EDRG 3344-350 Blog #2: Chapter 4

Chapter 4 of our text was incredibly interesting, and as many of you said, this is a book that I am most definitely going to keep throughout my teaching career! I absolutely love how it constantly gives examples of how to incorporate the numerous literacy activities into different lessons. Right at the beginning of reading the chapter, I had such great esteem for the lessons that Mrs. Kirkpatrick did with her students involving the book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. It is of such significance that as teachers we realize that you cannot just read a book aloud to a child (of any age) and expect them to comprehend and retain any valid amount of knowledge; it just isn’t that easy. While reading this, my mind kept referring back to the lesson in class where we listed out the pre, during, and post reading activities to do with the children to enhance any story. In order for children to preserve the story, we must get them ACTIVELY involved, and relate the story in ways that are significant to them. I definitely have the boxes on page 110 and 111 stared and will in some way use the ideas presented in my classroom!

I found the section about incorporating literacy play centers in the classroom to foster reading and writing so interesting. As a child I remember always playing teacher, doctor, grocery store, etc. and I especially remember how I just LOVED to get my parents old check books and pretend that I was writing out checks. Little did I know then (and had no clue until just now) that this was teaching and introducing me to reading and writing, and like the book said, the important role that they both play in our lives. It would have never occurred to me that such simple things, that are playful and about having fun, are really teaching children the value of literature. As educators of young children (first grade and below) we “teach children to sing the ABC song to that they will have a strategy to use to identify a particular letter”. I have found firsthand that doing this, and keeping it consistent in a routine manner is a very important strategy that is affective in introducing young children to reading and writing. In my classroom at work (I remind you I teach 2 year olds), I taught my children the ABC song, and once they had it memorized and can sing it on their own, I introduced them to the print letters. Then as we sing the song, I point to each letter and they are starting to recognize which letter is which in print. Don’t get me wrong, they by no means have the whole print alphabet memorized! I then took it a step further and matched pictures with the print letters (“A” apple, “B” bear, etc.). After repeating this daily over a period of time, I noticed that they were starting to, for example, see the letter “C” and say cat because they remembered that every time we look under the “C” it is a cat! This method was talked about in the book and it really does help the children learn their phonics. This experience of mine definitely supports the data in the book saying that children start learning literacy as young as 12 or 14 months of age. Well I better stop here before I write a whole paper about this chapter because I could go on and on! I look forward to reading everybody’s thoughts on chapter 4!