Observing and Interacting With Professionals/Colleagues

I visited Mrs. C’s head start classroom on several occasions. Because we work for the same program, I was interested to see if she had different strategies than I do for promoting early literacy development. I went into the classroom at center time and it was very busy. I worked in the writing center with 4 children. The children each had a book and were doing a letter search activity. Mrs. C said they were to find the letters they had already covered in precious lessons. The children would write the letters in their journals on a page titled “Letters I know.” Each child took a turn naming the letters they found before writing it down. Some had a hard time with writing the letters so I helped by using a yellow highlighter to write the letter so that the child could trace over it.

After observing for a while, I spoke with Mrs. C. I asked about strategies that she used to promote early literacy skills and she talked about differentiated instruction, individualization and small group activities. For small group activities that the children work on independently (color and shape bingo), she has four children in a group; one child that speaks only English, one that is strong in both English and Spanish and the other two has very limited English. The child who spoke English was in charge of calling out the colors or shapes (with guidance) the one that is strong in both languages translates so that the other two would know what to do. She said shared reading and discussions also allowed the children to develop oral language skills. The classroom assistant moved around the room working with different groups of children while Mrs. C worked with a small group on creating AB patterns with counters.

I also visited Mrs. E’s Pre-K ESE classroom. This was different for me because I have never interacted with her children in the classroom before. When I went into her room it was during circle time and she was reading a story to the children. She has seven students with varying disabilities. Before reading each page she would ask the children questions about what they saw in the pictures. Even the students that were nonverbal were excited to participate. She was reading a story about the farm and inviting the children to come up to the book and point out the animals she named. They did a great job and I was surprise to see them sitting and being so involved in the story. I think that Mrs. E did a great job keeping the students engaged in the story and the discussion that was going on. When I spoke with her after the completion of her circle time she said her biggest challenge was the children with behavior problems. She said the calmest time for them is story time because they all like to be read to.

I learned that we are all working towards the same goal, we might have different strategies for doing things, but in the end we are all working to prepare these young children to have a successful future.

Professional Interviews

I interviewed two professional that gave me a lot of information on Early Literacy. Within this area there are many areas that are of interest to me. Some of the related topics we spoke about are oral language and language acquisition, and the importance of supporting and engaging students in developing these skills. Some other topics related to Early literacy is using language in conversation, listening to the sound of spoken language, vocabulary, learning about print and connecting sounds to letters and figuring out what reading is all about.

Some of the current issues we talked about that are related to these topics are second language learners and the importance of finding the students’ stage of language development and being able to support their learning within that stage of development. Also, bridging the gap between potential and achieving readers and getting the parents involved by preparing them to be their child’s first educator and factoring in a daily time for reading.

During the interview we also spoke of other issues commonly encountered in the work place or discussed by colleagues. Some of these issues are waiting too long to expose children of poverty to the basic elements of reading, teaching 4 and 5 year olds with little exposure to reading at home, the need for continued teacher training in Early Literacy and how to support families in learning to help their children, especially families who speak another language.

Advocacy efforts that are under way in the area of Early Literacy is building a strong foundation in oral language development and providing children and families with support by regularly scheduling parent workshops that provides information on development of per-reading skills and language development. Topics or issues that are of concern to the two professionals that I interviewed is improving family literacy, working with parents to promote the emerging literacy of their children and also, simultaneously strive to improve the literacy skills of the parents.

Insights that I have gained from my interviews regarding current advocacy efforts and needs in Early Literacy is that parents need to be more involved in the education of their children, but they sometimes lack the knowledge or skills necessary to help their children. I feel that oral language development and language acquisition is a big part of Early Literacy and it is important to get that point across. I also feel that it is important to help the parents to get the resources that are needed to help their children. The area of interest to focus on for me will be Early Literacy and the three related topic of my focus will be oral language development, language acquisition and print awareness.

Hi everyone! This is my first time blogging, I'm a little nervous. Good luck to all my classmates.