Week 6, EngEd 275, Nicole Kavajecz
For the youngest readers and writers, learning all about written language is exciting and challenging. Comprehension of print concepts, which encompasses everything to do with written language, takes years of learning to master. The use of Bloom’s Taxonomy to strategize about student learning and development is a great way teachers can accurately set goals (John Cline, 2012). Bloom set out 6 strands of learning, along with verbs to go along with the varying levels of growth. The 6 strands are Understanding, Applying, Evaluating, Analyzing, Creating and Remembering.
Adults use strategies to develop student comprehension in print concepts. Shared Reading is a valuable tool from the beginning stages of life, often in the form of pointing out words and corresponding images when students are young (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 107). Choral Reading is another useful tool at this youngest stage, when students rely on memorizing the text to form schema about the way reading works. Interactive writing is also a great way to help children recognize words at sight. Adults can help students begin to develop their fluency with guided reading as well. Creating a word wall is engaging for students, and also helps them have a reference guide for both reading and writing memory. Mini lessons are used to explore new ideas in attainable formats, and often lead to dramatic play where students will mimic the adult’s language or behaviors. Remember, in a classroom teachers are the role model for both social and academic behaviors. Students will naturally mimic their teacher, so it is imperative that the teacher models what they wish their students to do within these lessons.
“Literacy is a process that begins in infancy and continues into adulthood, if not throughout life” (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 110). Young children have the innate ability to observe and recreate what they observe through play. A teacher is trained to see these emergent literacy skills within students, and meet students where they are in order to encourage the best possible learning to take place. In the youngest student classroom, usually 4K or 5K in a school setting, teachers can distinguish students needing more one-on-one interaction with texts and assist them accordingly to prepare them as best they can for the next level. The first and most important skill to develop to be ‘ready’ to read and write is speaking. Children learn to speak from their families at home, their communities, relatives, television, radio, computers, and many other input sources. Their understanding of all these print concepts is nurtured through more social interactions, and their application of importance is also strengthened this way. There are four stages of word awareness children go through: words as sounds, words as labels for things, words carry meanings, and words as autonomous elements having meanings with semantic and syntactic relationships (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 115). In a classroom, a teacher will read aloud to their students every day in order to encourage transitions through these stages. In the video “Writing Lesson Objectives for Classroom Teachers”, the use of the acronym SMART is described. Every teacher should be using Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound in order to be effective.
Adults teach children concepts about the alphabet without even thinking about it. Trained teachers, however, know how important being strategic about these concepts and developing routines is essential to teaching all about letters. In the classroom of the youngest student, they would read alphabet books, see alphabet charts, see toy bins labeled with letters, and environmental print with images and matching words are also used to reinforce the usefulness of words. Teachers can use various tests to measure their students’ word understanding, as well as informal observations throughout each day. The practice of record keeping is a skill every teacher becomes better at over time, but should be done on some level even in the beginning.
Children develop as readers in three stages. Stage 1 is emergent reading and writing, where “children gain an understanding of communicative purposes of print, and develop an interest in reading and writing” (Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, 2019, p 120). This stage can begin at birth, and typically concludes within the first 2 years of formal schooling or around age 7. Then students progress into Stage 2: Beginning Reading and Writing. This stage starts when a child has a well-developed sense of alphabetic principles, phonemic-graphemic correspondence, as well as a start to phonics rule comprehension. Children in this stage can also recognize 100 high-frequency words, spell phonetically, and spell 50 high-fluency words. When they understand that writing is a process that includes a rough draft and revisions, then they are ready to move into the final stage. Stage 3 is fluent reading and writing. This stage encompasses revising groups, decoding skills, creating well-developed thoughts into writing, and using capital letters and punctuation marks correctly most of the time.
According to Tompkins, Smith, Campbell, & Green, teachers use a Morning Message to immediately imply the importance of reading and writing to their students (2019, p 130). There are a variety of changes that can be made to the morning message to alter the difficulty and interactiveness of the message based on student need/interest. In a classroom, the teacher should make these adjustments to provide the most appropriate level of challenge for those students.
The Language Experience Approach (LEA) is a method teachers use to develop reading and writing skills based on the student’s experiences and interests. Using shared writing can be a useful tool to elaborate upon the LEA. Employing the use of repetition, cumulative sequence, rhymes and rhythm, as well as sequential patterns from predictable books is important for students development. Put these two strategies together in a classroom and students will be interested and engaged!
Manuscript handwriting is a skill all children should begin to practice when they enter school. Focused individualized instruction is necessary so that children do not develop incorrect habits. Using writing centers, one-on-one practice, and specialized attention by the teacher in the youngest classrooms is paramount to creating proper technique.
References
John Cline. (17 November 2012). Creating Learning Objectives. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_woMKwBxhwU&feature=emb_title
Teachings in Education. (17 January 2018). Writing Lesson Objectives for Classroom Teachers. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS5wMv_ILXE&feature=emb_title
Tompkins, G. E., Smith, C., Campbell, R., & Green, D. (2019). Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (Seventh ed.). Melbourne, VIC: Pearson Australia.
