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Chapter 3
Early Literacy from Birth to School
By: Vanessa Tobon and Jaclyn Clark
2. Literacy modeled
Journey to literacy examples
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Leslie Anne was read to by her grandmother
starting at 6 months.
- She knew how to hold a book up, to use a distinct
voice in reading, and to stay at each page for a short
time.
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Irma grew up in an illiterate home and did not
know what to do with books when she checked
them out from the library.
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Lesson for educator: learn students’ background
and break the cycle of illiteracy
3. Stages of Literacy
Development
Adopted by the International Reading Association (IRA) and National
Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
• Awareness and Exploration
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Birth through preschool
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Interest in print
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Logographic knowledge: environmental print
• Experimental Reading and Writing
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Kindergarten age
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Understanding of basic concepts of print with sustained
reading activities, writing activities, rhyming, and writing
letters of the alphabet as well as high frequency words
4. 1. Early Reading and Writing:
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First Grade: Formal instruction
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Simple stories read and retold
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Accurate word identification skills
2. Transitional Reading and Writing
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Second Grade: reading with greater fluency
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Use Cognitive and Metacognitive strategies (Piaget’s formal
operations stages – constructivist)
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Children are capable of performing various facets of reading and
writing.
3. Independent and Productive Phase
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Third grade on
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Children are increasingly more sophisticated in reading and writing and
their ability to refine their literacy skills and strategies.
5. How Reading Develops
• Early Exposure
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Environmental Print
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Exposure to family members using print
• The Importance of Family Interactions
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“Kidwatching at the Supermarket”
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Low income: read by trial and error
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Important step of attention written language often denied at
home.
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Children must learn how print functions in their lives.
• The Importance of Literate
Environments
6. How Writing Develops
• The Importance of Scribbling
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Early Scribbling
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Controlled Scribbling
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Name Scribbling
• The Importance Invented Spelling
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Advantages of invented spelling
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Development stages of spelling
7. Developmentally Appropriate
Practices
• Creating Literate Environments
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Emphasis on warm, accepting environment for student to
interact with teacher in the same comfort as a child would
learn to speak at home
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Risk taking encouraged
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Questions respected
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Holdaway’s description of a natural, home-centered
language learning environment (1982)
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Children develop in their own way at their own rate.
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Parents are receptive and encouraging and not focused on making corrections.
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Parents have faith and patience in children.
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Parents do not create competitive situations with other children.
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Children learn in meaningful situations that support language learned.
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Children need reading models to emulate.
8. Designing Literacy-Related Play Centers
Literacy play centers in preschool and kindergarten:
provide an environment where children may play with print on their own terms;
provide natural context for beginners to experiment with literacy; and
promote literacy by giving children opportunities to observe one another using
literacy for real reasons.
1986 Roskos study of closely observing eight children during free-play situations
makes three recommendations:
1. create and frequently use play centers that facilitate sustained pretend play and prompt
experimentation with reading and writing; consider developing play centers that stimulate
young children to explore the routines, functions, and features of literacy
2. ask children to share pretend-play stories, record them on chart paper, and use for
extended language-experience activities
3. observe more closely the literacy at work in pretend play... observations may guide our
9. Several factors to consider when
designing literacy play centers:
1. Setting: places and contexts that are
familiar; setting should be general enough
for children to create their own stories
and themes
2. Locations of centers in the classroom:
locate in designated area of classroom;
label accordingly at children's eye level
3. Props in a play center: include real props
found in the environment and use for
dramatic effect or for literacy-related
activity; appropriateness of props depend
on their authenticity, use and safety
Teachers can assume any of the following
important roles in children's play:
1. Onlooker role: physically present nearby but
does not enter the play setting; teacher
may encourage children's play or give
suggestions
2. Stage manager role: teacher does not enter
the play but might make suggestions to
extend the play or respond to requests for
prompts
3. Co-player role: teacher becomes directly
involved in the play as a participant;
teacher will model and extend language
for the children; teacher is a fellow peer
4. Leader role: teacher is very directive and
models specific behaviors of play to be
adapted by the children; teacher will
introduce a new play theme, explain roles
and possible scripts, and introduce props
and print into setting; teacher switches
between participant and director
10. Exploring Print Through Language Experiences
Children have a desire to express themselves in symbolic terms through drawing, scribbling,
copying, and, ultimately, producing their own written language. Exploring written language
with paper and pencil helps children form the expectation that print is meaningful.
Talking, Creating, Singing, and Dancing
Language experience approach embraces the natural language of children and uses their
background experiences as the basis for learning to read.
Language experience activities permit young children to share and discuss experiences, listen to
and tell stories, dictate words, sentences, and stories, and write independently.
Teachers can revolve language experiences around speaking, listening, visual expression,
singing, movement, and rhythmic activities.
Use conversation to encourage individual or group language-experience stories or independent
writing.
use art as a vehicle for personal expression
tell stories through pictures
talk about everyday sights and occurrences
create dances that tell a story
11. Role Playing and Drama
Role playing and dramatic activities stimulate the imagination and also provide many
opportunities to use language inventively and spontaneously.
Role playing gives children the chance to approach ordinary or unusual events and situations
from different perspectives and points of view.
Dramatic play activities involve unstructured, spontaneous expression.
The objective of any kind of dramatic activity is self-expression.
Teacher's involvement is one of continuous encouragement and facilitation.
use children's literature for drama
engage children in problem solving situations as a start for spontaneous dramatic activity
12. Reading to Children
Create a love for books by reading aloud!
Reading to children helps them appreciate literature, develop and enrich their own
language, and build implicit concepts about reading and writing.
Reading to children provides models for writing as they develop a sense of plot,
characterization, mood and theme.
Reading to children is an important way of sharing books and provides valuable
stimulation for relating speech to print.
13. Sharing Books
Parents can share reading with their children
through bedtime stories.
The idea of shared reading is to use a "big
book" or other enlarged text to share a
story with a group of children or the whole
class.
The story becomes the basis for discussion and
language-related activities.
Shared reading creates opportunities for
children to learn what a book is, what an
"expert" reader does with a book as it is
read, and what makes a story a story.
Repeating the Reading of Favorite
Stories
The teacher should be willing to read and
reread favorite books and to invite
children to participate as much as
possible.
Language patterns of the books should be
predictable, melodic, and rhythmic.
When children memorize stories, pretending to
read actually establishes good models.
Providing Assistance as Needed
Parents should follow their child's lead and
answer any questions when their children
ask for assistance.
Children choose their own activities and
materials.
14. Beginning readers benefit from developmentally appropriate practices that
are home-centered, play-centered, and language-centered.
Developmentally appropriate practices must be age appropriate,
individually appropriate, and socially and culturally appropriate.
“To make a difference in children's literacy development, be aware of the
learning environment of the home, respect the diverse cultural milieus
from which children learn to use language, and develop strategies to build
on family strengths.”
As each child contributes different kinds of knowledge, values, attitudes
and strategies for literacy learning to school, appropriate school
experiences are key in realizing their full potential as literacy learners.
