, it refers again to these potential factors

When dealing with early literacy and early fluency providing the reader with input and checking their fluency is very much so key. In both you have to make sure they have a strong oral vocabulary bank and also be fluent with it through literacy text and context. In Early literacy you have to watch over the leaner and make sure they are able to comprehend phonemes, As for Fluency they need to be able swing their phonics into word study. In early fluency they have to be able to develop the skill to match the sound with the spelling patterns of the English letters and parts of the words. With fluency they need to have listening comprehension differences with L1 and English.

Reading is a skill often taken for granted but it is essential in order to progress in life. For a child being able to read well helps them learn new things, give ideas and enables use of imagination. National literacy trust (2015) suggests that children’s early language skills can have a major impact on a child’s development of literacy skills. Five-year olds with poor language and literacy have a higher risk of underachieving at age seven and beyond. Reading skills encourage more opportunities in life and it can affect a child’s wellbeing if they do not achieve this effectively (Finnegan,2015).

As I reflect on my childhood, the first memory of literacy I recall is when I was in kindergarten. I was approaching the end of the school year when my mother revealed to me my teacher was considering keeping me in kindergarten for another year. I was extremely upset and felt as if I had failed my first year of school. I felt that I was fresh out of the gate and already defective. My perception as a child was that the adults were already giving up on me. The teacher stated if I could learn the alphabet by the end of the school year I could continue ahead to the 1st grade. The conclusion of Kindergarten was vastly approaching. My mother constructed flash cards to help with my letter recognition. In doing so, she realized I could not see the letters. My mother promptly made an appointment for me to visit an Optometrist to evaluate me. Before I knew it, I was fitted with a big plastic pair of glasses. My world became much clearer after that. My mother was upset that my teacher did not recognize the problem, and that I never spoke up. Fortunately, I passed kindergarten with a lot of hard work from my parents, teacher, and I.

As the article states, proponents of universal preschool often cite the fact that students readiness is increased as a result of attending preschool; which allows these students to be more efficient when participating in the elementary school curriculum. Equally as important, the article cites the importance of preschool when it comes to language and speech development especially for non- English speakers who benefit greatly from the learning that occurs in English as a second language. Above all, this article also taught me the importance of changing our teacher practices as the article writes, “Teachers and administrators planning for curriculum and instruction, need to rethink the traditional parameters of training because the children who will be in the workforce in the future are in today’s preschools (Lasser and Fite, 171).”This showed me that our curriculum should be designed to ensure that we are teaching these preschool students the skills that they need to compete in the 21st century. Furthermore, this article taught me the true importance of having universal preschool, and the benefits that this type of program has on all students and school

Literacy consists of a range of ways to understand and decode symbols for communication in a community (Barratt-Pugh & Rohl, 2000, p. 25). Emergent literacy is a term used to describe how young children interact with books, reading and writing (What is Emergent Literacy, 2006, p.1). Emerging literacy is an ongoing process and to ensure this process is successful children need to be stimulated through active engagement with books and writing opportunities.

Literacy is important for young children. It’s so much a child has to know before entering kindergarten. The Essentials of Early Literacy Instruction stressed the importance of teaching literacy. Early literacy is an emerging g set of relationships between reading and writing. Today a lot of terms have been referred to for literacy development for preschoolers the term that’s mostly used is early literacy. The term was chosen because the earliest forms of literacy development are forming reading and writing concepts. Linking early literacy to play is the most effective way to for young children to learn. There are many ways educators can teach literacy activities such as rich teacher talk, storybook reading, phonologic awareness activities, alphabet activities, support for emergent writing, shared book experience, integrated, and content-focused activities, Young children understand print by oral and written language. Asking students to help read a book and turn the page help them understand the basics of a book. There are at least three critical content categories in early literacy: oral language comprehension, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. Children need to learn phonological awareness, alphabet letter knowledge, the function of written language, a sense of meaning making texts, and vocabulary. Alphabetic writing is quite difficult once children understand the language of their community they learn which words stand for which concepts in that language.

The achievement of oral language is a normal development for the performance of most children. The child’s (ren) understanding to communicate will began to increase with age, however, it will not establish the growth increase process right away but it will contribute to the perfection progress as the children starts to read and transform into a more experienced reader. Learning and communicating more adequately

“Literacy learning has a profound and lasting effect on the social and academic lives of children. Their future educational opportunities and career choices are directly related to literacy ability. Since early childhood is the period when language develops most rapidly, it is imperative that young children are provided with a variety of developmentally appropriate literacy experiences throughout each day, and that the classroom environment is rich with language, both spoken and printed. Early childhood teachers are responsible for both understanding the developmental continuum of language and literacy and for supporting each child’s literacy development.

During the last 3 decades, increased attention has been focused upon the effects of emergent literacy in an early childhood education environment and children 's later knowledge (Roberts, Jurgens, & Burchinal, 2005). It was once believed that children learned to read and write only when they entered elementary school and received specific instruction. However, most research now indicates that a preschool environment is critical in the development of a variety of cognitive and linguistic skills and that it is an important factor in early literacy development (Levy, Gong, Hessels, Evans, & Jared, 2006; Rashia, Morris, & Sevick, 2005; Weigel, Martin, & Bennett, 2006). Research has shown that home experiences need to