Essay Early Literacy in Education

3. Assessment of Literacy Development in Early Childhood is a research that was conducted by Johnson, Peter H, and Rogers, Rebecca. Both authors highly believe in assessing literacy development, since it is a huge aspect in students’ literacy development. Both authors state, “Most literacy assessment occurs in the school years because, at least in most Western countries, literacy learning is considered the responsibility of the school, though when school literacy instruction actually begins…In the United States, since the thirties, literacy-related assessment has occurred in the early years of schooling because of beliefs about the relationship between learning and development” (pg. 1).

Learning to read and write as a child is an experience that all can relate to. The average child learns to read and write at the early ages of three and four. Developing literacy at an early age is crucial to academic development as well as to performance in life. Early development can be just what a child needs to stimulate their minds, which in turn is assisting in the evolution of their future. The early and latter stages of development in a child’s literacy journey are the makings for their reading and writing skills. It also plays part in their analysis of obstacles as well as their developed or problematic literacy future. A child

Phonics will start to be taught in nursery or reception and a child will not be able to learn to read without proper understanding of phonics.

“The more you read, the more things you know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go” –Dr. Seuss. Dr.Seuss could not be any more right. It is often said that once you find the right book, you could go anywhere. Literacy is one of the most important things that a child could ever learn. In order to succeed in society today, one must be able to read, write, speak and even listen. There has been great debate over the different approaches when it comes to teaching children how to read. This essay will go more in depth on both approaches, how the writer learned how to read, how the writer will teach their students how to read.

Emergent literacy is important because the literacy development begins earlier than formal schooling. Phonological awareness, letter names, and letter-sound knowledge are essential for beginning reading instruction. Phonemic awareness is a strong predictor of success in the first two years of schooling. Additionally, letter knowledge is the first step to learn the alphabetic principle and one of the most important early reading skills. Several studies investigated Visual Phonics with preschoolers and revealed significant improvements during these fundamental early years.

Literacy is important for young children. It’s so much a child has to know before entering kindergarten. The Essentials of Early Literacy Instruction stressed the importance of teaching literacy. Early literacy is an emerging g set of relationships between reading and writing. Today a lot of terms have been referred to for literacy development for preschoolers the term that’s mostly used is early literacy. The term was chosen because the earliest forms of literacy development are forming reading and writing concepts. Linking early literacy to play is the most effective way to for young children to learn. There are many ways educators can teach literacy activities such as rich teacher talk, storybook reading, phonologic awareness activities, alphabet activities, support for emergent writing, shared book experience, integrated, and content-focused activities, Young children understand print by oral and written language. Asking students to help read a book and turn the page help them understand the basics of a book. There are at least three critical content categories in early literacy: oral language comprehension, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. Children need to learn phonological awareness, alphabet letter knowledge, the function of written language, a sense of meaning making texts, and vocabulary. Alphabetic writing is quite difficult once children understand the language of their community they learn which words stand for which concepts in that language.

Phonics is defined as the process where children are able to hear a sound, and be able to connect the sounds of letters in the alphabet. Phonics does not only consist of being able to read and pronounce every letter of the alphabet. It also helps guide children on how to be fluent readers and writers, keeping in mind that not everyone one learns at the same pace. Fluent readers and writers have an automatic knowledge of what they are seeing and the ability to create words and sentences in order to be able to get to provide the message that they are trying to get across. While emergent readers see the print as something different from what they normally understand. This can make it difficult for emergent readers to be able to grasp the knowledge

Learning more about early literacy has made me aware of important literacy skills and ways to correctly incorporate literacy into my classroom. Thinking back to my prior misconceptions of kindergarten classrooms I viewed stations as only play activities for students. I didn’t make the connections between the print that they would be exposed to in the grocery and kitchen area of a play center or the vocabulary that they were building upon through the communication with the other students. Learning more about literacy and how it develops has made me realize the importance of these stations and the importance of the teacher modeling and preparing these stations for the students to ensure they are successfully benefiting from the centers.

The two common methods of teaching reading that are used around the world are phonic and whole langue. Both phonic and whole language are two approaches to teaching children in the classroom. However, the ongoing debate over the best method to teach children to read focuses in those methods. There are many good arguments on its side, but never one of them has enough evidence to persuade people that one is a better one than the other. Indeed, the phonic-based reading instruction is a method that help young children to read and spell words. For pros of phonics, children can use the systematic approach to decode unfamiliar words. Also, for them phonic is formulaic. One the basic are learned, it is easy to read a variety of literature. However,

Phonics instruction is a very important aspect of developing early reading skills. The ability to decode words and blend sounds is necessary to be able to read text. This skill increases the amount of words that are recognizable upon site, thus increasing reading fluency. There are different types of phonics instruction, including embedded and synthetic instruction, that aid in integrating phonics and reading instruction for

When children are learning to read, they will move through different stages. Children will move through these stages at their own pace, some will require more time and others may be ahead and understand the level of reading. It is important for the different stages to be recognised and these different stages are:

When parents read to their children, children have the opportunity to see a variety of things that are new to them children but others have meaning to them or they just recognize them.

In order for a child to excel in school they need to be well versed in reading therefore; I believe that it is vital for all children to learn to read. Not only should reading be a fun and enjoyable experience but something that influences the child to succeed in all subject areas. Reading is an integral part of life that needs to be mastered. A child can master the basics of reading in the early years and should be learned at that time due to the aggravation and frustration of learning those skills later on, as he/she gets older. Although there are many children and adults alike that hate to read it is our job to spark an interest in these children so they will find reading enjoyable. All of the aspects of

For a child who is just starting to learn to read, they need sufficient practice in reading a variety of different books to achieve fluency. Reading can be complex and has many different aspects (Burns,1999). It is suggested that children who have problems reading and writing at a young age will find it hard to catch up as they get older and will not reach their full potential as adults, many will withdraw from school or society and some becoming involved with crime (MacBlain,2014). 40 percent of children find learning to read a challenge but with early help, most reading problems can be prevented (Reading Rockets, n.d.).

Constructive early language and literacy development can be an ally to opening a child’s (ren) imagination; this will enhance and empower their potential to become successful readers. As the children grow (birth to 3 yrs. old) their brain goes through an extradinary developmental process and they begin to think, learn, communicate and rationalize things. When this early developmental stage is not being nourished the child will feel the affects of it in the long run. Children that come from low-income families that are enrolled in schools are affected the most. Educators and parents can assist these children by giving them the support (early-on) that they need to sustain a healthy learning environment. As educators it is our duty to create an environment that will help in this process.