Summary: Emergent Writing In Preschoolers

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).

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.

Starting from the parents, the child must inherit the instinct of wanting to learn to read, developing the curiosity that comes with the increase of knowledge, interaction with others and building positive memories, that motivate the child’s learning to read. An approach that Vygotsky supported promoting scaffolding, a guided process that adults use to teach students how to master a skill, in this case a reading and writing skills. Children begin from the womb recognizing parent’s voices, singing tone for then building connections through prints and letter sounds in an environment that promotes literacy with stories, songs, games, group activities with families, “All about me” share, and “Show and tell”, to display and build a sense of belonging in the class. Nevertheless, incorporating strategies or methods that facilitate learning to read stimulated by own personal learning style. Most young children learn kinesthetically and are visually-sensory prompted to hands on experiences, using appropriate materials in a different setting. Foremost, with an ongoing informal and formal assessment to evaluate students’ pre-knowledge at the beginning of the scholastic year, students’ way of learning, feelings, and connections through the year, and at every lesson, check for understanding, and ways to improve the next step. Ongoing assessment is part of the whole learning process, it will tell you how the students learn, and achieve appropriate reading and writing goals. A good reader promotes a good writer and vice versa, but a firm stepping stone during the developmental stages, in rich literacy environments, attempting to positive interactive experiences, and always monitored, influences the chances of the child sense of wanting to learn to

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

Timothy Rasinski and Nancy Padak, in their article, “Write Soon!” from The Reading Teacher (2009) emphasize that reading and writing are important skills and explain how parents can easily incorporate them into everyday life. They support this idea by presenting simple ways that parents and their children can do this, such as writing notes to each other, exchanging journals, or making lists. The authors wrote this article in order to help teachers guide parents through developing and supporting their child’s literacy. Rasinski and Padak’s writing is aimed toward teachers who can ultimately use these instructions to encourage

Writing Is a kind of typing symbols, letters and other writing tools to help the writer communicate with the reader or connect his ideas. It is the fourth skill in language skills and the most one that needs creation and imagination. In this essay, I am going to write about the importance of developing writing.

Teachers, who are aware of children becoming emergent writers, can better understand the amount of effort and concentration required. Teachers can appreciate the value of observing children’s early writing for evidence of children’s developing phonological knowledge of written language.

There are many factors which can aid language development, particularly through writing (Watts et al., 2013). Jones and Coffey (2013) identified that writing should be developed procedurally through copying, initially at word level- to learn spellings and develop familiarisation with vocabulary and individual letters. Before then progressing to phrase-level and on to sentences. It is thought that through copying the children are beginning to memorise the vocabulary and can help them to engrain key sentence structures, as they pay close attention to the individual words and spellings. Macaro (2006) has also identified that copy-writing is often used as a way of remembering spellings for new target vocabulary. Hurrell (1999) criticises the motion of copy-writing: as it gives the children too many things to focus on.

“Literacy learning has a profound and lasting effect on the social and academic lives of children. Their future educational opportunities and career choices are directly related to literacy ability. Since early childhood is the period when language develops most rapidly, it is imperative that young children are provided with a variety of developmentally appropriate literacy experiences throughout each day, and that the classroom environment is rich with language, both spoken and printed. Early childhood teachers are responsible for both understanding the developmental continuum of language and literacy and for supporting each child’s literacy development.

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.

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.

Analysing children’s writing is critically important because it allows teachers to have an understanding of what the child knows already, and what he/she needs to build on with their writing (Stewart, 2012). In the paragraphs ahead, two samples have been chosen and have been analysed using the Victorian Essential Learning Standards and the Western Australia First Steps Developmental Continuum.

Literacy consists of a range of ways to understand and decode symbols for communication in a community (Barratt-Pugh & Rohl, 2000, p. 25). Emergent literacy is a term used to describe how young children interact with books, reading and writing (What is Emergent Literacy, 2006, p.1). Emerging literacy is an ongoing process and to ensure this process is successful children need to be stimulated through active engagement with books and writing opportunities.

Emergent literacy replaced the term reading readiness through the 1980s-1990s. Emergent literacy is based upon the notion that children learn literacy skills through print. Teale and Sulzby (1991) proposed that emergent literacy be recognized as a new model for conceptualizing young children 's written language development. Teale and Sulzby defined emergent literacy as "the reading and writing concepts, behaviors, and dispositions that precede and develop into conventional literacy" (Teale, 1995, p.107).

Genesis is a ten year old African American female and is in the fifth grade. She lives in a low income neighborhood with her Grandmother whom has sole custody. While Genesis’ Grandmother would like to play a more active role in her granddaughter’s education, she works a full time job and has health problems that prevent her being able to drive. Genesis was in my fourth grade Read 180 class and is with me again as a fifth grader. I selected this student because she is strong in phonemic awareness, yet her writing scores are weak and she needs the most individualized support in writing.