NAEYC
One of the main points that I gathered from the NAEYC
reading was that children need to be exposed to reading and writing early in
life. Children begin to understand some print concepts very early on. Reading
skills develop early on. Just because a child is not reading words on a page
does not mean that they are not reading. They can be reading through picture
and symbol recognition, through facial expressions, through environmental
print, and many other things. Before you can read words you have to be able to
understand the use of symbols.
Bell and Jarvis
I think one of the main ideas of this article is that we as
teachers should make a point to value all children readers no matter what
academic level the children are at. I absolutely love Bell’s (2002) statement,
“I was not going to look at my five-year-olds as nonreaders; I wanted to
empower children with the knowledge that they were already readers…” (p.12). I
think this is such a strong statement because giving the children the power and
knowledge that they already are able to read can help significantly with
confidence and attitudes. The environmental print activity described in the
article is a great example of this. It is so important to build children up
from wherever they start and to show them that you believe in them, and that
you are going to work on getting even better together.
Yopp and Yopp
Yopp and Yopp (2000) say that phonemic awareness instruction
for young children should be playful and engaging, interactive and social,
stimulate curiosity and experimentation with language, should be deliberate and
purposeful, and should be viewed as only a part of literary instruction.
(p.130) I think it is important to remember to reflect about teaching lessons
in order to really decide if the lesson is helping the children to understand
and further their education.
Here is a link to a blog post I found last year about an environmental print activity you can do with Kindergartners. I love that she starts out the year proving to the children that they can in fact read when they still think they cannot.
I used to think that looking at pictures was not considered reading. However, after reading these articles and talking about it in class, I now believe that pictures are vital in helping children become literate. I loved the Environmental Print Activity. Great find! This is closely related with Donna Bell's strategy of instilling reading confidence and assuring the children that they can in fact read. I think that would be a great activity for every Kindergarten teacher to use in his/her classroom.
ReplyDeleteI really like the print activity you provided! Especially, because I want to teach in schools that could have lower funding or may even be in impoverished areas abroad, and an activity like that would allow students to feel more empowered and motivated. I also like that it could be applied even on lower budgets and with limited access to technology or other resources. It encourages students to go find reading, rather than feel helpless in their circumstances.
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