Chapter 4

1. Chapter 4 Fostering Emergent/Early Literacy

2. What is Emergent/Early Literacy • Early literacy • The child already has some knowledge of reading and writing. • Emergent Literacy • The child is on the verge of acquiring this reading and writing knowledge. • It consists of the reading and writing behaviors that evolve from children’s earliest experiences with reading and writing. • This grows into conventional literacy.

3. Essential Skills/Understandings for Emergent Literacy: What are Concepts of Print • What we say and what others say can be written down and read. • Words, not pictures, are read. • Sentences are made up of words and words are made up of letters. • Reading goes from left to right and top to bottom. • A book is read from front to back.

4. Concepts of Print Continued • What we say is divided into words. • Spaces separate written words. • Sentences begin with capital letters. • Sentences end with periods, question marks, or exclamation points. • A book has a title, an author, and sometimes an illustrator. • Students must develop phonological awareness and arrive at an understanding of the alphabetic principle.

5. What is a literacy rich classroom? • An environment that promotes opportunities for active reading, writing, listening, and speaking. • What are examples of how this can be done? • How could you arrange the classroom to most facilitate this type of environment?

6. Reading to Students • One of the best ways to develop students’ emergent literacy is to read interesting books to them. • It helps… • Develop children’s vocabulary. • Develop their experiential background. • Make them aware of the language of books. • Introduce them to concepts of print and how books are read. • Provide them with an enjoyment of reading.

7. How Can You Develop Story Structure? • Discuss literary language with your students. • Point out story elements • Characters • Setting • Problem • Events • Solution • Theme

8. How Can You Build Comprehension • During book discussions, ask a variety of questions, including those that involve • Important details • Sequence • Drawing conclusions • Making Inferences • Use questions as a way of • Drawing attention to important details. • Relating details so that a conclusion can be drawn. • Constructing main ideas. • Think of discussions as a way of sharing so that books can be more fully understood and enjoyed.

9. How Can You Help Students Make Personal Connections • After discussing a story, do follow-up or extension activities. • Use the book to develop learning centers. • Listening center—tape of story • Watch a videotape • Read other books by the same author. • Activity related to the book.

10. What is a Themed Approach? • A way to make connections using units of study. • Focus is a common topic or theme. • Example—Transportation • Read aloud books with a travel theme • Sing song and recite rhymes • Transportation vocabulary words • Environmental print—road signs, travel schedules, receipts.

11. What is Emergent Storybook Reading? • The evolving ability of a child to read storybooks. • Progresses from… • Simply telling the story using the pictures in the book or after hearing it read aloud. • Reading the book conventionally.

12. What is a Shared Book Experience? • The teacher reads aloud to students using a big book. • Books chosen usually have repetitive text or chants, songs, and poems. • Provides multiple exposures to a book. • Reinforces concepts of print.

13. What is a Language Experience Approach? • Approach to literacy teaching where one student or a group of students dictates a story to the teacher. • The dictated story is used for reading and writing instruction.

14. Steps in the LEA • 1. Teacher and student discuss the topic to be focused on in the dictation. Observations and opinions are exchanged. Oral language skills are developed and reinforced. • 2. The student dictates an account or story to the teacher, who records the statements to construct the basic reading material. • 3. The student reads the story several times (with the teacher helping as needed), until the story has become quite familiar. Reading comprehension is made easier by the fact that the student is reading material that is self-generated. • 4. Individual story words are learned, and other reading skills are reinforced through teacher-designed activities related to the story. • 5. Students move from reading their own dictation to reading other-author materials as they develop confidence and skill with the reading process.

15. Shared Writing • Both the teacher and students compose a story together. • The class writes about experiences they have had or about books that they have read. • Students can actual participate in the writing. • Students help with the spelling or writing of initial, medial, or ending sounds. • The teacher emphasizes reading for meaning and basic concepts about print.

16. When Should Writing Instruction Begin • Immediately!! • Reading and writing skills develop simultaneously and are interrelated. • Writing instruction is not handwriting, copying, or spelling instruction. • Writing development progresses from random scribbling to meaningful marks.

