Chapter 4: Foundations of Language and Literacy

Macy Bombard

Emergent Literacy: Concept supporting that learning to read is a result of a home environment where a child begins to learn about reading and writing from birth through observing and interacting with adults and other children.

• Assumes children are born ready to learn about literacy and that learning about literacy is an ongoing process.

How Reading Develops: Although students enter school at about the same age, they enter at all different stages of their development. Their tends to be a similar pattern that occurs as children learn how to read; Print awareness, Pretend reading, Identifying Alphabet Letters, Beginning Reading

Phases: 

1. Awareness and exploration: Brings at birth and continues through preschool. Stage where child becomes curious about print. This stage is also when children start to pretend read and begin scribbling and “drawing”
   1. Environmental Print: Written language found in the environment; books, supermarkets, stores, restaurants, TV, video games, labels on products
2. Experimental Reading and Writing: Starts around Kindergarten. Children start to develop concepts of print; reading left to right, top to bottom, etc. This is where children continue to recognize letters and their correlating sounds, rhyming, and writing letters of the alphabet as well as high frequency words
3. Early Reading and Writing: First grade. Children start to read simple stories and can write more in depth on topics they have prior knowledge on. Comprehension and predicting skills start to develop. Through their writing, more awareness of punctuation and capitalization is developed. 
4. Transitional Reading and Writing: 2nd grade. Reading with greater fluency and comprehending more efficiently. Child can now read fluently, silt read, spell conventionally, and proofread their own writing
5. Independent and Productive Reading and Writing: starting the lifelong process of becoming an independent reader. Writing becomes more sophisticated.

How Writing Develops:  learning to write happens through exploration

• Scribbling: A primary form of written expression for very young children
  • Early scribbling: uncontrolled
  • Controlled Scribbling: marks are repeated (ages 3-6)
  • Scribble Drawing: Shows signs of knowing the difference between writing and drawing. Starts to understand that letters are symbols and have meaning
  • Name Scribbling: Scribbles mean something and are trying to convey a message 
• Children should be given ample opportunities to scribble and eventually draw and write. 

Phonological Awareness: Hearing sounds of language apart from its meaning. Hearing the number of words in a sentence, number of syllables in a word. 

• Continuum: Rhyming-Alliteration-Sentence Segmenting-Blending and segmenting syllables-Phonemic awareness

Alphabet Knowledge: Ability to name, write, and identify the sounds of all 26 letters of the alphabet. Letters are building blocks for the writing system.

Environmental Print: Print that surrounds the child during their everyday lives. Things such as labels, menus, signs, charts, etc.

Invented Spelling: spellings that children use when they are early in their reading and writing development as they are learning to associate letters with sounds

Developmental Writing: Early writing supports later writing by developing the understanding of the purpose and functions of written language. A predictor of later reading successes.

Print Knowledge: Ability to recognize print and understand how it works and carries meaning. How to hold a book, reading from left to right, top to bottom, the text carries the meaning (not the pictures), stories are built from words. The ability to match spoken words with written words.

Literate Environment: Environment that fosters interest and curiosity about written language and also supports a child’s efforts to become a reader and writer. 

• At Home: Anything with print will interest an early reader. Young children could also utilize the library. Reading aloud. Reading in front of the child so they observe experienced readers and become intrigued
• Research confirms children who begin reading early have a few similar conditions in their home environment
  • Access to a wide variety of print, books, magazines, newsp, etc.
  • Parents demonstrate use of written language for various purposes
  • Parents assist in early attempts of literacy and are open to questions
  • Parents and siblings read to the child regularly
• In the classroom: Children feel free to take risks because they are aware that errors are expected and accepted
  • Classroom Design: Rich with print. The environment itself becomes a “teacher”. Print around the room should reflect print that supports curriculum and promotes active engagement. Print should be put at eye level, there should be an obvious classroom theme, vocabulary should be scattered throughout, and the classroom should be exciting and intriguing. 
    • Book area with books organized and space looking inviting and comfortable . Books should range in difficulty. The book area should be away from dramatic play and block toys. Book should be available in all areas of classroom
    • Listening area: A center where students can use headphones to listen to books on devices. This area should also be inviting and comfortable
    • Computer Area: children can use headphones to work at computers on meaningful activities that support language and literacy
    • Writing area: Should we stocked up with a variety of paper and tools. Alphabet should be displayed at eye level and words should be written on cards (including students names)
  • Literacy related play center

Shared Reading: Children in a classroom or small group all participate in the reading of a story. Big books with large print and illustrations are usually used 

How to promote Oral language development: Parents and caregivers should be having conversations with the child throughout the day. Conversations Should be frequent and meaningful

• Use rich and abstract vocabulary
• Ask questions that require child to express themselves and use language
• Repeat, extend, and restate what the child says so that they can hear their own ideas
• Give full attention and eye contact to the child when they are speaking
• Provide explanations for why a child needs to do something
• Read books aloud

Concept of Print: Knowing how to hold a book, turn a page, and read from left to right and top to bottom. The text carries the meaning, not the illustrations

Developing Early Literacy Skills: Reading aloud to children and giving them ample opportunities to be exposed to text

Language- Experience Stories: permits young children to share experiences, listen to and tell stories, dictate words, sentences, and write independently. An account told by a child and printed by another person

Phonemic Segmentation: segmenting sounds in words. Elkonin boxes are a great way to support phonemic segmentation development

Invented Spelling Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh0Sb2SC_38 

• By encouraging invented spelling, students are able to write about whatever they want instead of only writing words they know how to spell. It also gives teachers a good insight into what the child knows about word structure, speech sounds, how letters represent sounds, etc. Encourages students to really think about what sounds they hear in words. Helps students independently discover spelling patterns

Key links shared reading video: https://youtu.be/jfGjgOc-rJw 

• Day 1: reading the entire story and focusing on comprehension. Making sure to use expression and characterization while reading. Children can identify the problem and put themselves in the shoes of the characters
• Day 2: Focus on vocabulary. Rereading the book. Have students read pages with you. Focusing on the key words
• Day 3: Focuses on flow, phrasing. Looking into clues to help with reading expression, such as commas, ellipses, periods, speech marks,  etc
• Day 4: Focusing on phonic knowledge and phonemic awareness. 
• Day 5: focusing on oral and written language

Shared reading: First Grade #1 Video: https://youtu.be/s1gBauKkbJs 

• Teacher reads a page then the student read the same thing she read after. Pauses in the story to talk about key words and what they mean and how they are used in the story. The next time the story is read, the teacher and students read together at the same time. This time they focused on sounds in a word and where to put the sneaky -e

Classroom Application: This story really opened my eyes about just how much goes into learning to read and write. I never knew there were so many components to scribbling and that scribbling means so much more than just a drawing. I really enjoyed reading about the 5 phases of literacy development and learning what age students’ should be at during each phase.