Reading Ed 430: Emergent Lit Readings

"The Jones Family's Culture of Literacy"
This reading focused on the impact that family culture and literacy has on the development of emergent reading and writing in children. The passage and research is encompassed within the Jones family. Three women (grandmother, mother, and daughter) influence kindergarten niece KiKi's views of literacy and how language is used in a variety of different contexts. The overall consensus drawn from the research is that this family seeks to use reading and writing as a positive and empowering tool.
I thought that this article was a little vague and disconnected from the other readings and topics when I first read it at home. I think it is good to establish that this family, though living in a low income region, is using literacy for positive and advancing purposes. It was also a good outline of the many different ways in which we can use reading and writing to communicate. After class discussion I found the article more beneficial as a precaution to judging people based on their socio economic status and therefore their literacy status. Also that there are many forms and purposes literacy can be used for.

"Letting Go of 'Letter of the Week'"
By engaging in a project/study "literacy dig," two teachers found a more effective and positive way to introduce emergent readers to the alphabet. This approach uses symbols and names (McDonalds or the student's names) to show students that they are already readers and help them link the sounds of letters to sounds of words they already know. This promoted student confidence and an interest in learning to read.
I enjoyed reading about this different approach to the "standard" letter of the week method of teaching the alphabet. It draws on student's prior literary knowledge and proves to them that they are already readers, thus boosts confidence. I think that this approach could work very well for many students an would take much planning by the teacher. However, I do worry that some students may become confused and there is the question of when do you actually teach the students what each letter is. I am not certain if this approach alone would work, but I do think that starting off by proving to the students that they are already readers is great to keep this confidence and interest. I think there may need to be a balance between learning the letters and teaching students to understand letters based on the sounds of words they already know.

"Classrooms that Work" Chapter 3
This chapter focused on building the foundation of literacy through teacher instruction and classroom surroundings. Again, this instruction for learning the alphabet and its sounds used student names. And pointed out that we must teach some common words such as the, with, have....because these words hold such abstract meaning it is hard for the students to conceptualize. Teachers should also make their classroom print rich. This means lots of books and genres, magazines, newspaper, also label objects in your room. This is a great way for the students to be able to attach visual meaning to words. Read alouds are so important to develop fluency and word recognition. Children also do well with nursery rhymes and poems. Teachers also need to be encouraging and not too quick to correct. Rather model the correct writing in their responses. The teacher can encourage reading and writing through different centers such as a restaurant or post office. This chapter was filled with many good ideas on how to promote student interest in reading and writing. As teachers, we need to be good models and allow children to explore literature.