Loving Literacy

The article, “Nurturing Emergent Readers Through Readers Theater”, by Kelli Jo Kerry Moran, was pretty intriguing to me. I think it sounds like a great idea in which to get children of all ages involved. I think it would be a little more difficult, however, with younger children, esp. if they can’t read. Obviously, you would have to modify some of the lines or just have them say a couple of things that are easy to remember. I wonder if any of the teachers in the class have done this before and how did it go?  Readers Theater sounds like something to not only help students develop their literacy skills, but also get them more comfortable with speaking in front of others. Though some kids are more shy than others, I would think for the most part that most kids would jump at the chance to do something like this. I know I would have loved it as a kid! Like it says in the article, children want to perform well in front of others so they will be more motivated to practice their performance.  It would take a lot of patient on the part of the teacher and the students, but like it says, it is important to be persistent. Overall, it sounds like a great way to help literacy skills evolve, and I would love to see it in action one day!

When I first read in Chapter 5 about the internet and computers helping children with their beginning literacy skills, I was not so crazy about the idea, and I’m still not completely sold on it. I think it depends on how it is used. If it is in fact, merely used to supplement other instruction, and it still engages the children, then I definitely think it could be useful. I could see it becoming a problem, however, if it is the only thing used to teach literacy skills. I know that is not the capacity in which they were talking about it, but it’s important to be aware of that fine line. I feel there are many benefits to classroom and one-on-one skill instruction when it comes to literacy. It is also important for children to communicate with each other and explore things, instead of staring at a computer screen.  So, overall, I think it can be used, as long as it is how they describe, a support.

“But it is up to teachers to recognize that children’s existing frames of reference are the primary raw material for new learning, rather than some static predetermined academic language”

The above quote, taken directly from “A culpable CALP: Rethinking the conversational/academic language proficiency distinction in early literacy instruction” by Maren Aukerman, is one that I absolutely agree with. While I was reading this article, I kept thinking to myself how arbitrary the CALP seems. I know it is useful in some respects, as we need some way to determine the language level of english language learners, but it also seems too restrictive. Language is such a broad concept that it is really hard to base someone’s knowledge off of how their language was at one certain point and time. Like the quote says, it is important to look at the child, their experiences, and from where they are coming, and base their language learning off of that, instead of solely on a score. I think it is still important to consider their CALP, just don’t neglect other factors that influence their language learning.

On Tuesday, I had my very first session with the child I’m using for my Kidwatching project. He is three, and will be four on Feb. 14th! I did the assessment of name writing activity and was very impressed that he was able to represent all the letters in his name except for the “e”. He was very close though! I will talk about this more with my group tomorrow, but I what I found interesting is that he was very adamant about not drawing a picture of himself. Obviously, I wasn’t going to push the issue as I wanted him to cooperate with me! Instead of drawing himself, he said he wanted to draw something “yummy and delicious”. He proceeded to draw a circle with a green crayon, that he said was a cantelop. He then told me to color it in. Cantelope is one of his favorite things to eat but I was just curious as to why he didn’t want to draw himself? Don’t most kids want to draw pictures of themselves? I could be completely overanalyzing this, as he may have just not been in the mood for it. Any insight?