Chapter 2 Planning for Success

1. Chapter 2Planning for Success Growing Up With Literature, 6e By: Walter E. Sawyer

2. Teachers must be able to answer several questions when planning to read aloud: • Is the material age appropriate? • Did I read the story first so I am familiar with it? • How will I motivate the children to want to be involved with the story? • Where and when will I read the story? • Why am I reading this particular story? • How will I monitor understanding as the reading occurs? • How can I make this story most meaningful to the children? • Is the story understandable to children from all cultures? • How will I determine what the children got from the story?

3. Key Principles of Child Development • Language learning and reading are positively related to emotions, physical environment, and past experiences. • Help children make connections between what they already know and new information. • This makes children motivated to acquire and use the new language. • Most of the brain’s potential is mapped out in the first year of life. • Literacy develops best in a situation where conversations are a major focus.

4. Key Principles of Child Development (cont.) • Activities should integrate the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive domains. • Children should not be expected to all be interested in or respond to a single activity in the same way. • Adults must plan activities such that bridges to understanding can occur. • Play is an important vehicle for learning.

5. Conditions for Learning • Immersion • Demonstration • Engagement • Expectations • Responsibility • Approximation • Use • Response

6. Creating an Environment – Infants & Emerging Language • From 6-10 months, the babbling varies. • This occurs in deaf children and in children in all cultures. • Infants as young as seven weeks old have been observed responding to single words in both isolation and in fluent speech.

7. Creating an Environment – Infants & Linking Language to Literature Best ways to initiate a connection with literature: • Sing songs • Read stories • Simple finger plays • Play games • Infants enjoy hearing these types of literature whether they are being cuddled, rocked, or just resting in a crib.

8. Creating an Environment – Infants & Reading to Infants • Books can be read to infants from the moment they are born. • Use hardcover books, boards books, and plastic books. • Books should include pictures that are simple and bright. • Model respecting books. • Include the use of props and toys. Objects connect the infant with the tale in a positive, hands-on manner.

9. Creating an Environment – Infants & Reading Areas • Safety is the primary concern • Should be on the floor • Use colorful pillows, quilts, stuffed animals, and mats • Enjoyable books should be read as often as infants respond to them

10. Creating an Environment – Toddlers & Using Language • The beginning stages of writing emerge at this toddler stage. • From the first time they touch a crayon to paper, writing has begun. • They need someone to listen to them communicate about their drawings. • Adults must provide time, opportunities, models, encouragement, and acceptance. • This is not the time for correction of faulty language structures.

11. Creating an Environment – Toddlers & Humor • During this time, children develop a sense of humor. • Toddlers love zany humor. • Stories in which animals act out of character are • sure to get a response. • Many nursery rhymes provide humor. • Dr. Seuss books with their repeating sound patterns provide a reinforcement for phonological awareness.

12. More Books for Toddlers

13. Creating an Environment – Toddlers & Toddler Interests • Toddlers have an interest in the objects and events around them. • They want to know the “whats” and the “whys” of everything. • They want to know who everyone is and what they do. • Board books and other smaller books are just right for toddlers. • Eric Carle’s writing is exceptional for toddlers. His illustrations are excitingly colorful.

14. Creating an Environment – Toddlers & Reading Areas • Reading areas for toddlers must be engaging, interesting, and safe. • Visibility is important. Furniture should not interfere with the adult’s ability to maintain eye contact with the children. • Toddlers love to climb • a low loft-type structure can be used. • Use large pillows and stuffed toys in the area. • Rocking chairs are a nice touch in any reading area.

15. Creating an Environment – Preschoolers & Using Language • Children are continuing their rapid development of language skills and vocabulary growth. • Can now use language as a tool for understanding themselves and their surroundings. • The role of the adults is to interact with the child in form of listening, answering questions, asking questions, providing language models, and sharing experiences.

16. Creating an Environment – Preschoolers & Humor • Preschoolers are more sophisticated than toddlers and don’t laugh as readily at dishes running away with spoons. • They enjoy books like Curious George. • Preschoolers love to play house and act out roles.

17. Creating an Environment – Preschoolers & Preschooler Interests • Values are often included in the stories intended for preschoolers. • Dr. Seuss’s books often reinforce values while providing great fun through illustrations and language. • Preschoolers are fascinated with differences of gender, size, disability, houses, and so forth. • They have fears that should not be ignored. Fear of being left alone, anger, frustration, darkness, etc. • Books can help them overcome their fears.

18. Creating an Environment – Preschoolers & Reading Areas • Reading areas should be adventurous. • Daylight should be used when possible; thus, locate the reading area near a window. • Use realistic posters such as illustrating the inside of things such as bodies, mountains, and Earth. • Props after the book is read will encourage children to recreate the story through talk and play.

19. Creating an Environment – Kindergarten & Language • They have learned the basic rules of language, but not all the expectations to those rules. • They come to understand how language can express ideas and emotions, create stories and meanings, and share life experiences. • Children use invented spelling. • This should be accepted without negative comments.

20. Invented Spelling

21. Creating an Environment – Kindergarten & Language (cont.) Five stages of invented spelling: • Precommunication • KDJEWOPHGG • Semiphonetic • IMHAB (I am happy.) • Phonetic • I lik my mere gornd. (I like my merry-go-round.) • Transitional • Mercry is the neristplaent in the solersystome. • Conventional • Can spell most words correctly and recognizes when something does not look right.

22. Creating an Environment – Kindergarten & Kindergarten Interests • They respond to epic adventures where, through enchantment and strength, the hero overcomes evil. • Reading several versions of the same story can help children compare stories. • They get very involved with learning about their bodies and social interaction. • Troubling issues greatly affect kindergarten students. • They are concerned with adoption and disabilities. • Content books can provide much information for those children who thirst to know the what, why, and how of things. • Interest in reading grows for kindergarten children.

23. Creating an Environment – Kindergarten & Reading Areas • Involve the children – make it a group effort • Should give the feeling that books are an open invitation. • Warm and inviting • Located off the beaten path, away from both large and small traffic areas • Natural lighting is preferred. • minimum of 100 watts should be used for reading. • Avoid cords in the area • Included many, many books • Display books on front-facing book cases that allow the book covers to be seen. • Comfort is essential. • Have dividers around 3ft in height to provide privacy. • Nontoxic live plants are pleasing.

24. Story Time • Firmly grasp the book so that children can see the words and pictures. • The area where you read to children should depend on the size of the group. • Nap time is a good opportunity for reading aloud. • Make it comfortable with lighting and enough space for children to wiggle without bumping into each other. • Always know the book before attempting to read or share it with others.

25. Story Time (cont.) • Use libraries for borrowing books. • “First-Aid kit for Books” • Paperback verses hardback books (What is the difference?) • Use big books and predictable texts • Have confidence!!!

26. Children with Special Needs • The first step is to understand what accommodations are needed based on the strengths and needs of the child. • Most children will benefit from the use of multi-sensory stimulation (e.g. tactile, puppetry, clear expressive illustrations, a clear voice, and normal gestures). • Children with a specific disability may need a specific accommodation as well (e.g. a child with a visual impairment may need the reader to describe the illustrations).