LEARNING ABOUT PRINT

 

Learning about Print

1. Consider what you have learned about scaffolding and then briefly explain how you would “scaffold” learning for a 4-year-old child who knows the first letter and sound of his or her name. As part of your response, describe how you would present to the child’s parent the purpose and importance of activities that scaffold learning about print. Cite this week’s Learning Resources to support your answer.

In scaffolding, we refer to an education environment where learned individuals engage in providing guidance of literal skills to children. Therefore, the need to scaffold children at tender age is vital in order to develop a good foundation at early stages. For effective scaffolding of a four-year-old child, you should create an environment that the child will be interested in doing the task. Through this action, you may include things that are attractive in the environment so that the child will not feel he or she is doing a strange activity. The involvement of toys and other child drawings may give the child an interest to know the language and thus effectively capturing his or her attention. In addition, this may make things easier in the task through splitting it into stages that create an understanding environment for the child. One should keep the child focused by constantly reminding him or her about the objectives of the exercise. According to Vukelich (2004), “highlight the important things in the study by pointing them for the child to understand”.

Importance of scaffolding

The importance of scaffolding is to present guidelines to the child in order to reduce perplexity. Through this interaction, the teacher will have the ability to identify the child’s weaknesses and find the appropriate ways of solving the problem. In addition, it also helps the child to understand the purpose of doing the task through which it enhances interest and clarification of ideas. This activity keeps the child busy by engaging him or her in activities that mould his life for the better. Consequently, through this task a child is prepared for the future tasks. Therefore, the child has an adjusting ability to the current activities in the modern world.

2. Imagine you are a new preschool teacher in a program that has several children who are English-language learners. (Each of these children’s home language is different and you are not fluent in any of them.) You observe that these children mainly engage in independent play, and when you inquire, the other teachers explain that they don’t speak the children’s languages and don’t know what else to do but “let them play.” In response to this situation, write a short script or list ideas for how to actively support young English-language learners in developing print-based literacy skills. Include suggestions for meaningful learning through play, and describe a specific instructional strategy that can work with all children, regardless of their first language. Cite evidence from the Learning Resources in the script or list to defend your reasoning.

Children need to develop print-based literacy skills because this is an important part of communication. According to Florida (2008), “The child needs to understand the structure of the book and the meaning or the theme of the writing”. There should be sharing of writing through which the students observe the teacher’s work and participate by responding. This encourages the students to discuss the opinion they want to draw or write about.

The following list of ideas is vital in developing literacy skills of children on prints:

a)      Help students to use letters and the sounds they know to put across their ideas through drawing or writing. In addition, you should answer the entire students’ questions regarding spelling. This helps the child to develop interest in learning due to the support you are offering.

b)      When the children have completed drawing or the writing activity, encourage them to re-visit their work. This gives them a chance to correct what they thing is wrong and to add other materials.

c)      Lastly allow the children to share what they have written with the other students. This also gives them the confidence about their print work.

3. In your own words, explain your understanding of the terms emergent reader and emergent writer and how concepts of print, phonemic awareness, and alphabet knowledge help children become emergent readers and writers. Cite evidence from this week’s Learning Resources to support your reasoning.The term emergent reader refers to a child having the initial education ideas of writing. This procedure involves the ability of a child to hold a book and open the first page. With regard to Richgels (2001), “there should be the ability to describe a picture and the words that are in the concern story”. An emergent writer is the person who is undergoing the changes in the early stages of writing. This process originates from the reading ability of a child through which a child advances in reading and writing as he or she matures.

The phonemic awareness is important because it helps a child in skills of combining words and sound and thus enhancing reading ability. The student alphabet knowledge is the ability to master every letter. The importance of this is to provide common vocabulary that enhances communication. Therefore, the phonemic and alphabet awareness benefits a child through enabling him or her to know both skills of reading and writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

 Florida., & Palm Beach Community College. (2008). Developmentally appropriate practices for young children .Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt Pub Co.

Richgels, D. J. (November 01, 2001). Phonemic Awareness. Reading Teacher, 55, 3, 274-78.

 

Vukelich, C., & Christie, J. F. (2004). Building a foundation for preschool literacy: Effective instruction for children’s reading and writing development. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.