17. Consonant Sounds • Consonants are formed by obstructing or interfering in some way with the flow of the breath. • There are 25 consonant sounds in the English language. • Consonants can be distinguished by place and manner of articulation and voice. • Voiced consonant-accompanied by a vibration of the vocal cords-ex. /b/ • Voiceless consonant-no vibration is heard-ex. /p/

18. Consonant Sounds Continued Look at page 143. How do you use your tongue, lips, and teeth to form the consonant sounds? • Voiced stop-barn-/b/-lips; deer-/d/-tongue behind teeth; gate-/g/-back of mouth • Voiceless stop-pot-/p/-lips; time-/t/-tongue behind teeth; kite-/k/-back of mouth • Nasals-me-/m/-lips; now-/n/-tongue behind teeth; sing-/ng/-back of mouth • Voiced fricative-van-/v/-lips and teeth; this-/th/-tongue between teeth; zipper-/z/-tongue behind teeth; azure-/zh/-roof of mouth • Voiceless fricative-fan-/f/-lips and teeth; thin-/th/-tongue between teeth; sight-/s/-tongue behind teeth; ship-/sh/-roof of mouth; horse-h-throat • Voiced affricative-jug-/j/-roof mouth • Voiceless affricative-chip-/ch/-roof of mouth • Semivowels-we-/w/-lips; yacht-/y/-roof of mouth • Glides-whale-/hw/-lips • Liquids-ride-/r/-lips and teeth; lion-/l/-roof of mouth

19. Vowel Sounds • Vowels are articulated with the tongue, lips, and teeth. • Vowels are classified according to where they are articulated. • Look at page 144. Say each vowel sound. What do you notice about how it is articulated? • Why are /oy/ and /ow/ not included in the chart?

20. Vowel Sounds Continued

21. Effect of Environment Speech sounds are altered by the other sounds that surround them. This can cause confusion for children when trying to spell the words. • Nasalization-/m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ are partially absorbed by the preceding and following consonants (ex. ant spelled as at, sand spelled as sad). It helps to present –an and –am patterns as units versus as individual sounds: /a/ and /n/ or /a/ and /m/. • Syllabic consonants-/l/, /r/, /m/, and /n/ at the end of the word can represent a syllable (ex. letter spelled as letr, little as litl) • Affrication-astop of breath is followed by a fricative (ex. phonemes /t/ and /d/ are affricated when they appear before the /r/ sound (ex. train spelled as chran; drum as jrm or jm) • Aspiration-a puff of air made when you articulate. For example, pit versus tip-which moves the paper? The sounds /b/, /p/, and /k/ are usually aspirated at the beginning of a syllable, but not at the end. This may confuse students when they are spelling words. • Vowel blending-some vowels blend in with the consonant sound that follows them. This is especially true of the consonant sounds /l/ and /r/--bird may be spelled as brid, and girl as grl.

22. Spelling Developmental Stages

23. Encouraging Children to Write • Make sure every student realizes that he or she has something to say. • The teacher’s role should be active where she models the writing process at every opportunity. • Invitations to write should be extended whenever possible. • Children of all developmental stages can write—whether it is scribbling, drawing a picture, or using invented spelling. • Encourage children to read their writing to others.

24. Effective Writing Activities • Write letters to each other • Create invitations for events • Write stories about what is happening in their lives • Write stories about special events • Make connections to books they are reading • Encourage children to make lists

25. Key Words • Phonological Awareness—the ability to detect rhyme and separate the sounds in words. This is a broad area that includes phonemic awareness. • Phoneme—individual speech sounds • How many sounds are in the word cake? • Phonemic Awareness—an awareness of sounds in the speech stream. • Grapheme—written letter(s) that represents the sound • Coarticulation—the process of articulating a sound while still articulating the previous sound.

26. Using Word Play to Develop Phonological Awareness • Play games with words. • Read books that have fun with words. • Read books that call attention to word parts.

27. Developing the Concept of Rhyme • Read nursery rhymes and other rhyming stories to students to help develop their concept of rhyme. • Discuss the concept of rhyme. What does this mean? • Build rhymes with students. • Use word families to build concept of rhyme.

28. What is Blending? • Students create words by combining word parts. • Onsets and rimes can be used for blending activities: • Onset—the part of the word prior to the vowel. (c) • Rime—the vowel to the end of the word (-at) • Ask students to solve riddles that incorporate both rhyming and blending: • I’m thinking of a word that begins with /t/ and rhymes with man. What is my word?

29. Helping Students to Perceive Beginning Consonant Sounds • Use the concept of alliteration to reinforce the beginning consonants sounds we hear in words. • Animalia • Four Famished Foxes and Fosdyke

30. What is Segmenting? • Segmenting is the process of separating words into sounds. • What sounds do you hear in horse? • Use Elkonin boxes to segment words.