I believe that asking these questions can help future teachers figure out what encourages students to love reading and what makes children or youth sway away from the idea of "reading for pleasure". Sure, not every student is going to enjoy sitting down with a nice long book, but I believe that educators need to do the best they can to make sure all children experience reading in the most positive and beneficial way possible.
In the article, Letting Go of the "Letter of the Week", Donna Bell and Donna Jarvis discuss their reactions to similar questions to the ones I asked above. Jarvis stopped reading because her teacher moved her to a lower level reading group. Bell doesn't ever remember getting read-to until she was in seventh grade. These stories stuck out to me because they were such small things. Such small things that caused two girls to hardly ever want to pick up a book. If something so small can affect a child's desire to read, this is clearly something that teachers need to dig deeper into.
In a second article, Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children, the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) discuss their position statement on reading and writing for children. A key issue that they bring up is that preschool educators have not had the extent of the education they need to support literacy development these young children. This is an age group that I believe needs more attention in order to develop stronger literacy skills in students. How do we improve literacy practice in the young preschool years when their teachers are not required to be specialized in this area?
This activity is for preschool students who are getting ready to go to Kindergarten. Parents or teachers allow a child to retell a memory or story, and the adult writes it down on a large sheet of paper. The child can look at this and begin to identify with the words they have said.
Source: coffeecupsandcrayons.com
I found the comment about the quality of preschool teachers in the IRA/ NAEYC statement interesting too! I had never thought about the qualifications for being a preschool teacher. If apparently instruction in preschool is important, then why is it not a mandatory measure? Should public schooling begin sooner than kindergarten?
ReplyDeleteI also found the comment about the quality of preschool teachers interesting. I am an CFS ECE major and have been able to see how preschool can help children be better prepared for Kindergarten, but then again I think the learning in preschool still needs to be through play, so should it really be mandatory?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading about the idea of writing down a student/child's story of a memory and then let them pick out the words that he remembers saying. Its a good way to familiarize themselves with how to spell and write words they like to use!
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