Good Morning Kendall Classmate:
In my blog I am planning to discuss the important role parents and teachers play in developing young readers. As we all know learning to read doesn't just happen. It is group support and is best accomplished when the parents and teachers share common methods and basic understanding about the reading process. I will be listing and discussing ways that the parents and teachers can help the child become a successful reader and ways to celebrate with the child.
Karen Skinner
This is a working blog.
ReplyDeleteGood Morning Karen!!!
ReplyDeleteThis topic sounds really interesting. In the county that I live about eight years ago, a program was created just to help young children and parents to step up on literacy. It is called Raising a Reader. This is there website http://www.raisingareader.org/site/PageServer?pagename=rar_homepage you might find some interesting information here. If you would like a phone/e-mail contact for you to talk with someone about the program and how they develop and how we work with families around literacy, I can give to you.
Good Luck!!!
Hello Carla,
DeleteThanks for this website. I will check this out.
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteI thought I would share with everyone more information about my subject. One of the ways that the parents and educators can work together with the child is by helping them learn to read. A child can learn to read if the parent participate and read aloud to the child. A child will gain confidence in their reading ability just by the parent reading to he or she. As the parent read to the child and the child try and mimic what the parent is reading, praise the child, do not call out mistakes, only give positive support for their achievements. Parents should have the child read and reread the same material over and over again. This will help the child to develop more confident reading ability.
Karen,
ReplyDeleteNice topic. We have similar topics. I think literacy is so important when it comes to our children. I never knew how important it was until I had my own children. I have one child that I read to and one child I didn't read to. My one child that I read and always talked to has become a great reader and she is only five versus my other child that I didn't support literacy with he is just now coming along with literacy.
Yes Jasmine, in my years of working with young children, I feel so bad for students who come from homes where there is no real family time where the parents read to the child because it really causes the child to fall far behind their peers. As a child, I started reading at a really early age, and it was due to the fact that my mother read and talked to me while carrying me inside of her. LOL as a matter of fact in my younger years, there was not a spelling bee that I did not win, and I read everything that I could get my hands on(even things I should not have been reading), I just loved words, big and small. Your child that is not a strong reader can improve though with all the help thats readily available. I am actually thinking of doing some tutoring after I graduate so that I can help with reading skills.
DeleteI interviewed 2 people who I thought could really bring some insight to my subject of literacy. I interviewed a Director of a library and I interviewed a Preschool teacher. I asked their ideas of literacy and was surprised to find that they too, are trying to push literacy and be advocates of literacy and helping young children with their reading skills. During my interviews, I was sure of my decision to go ahead with my area of interest and that is to focus on literacy with young children and the importance of it in our society and within our communities.
ReplyDeleteSome of the areas that I will focus on in my research will be “Instructional Methods for Teaching Literacy”, The School-Family Connections, Student Motivation for reading development.
Some of my questions for my colleagues would be: what are your strategies and methods that you have found works best for you? How do you bridge the gap between family and school connections and how do you motivate your students to make literacy a fun and learning experience at the same time?
Today, I would like to talk about Instructional Methods for Teaching Literacy. There has always been great debate over which method is best when teaching children to read. I personally believe that it is up to the individual to decide which method feels right to them. During my studies, I have found out that there are different ways in literacy can be taught. Two of the ways that literacy can be taught are Whole Language and Mixed Methods or The Balanced Approach.
ReplyDelete1. Whole language - whole language is teaching children to read for meaning. To begin with children are generally given high-quality, colorful books which contain a lot of repetitive text such as: “I am skipping” or “I am drinking”. Because there is repetition the child is able to predict the words and over time will start to recognize these words instantly. The nouns or verbs that differ on each page can be predicted by looking at the colorful picture alongside the text.
The focus of reading with whole language is on gaining the correct meaning, therefore there is less concern with reading accuracy. So if a child misreads a word such as “street” and instead replaces it with “road”, this would be considered fine as the error has not changed the meaning of the text. Children taught by this method will recognize words by their general shape.
2. Mixed Methods or Balanced Approach - This is exactly what it sounds like, a mixture of methods. This is the most common way that literacy is taught today among English speaking countries. Children are taught using a mixture of whole language and phonics (such as embedded, analytical and analogy phonics).
When a child (being taught with mixed methods) first learns to read books, which will probably be on their first day of school, the child will read using whole language skills. With mixed methods, however, importance is also placed on the child learning other skills such as the sounds of the language and how words work. So as they progress they will use both phonics and whole language skills. Of course each teacher teaches differently. So mixed methods isn't clear cut. Some teachers will use mainly phonics with a little whole language, or the opposite. It comes down to the personal experience and preference of teachers and their principals.
Teachers are always coming up with new ways to teach reading skills. I have heard the statement over and over again "The first teacher is the parent." Not only are you your student’s first teacher, you can also further help them during their school years if you know how they are learning to read.
I would love to have feedback back on my subject.
Karen M. Skinner