Starting Out Right A Guide to Promoting Children's Reading Success (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Growing Up to Read
Growing Up to Read
Pages 15-60
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From page 15... ...
To prepare children for reading instruction in the early grades, it is best that they be exposed to high-quality language and literacy environments in their homes, day care centers, and preschools. The best time to start sharing books with children is during babyhood, even when they are as young as six weeks.
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From page 16... ...
Often' these are unplanned casua/ acts' like commenting on words on an article of clothing or engaging children in conversation. At other times' it is a conscious effort to read good books with children or provide toys that promote good literacy development _ .~ ~ .
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From page 17... ...
(The children go to the library with their mother at least once a month.) There are puzzles, a magnetic board with letters, and, in a canvas bag, some plastic farm animals treasured for pretend play.
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From page 18... ...
The following pages describe key aspects of language and literacy for children from birth through age four, along with activities that can be woven into daily life. In this section, we address parents, teachers, uncles, aunts, grandparents, babysitters, and day care providers in short, everyone who is important in the child/e life, everyone who cares, everyone who is willing.
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From page 19... ...
Toddlers find that the words they use in conversation and the objects they represent are depicted in books the lure is a symbol for the real object and that the writing represents spoken language. In addition to listening to stories, children label the objects in books, comment on the characters, \ and request that an adult read to them.
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From page 20... ...
~ . ~ i Phonological Awareness During the preschool years, most children gradually become sensitive to the sounds, as well as the meanings, of spoken words.
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From page 21... ...
Activities ~E" Songs, rhyming games, language play, and nursery rhymes these ~ are all excellent ways to spark children/s awareness of language and sounds. Birth to Age Four For example, sing the Teddy Bear song.
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From page 22... ...
I like to eel eel eel eeples and beeneenees I like to eel eel eel eeples and beeneenees I like to ale ale ale apples and bananas. I like to ale ale ale apples and bananas.
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From page 23... ...
Activities A simple game of pointing to pictures can be used to confirm that ~ speech discrimination is reasonably accurate in a 3- to 5-year-old child. In a quiet place, show the child the array of pictures on page 25.
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From page 24... ...
STARTING OUT RIGHT Birth to Age Four Speaking very clearly, say "Listen carefully. Show me the ," filling in the blank with a word from the list below.
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From page 25... ...
Growing !
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From page 26... ...
With encouragement, parents and teachers can get children to tell of their own adventures in the form of a story. Encourage children to tell about special events, like holidays or trips.
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From page 27... ...
Also, encourage children to talk about books they already know and ask them to elaborate or add to the story line with their own creations, such as new endings or new circumstances for characters. Book and Print Awareness A child/e sensitivity to print is a major first step toward reading.
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From page 28... ...
start recognizing favorite books by their cover, pretend to read books, and under Birth to A'e Four stand that books are handled in certain ways. As they reach their fourth year, children increasingly come to understand that it is the print that is read in sto ries, and that this print contains alphabet letters that are a special category of visual items, different even from numbers.
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From page 29... ...
Growing Activities ~.E" At home, at day care, at preschool, provide print-rich environments, ED including access to high-quality books Em, writing materials, and toys like alphabet blocks and alphabet refrigerator magnets. High-quality books are different for young children of different ages.
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From page 30... ...
(+ ~While her mother transcribes Ella's words, she takes the opportunity to demonstrate some ordi nary conventions of letter writing, like starting at the top of the page with NDearNand writing the body of the letter in the middle. They hit a little stumbling block when Ella, who already knows how to recognize her own name in print, protests when she sees the pronoun Nl.N She insists that her actual name be added.
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From page 32... ...
~ Through exposure to a wide array of books, children learn that print can entertain us, amuse us, and even comfort us. Through experiences with if writing,//childrenTearntodistinguishbetweendrawingandwriting.
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From page 33... ...
Okay, now let's see if we can figure out your question.// This helps children learn one aspect of how print works that there are parts to it, such as sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, and that the end of a line or a page is not necessarily the end of a unit of meaning. UlS [totems g , L h ~;~,\ -- ~ ~ ~!
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From page 34... ...
With help, they may soon begin to attend to beginning letters in words that they are familiar with in printed form. Activities Help children to find the initial letter of their own names.
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From page 35... ...
Growinc Comprehension As children move from toddlerhood to school age, they should increasingly be able to grasp the meaning of language they hear spoken in everyday conversation, as well as in narrative forms, such as books. They show this understanding through their questions and comments.
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From page 36... ...
But the questions also have another purpose: to help children learn how to think about literature and how to look for what is important in a story or any piece of text.
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From page 37... ...
Other children love nursery rhymes and poetry. AD young children win want you to read favorite books again and again, but four- and five-year-olds wiD also develop a frequent need for new and different books.
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From page 38... ...
v~ _ t~ The Bossy Gallito: A Traditional Cuban Folk Tale retold by Lucia M Gonzalez.
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From page 39... ...
AstorHonor. The Little Dog Laughed and Other Nursery Rhymes by Lucy Cousins.
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From page 40... ...
Houghton. The Random House Book of Mother Goose: A Treasury of 386 Timeless Nursery Rhymes selected and illustrated by Arnold Label.
