Emergent Literacy

All of the readings for this week are centered around building the foundation for literacy.  The texts talk about how to present children with the opportunity to read and write at a very young age.  Even if they can't actually read, or they just write scribbles on a piece of paper.  The earlier they get familiar with the concepts, the better.  In "The Jones Family's Culture of Literacy", one family is followed and observed on how they use literacy in the household.  Literacy is not just reading textbooks and writing papers.  It is used in our everyday lives.  This family used literacy through letters, newspapers, magazines, etc.  They used whatever resources they had to grow in their learning.  In both "Letting Go of Letter of the Week" and the textbook, it is recommended to use students names to teach letters and sounds instead of the traditional separate A, B, C, etc.  All of the texts emphasize the importance of sparking an interests in literacy in our children, and allowing them to learn to enjoy literacy and become more self confident in their reading.

I personally got a lot out of the readings.  I knew it was good to read to your child at a young age, but I didn't know exactly how important it really is.  One idea that I absolutely love that is mentioned in the textbook and the "Letter of the Week" article is using the students names to teach letters and sounds.  This makes it so much more personable, and I think they would get so much more out of it than just learning separate letters each week.  They would really understand the separate "chunks" of letters in a word, and what sounds they make.  I really enjoyed that article, and have already shared it with a friend from home who is about to start her first year of teaching.  Through all of these readings, I think the biggest thing I got out of them is that literacy is everywhere and it is important to really encourage our children to grow and learn to love literacy.