Emergent Literacy

This weeks reading focuses on Emergent Literacy. Two perspectives that are focused on in emergent literacy are "emergent literacy" and "reading readiness".

Emergent literacy focuses on social environments where reading and writing are purposeful. Through these contexts children can gradually grasp how to create these form through writing and understand the reading forms. This differs from the reading readiness perspective which focuses on preparing students to read.

The reading readiness perspective teaches students how to read and other skills that are deemed necessary to be able to read. These skills include reading from left to right, skipping, recognizing shapes and colors, and cutting in a straight line with a scissors.

Of these two perspective the reading readiness perspective is the traditional perspective. I believe that large motor skills like skipping are irrelevant in teaching a student to read and write. The most important thing is exposing young students to numerous forms of print that they can connect with. Creating an environment where students can explore anything imaginable can engage a student's motivation to begin reading and writing.

Class 3/17/09

This weeks class was focused on reading. We did a number of activities these included a textbook evaluation, a video analysis, and a student presentation. However, I found the most interesting question posed during class to be whether to read aloud or not. I never would have thought that there would be such strong opinions about such a topic. I guess I never took into consideration that some people do not see as reading aloud as an important skill. I however am not one of those people. I believe that reading aloud helps students recognize words and make sense of what they are reading. It was good to hear however that others disagreed and thought that reading aloud is not helpful. Great to hear another perspective.

Class 3/02/09

In class we discussed speaking in the classroom and also peer reviewed artifacts for our final portfolio. Our student presenter for the night was Mariya. I thought she posed to very good questions. The first, which is more imporant in speaking accuracy or fluency. Secondly, are segmentals or suprasegmentals. In my opinion fluency and suprasegmentals are more important because they focus on the overall product. Where as, accuracy and segmentals focus on individual words and sounds. I believe the most important part in speaking is the message. Not how the message sounds. As long as it is understood and the meaning of it can be negotiated. In my opinion this is the more important aspect of speaking.
The peer review for our final portfolio went well. It is good to get something done before the end of the semester so I am not so rushed during finals week. I was glad to see that my group had made progress as well. It was good to see some examples of their work, because I was confused on what type of artifact would fulfill the standard I choose.

Speaking in the classroom

Speaking in the classroom. I recently sat through a presentation on TPR and TPRS. I was blown away. I think this teaching strategy provides so many opportunities for the students to create with language. Students can learn in context, exposed to language, and it is amazingly fun. Students are being active in the class, responding to a teachers instruction. Students are learning by doing or responding verbally. Students are not inclined to speak immediately. Rather, allowed to speak at their own pace, which lowers the anxiety level of the students. However, a couple of the limitations for this strategy is if a student is abesent from class and age level appropriateness. The content needs to be aligned to the appropriate level. This strategy can be incorporated with many other strategies for successful speaking activities in the classroom.