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From page 41... ...
Why Mosquitoes Buzz in Peoplers Ears: A West African Tale retold by Vema Aardema. Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon.
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From page 42... ...
Talking to toddlers, sharing in making and using grocery lists, singing songs, telling storiesall of this helps children build literacy skills. Another important influence is having a positive attitude about learning.
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From page 43... ...
All day care settings should involve singing songs, reciting nursery rhymes, talking to babies in the course of everyday activity, and repeating back to a baby those if ba ha bars// and if ga ga gals.ll As coos and gurgles give way to real words, caregivers should encourage children to talk, repeating what the child is saying and elaborating for the child when appropriate. (Appropriate language and literacy activities for very young children are featured earlier in this book.
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From page 44... ...
If we are to prevent reading difficulties, then children must start school motivated to learn and with the language skins they need in order to learn. All too often preschool and day care settings for young children provide poor language and literacy environments particularly for those whose families have limited resources.
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From page 45... ...
By providing regular expectations and schedules for classroom routines such as planning time,worktime,clean-up time,small-group time, outside time, and circle time, children learn to conduct themselves in each activity and when and how to transition between them. Strong parent-teacher communication:Teachers had regular communication with parents, including home visits.
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From page 46... ...
~ Preschool teachers can use many appropriate activities to help build phonological awareness in young preschoolers and phonemic awareness in older children. Rhyming songs, syIlable-ciapping, and grouping objects according to how their names begin can ah be used to draw children/s attention to the sounds of speech.
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From page 47... ...
Examples of these games and songs follow Sing songs that play with sound ~ I Can Hear the Rain Pitter patter, pitter patter, I can hear the rain. Pitter patter, pitter patter, I can hear the rain.
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From page 48... ...
- -. NO OUT RIGHT Sing songs that play with rhyme 1~ This Old Man This old man, ho played one.
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From page 49... ...
catalogs, home repair magazines, and picture reference books about building. In a house area, include food packaging, menus, appliance instructions, plane tickets, travel brochures, and computer keyboards.
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From page 50... ...
Oral Language Through interesting conversations with teachers and peers, children learn vocabulary and language structures that will later help with reading. The key is to prepare for content that is rich and important to the children.
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From page 51... ...
it; ·-N A.. ~;' Encourage children to write their own story.
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From page 52... ...
The PEER sequence and the CROWD principles always operate within the larger principles of following the child's interests, expecting slightly more of the child each time through the book and keeping interactions light and fun. In the PEER sequence: P Parent (or other adult)
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From page 53... ...
Children should have the opportunity to select their own books, and the teacher should also suggest books to extend an idea for a classroom activity or to suit an individual child/e interest. Child Core And Literacy Preschool Increasing numbers of very young children are spending time in day care settings, where the main focus has traditionally been on providing good physical care.
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From page 54... ...
, my daughter, now just three years old, looked me squarely in the eye and said firmly,NI call them both fC'N It is not that she could not discriminate their shapes: she regularly performs perfectly on an uppercase lettermatching game on the computer. Nor is she unaware that I like to call these letters by different names: her answer was clearly intended to preempt the correction that she knew I would produce.
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From page 55... ...
One child might say, for example, that a lower case if bit looks like a baseball bat with a ball stuck to it. Writing Through early writing experiences, young children learn many of the key aspects of literacy such as print awareness and concepts, functions of print, and possibly phonological awareness.
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From page 56... ...
Computer-Based Literacy Ideally, classrooms would offer preschoolers access to an easy-to-use word processor, printer, software programs for print concepts, stories on CD-ROM, and interactive programs.
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From page 57... ...
B,~u,,ey's Book House Children explore alphabet letters and sounds, W play with rhyming words, manipulate prepositions, construct stories using preset lists of characters, settings, props, and actions, and create and print their own cards and invitations. T,~Playroom Children explore numbers, time, the alphabet, W and other learning concepts.
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From page 58... ...
Early childhood educators should not try to replicate the formal reading instruction provided in schools; instead, their job is to help children develop the basic knowledge, interest, and understandings that will allow them to flourish once it is time for such instruction. Central to achieving the goal of primary prevention of reading difficulties is the preschool teacher/s knowledge base and experience, as wed as the support provided to the teacher; each of these may vary according to where the teacher is in his or her professional development.
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From page 59... ...
Questions and comments demonstrate understanding of literal meaning of story being told. · Displays reading and writing attempts, calling attention to self: NLook at my story.N Can identify about 10 alphabet letters, especially those from own name.
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From page 60... ...
abilities to relational and abstract terms and finer-shaded meanings; · knowledge of the early development of speaking and of listening compre hension skills, and the kinds of syntactic and prose structures that preschool children should be in the course of mastering; · information on young children/s sense of story; · information on young children/s sensitivity to the sounds of language; __=~ =-r · information on young children/s understanding of concepts of print and the developmental patterns of emergent reading and writing; · information on young children/s development of concepts of space, including directionality; · knowledge of fine motor development; and · knowledge about how to instill motivation to read. Young teachers need support from mentor teachers as they develop.
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