I Choose Marie Clay As My Literacy Research

Emergent literacy is the earliest period or stage of learning to read and write (Temple, Crawford, Ogle & Freppon, 2014, p13). It is a process involving the development of language and print concepts, especially as they begin to link together. Children learn how to read before they are taught how to read. Starting as early as birth, they acquire some knowledge about language, reading and writing prior to entering school. The development occurs in the everyday contexts of the home and the community. Nevertheless, there are several elements for children to acquire in order to fully develop their awareness of literacy.

Both articles, Emergent Literacy by Ruth Wilson, and Emergent Literacy:Early Reading and Writing Development by Froma Roth, Diane Paul, and Ann-Mari Pierotti, deal with understanding the genesis of literacy and identifying key connections that all children make.

he most fundamental responsibility of schools is teaching students to read. Indeed, the future success of all students hinges upon their ability to become proficient readers. Recent scientific studies have allowed us to understand more than ever before how literacy develops, why some children have difficulty, and what constitutes best instructional practice. Scientists now estimate that fully 95 percent of all children can be taught to read. Yet, in spite of all our knowledge, statistics reveal an alarming prevalence of struggling and poor readers that is not limited to any one segment of society:

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

children learning to read and write, as well as being an important predictor of reading in

Literacy plays a huge role in my daily life. Every single day I read and write. Whether it’s writing an email or reading a text message, class assignment, discussion board, etc. My literacy journey is unique because I have had different experiences. As a result, this is how my literacy journey has let me to be the reader that I am.

Clay, M. M. (2005). Finding and Using the Information in the Print'. In Literacy lessons

Marie Clay was a psychologist in New Zealand in 1948. She began her dynamic introduction into the reading world with her idea of Reading Recovery. Reading Recovery began as an idea of how to help students who were behind in reading, in the first grade. Clay researched

The article concluded that “reading development starts before formal instruction” (Mol, 2011, p. 22) and that print exposure coupled with examples of leisure reading to model after were factors in literacy success and leisure reading habits of the student (Myers, 2014, p. 261). Also, in order to narrow the gap between strong readers and struggling readers, more needs to be done to put leisure reading materials in to the hands of struggling readers.

McGee and Richgels recognized four different stages of literacy development, which are the beginners, novices, experimenters, and conventional readers and writers. The first stage, which is the beginners, are children from birth to 3 years old age. These children are focused on awareness and exploration and have yet to find meaning in written symbols. Second is the novices, these children are 3 to 5 years of age and are conscious of writing. Thirdly, is the experimenters which are ages 5 to 7. During this stage, children become familiar with letters and are beginning to invent spellings. Lastly is the conventional readers and writer stage which is seen in ages 6 to 8. During this stage, children learn to read and write like adults do.

Reading – the ability to represent the sounds of language by written symbols has existed for approximately 4000 to 5000 years and is inarguably one of the most fundamental and wonderful technique humans have ever developed. However, despite much effort and funding dedicating to wide literacy development, even now in America for instance, 50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level (National Center for Learning Disabilities). In order for the entire population of today’s society to have proper reading skills, scholars and educators around the world realize that literacy movements need to focus on much earlier stages of human development. Researchers in the education field have reached a consensus that reading is crucial in childhood by revealing supporting evidence from studies focused on children aged 0-6 years, 6-12, and young adolescents. Many interesting findings also include that reading proficiency of children is critical because it can reflect society’s criminal and economical status. Moreover, modern studies show that the importance of childhood reading cannot be fully explained without mentioning the environment where children are raised, as the environment greatly affects children’s reading proficiency.

A child’s home environment is critical to their cognitive development and linguistic skills which are an important factor in early literacy development. Previous studies have identified reading aloud to children and shared reading can aid in building the necessary skills and understanding for reading. Print exposure is an important prerequisite for children to understand the phonemic structure of langue and identify letters. When parents guide their children through reading, it helps children’s understanding, learn vocabulary, and learn strategies for information processing. Based on the child’s environment there are important difference in families use of langue and reading related to academic functioning. It is unknown if the family’s literacy environment impacts the child’s reading or academic functioning with children with reading disabilities.

There are a variety of approaches teaching students to read, such as: the basal reading approach, literature based instruction approach, integrated language art approach, language instruction approach, and technology based approach. Which approach or combination of them a teacher will use in the classroom depends on the teacher’s beliefs and students’ needs. It is not easy to find out which approach would work best for each child; the teacher’s responsibility is to find alternative approaches to help each child reach the literacy goal – to help students become independent readers.

During this period of time, children are in the emergent stage of reading. Children begin this stage at birth to five years of age. According to Juel, C. (1991), “during the emergent stage, young children gain an understanding of the communicative purpose of print, and they move from pretend reading to reading predictable books and from using scribbles to simulate writing to patterned sentences” (p. 115). During this stage teachers utilize a range of activities like modeled and shared reading and writing activities. Examples of these activities would be talking, reading aloud, singing, drawing, and writing. At this stage young learners begin to understand that speech can be written down on paper.

This research paper is intended to gather information on the subject of the practice implemented for reading and writing in primary level. However, the research paper continues to evolve to meet the needs of a world marked by continuous change or effective action. Crafted from the primary level literacy course, this broad in scope and thoroughly concerned with concrete problems or data rather than with fundamental principles text continues to cover the information needed by both new and experienced teachers in order to teach effective literacy in the primary level, thereby following this with the specific strategies to use in the classroom to develop successful teenage or primary readers and writers. Nevertheless, arousing or