Transcription
Andy Johnson Minnesota State University. So what would you see in an emergent literacy classroom in which instruction was developmentally appropriate? You would see these five elements, and we are going to look at each one.
For literacy to occur, there will be lots of conversation with children, which is different than giving directions and talking to them to develop their oral language and expand their vocabulary. Oral language ability, vocabulary, general knowledge are all strong predictors of reading achievement and comprehension later on. So this talk would be both planned and incidental opportunities to interact children with each other, and uh, both planned and incidental and teaching of specific knowledge, both planned and incidental. You're teaching concepts about the world that we live in and vocabulary with that. Very important, the basis of solid reading.
There would be teachers reading books, lots of reading. There would be teachers reading big books. A big book is a book that is big, and you point to the letters as you read them. And sometimes you echo read, where you read a line and they echo it back. Sometimes you choral read, where you read it together. The teacher would be modeling reading of environmental print, which are lists and signs and things found around the room, or a McDonald's sign or a milk sign or other things. There'd be picture reading or pretend reading, where children retell a story using the pictures in the book. All right, that is a first stage of reading.
There would be recorded books, where children would be able to listen on, uh, with a headset, and just lots of books laying around preschool and kindergarten, developmentally appropriate. Lots o' writing. Language experience approach, where you ask students what they want to say, and you dictate a sentence or a paragraph. Again, you can read that back using coral reading or echo reading. Language experience exploration, simply a lot of whiteboards and papers and old typewriters and stuff laying around for children to mess around. And here's a good example of that, just lots of writing utensils written around. Writing emerges, it develops as we create the opportunities and the correct things in the environment. It's another good example of of children messing around, and that's an adult right there who's kind of modeling the writing. Writing which is drawing and writing together. Here's, uh, beginning writing. You can't make out what it says, but then an adult came by and said, "Gus, what does your story say?" And and she writes down what she said. Here is drawing again. "Dear Andy, I rode my bike without training wheels. I rode to Oby's house again." That is a letter. Clifford the Big Red Dog, examples of drawing, writing, ding, combination of the two. This is great. Provides structure. First, we, then we, finally the. "It was a terrific day." All right, uh, provide structure, and they can go home and read their story. This is developmentally appropriate writing. "I saw four birds." That's a good example of drawing. This is, uh, invented or temporary spelling. Predictable stories are great. "An apple is in each of the child children," uh, gave a descriptor. "An apple is hard. Apple is smooth." They can read their own, and you can, uh, read this coral reading or echo reading practice reading that and pointing to the words. "I like this one. I like red apples, green apples, yellow apples." And, uh, the teacher actually had the word "red" in red print, uh, around here, so you could model. So you could look at the word "red" and you could actually write it in there. Again, scaffolding to make sure that children experience success. Here's more predictable writing. "I like to eat. My name is." Each child can do that, or you can do this with one student.
The teacher would be modeling writing, writing in front of the children. "Let's see, what do I need to remember today? What are we going to do? What should we write on our list? Play." This is how children learn and come to know the world. They explore. They model. You use play to both introduce and reinforce learning. This could be concept learning. If you're teaching about birds, you have a bunch of bird toys, or if you're teaching letter sounds, you have play things that reinforce that letter sound. Flashcards, computer games, and use your imagination. Here you do have planned, systematic, direct, and explicit instruction. What you say, "I thought you were child-centered." Yes, it's not the what, it's the how, and it's the how much. A lot of instruction is 30 seconds to four or five minutes, closer to 30 than four or five. All right, very short, incidental. But you plan when you're going to teach certain things. Systematic in that you keep a record of when you teach what skills. And I recommend teaching consonants and consonant blends and maybe, uh, some letter sounds and starting on phonograms. All right, but you keep track of that. These are some things that you would see in an emergent literacy classroom.