Home and Family Literacies

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Home and Family Literacies

• Parents and Teachers A Childs Best Allies in
  the Development of Literacy Learning

2
The Agenda

• The nature of the learner
• What counts as reading?
• What counts as writing?
• The Read Aloud
• Recommendations The role of the home and family
  in a childs literacy learning life

3
What Are the Language Arts/the Communications
Arts?

• Reading
• Writing
• Speaking
• Listening
• Viewing
• Thinking

4
The Nature of the Learner

• Children are not simply a blank slate ready to
  be written upon nor are they miniature adults.
  
• They are independent, internally driven
  organisms, interacting with the environment,
  growing through clear phases of development.

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Childhood

• Childhood has its own ways of seeing, thinking,
  and feeling. Children are distinct, complex
  human beings.

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Five Basic Principles about Developmental Growth
in Children

• 1. Children mature through certain predictable
  stages.
  
• 2. Growth is a function of structure
• a childs genetic and biological
  structure/code and the structure of the
  childs environment

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Developmental Stages

• 3. Children progress through stages in the same
  order, but not at the same rate.
  
• 4. There is a relationship between development
  and intelligence.
  
• 5. Growth does not proceed in a straight line.

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The Nature of the Learner

• Children develop on their own, driven by needs
  and biological sequences over which we have
  little control (intrinsic determiners).
  
• We can encourage growth by manipulating the
  environment (extrinsic determiner), but we cannot
  manipulate a childs development.
  

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The Nature of the Learner

• We can manipulate the environment
• the home
• the resources/materials
• your funds of knowledge (your knowledge and
  experience)

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The Nature of the Learner The Descriptor Headings

• Patterns
• Physical
• Social
• Language
• Cognitive

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Growth Patterns in the Early Literacy Learner
(ages 4-7)

• Likes to help
• Likes routines
• Is very literal, succinct
• Needs approval
• Enjoys fantasy
• Thinks out loud

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The Early Literacy Learner

• Learns best through play
• Bound by sight and senses
• May not yet think logically
• Enjoys repetition
• Loves jokes and guessing games
• Thinks out loud

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Growth PatternsThe Early Literacy Learner

• Sometimes moody
• Needs constant reinforcement
• Strong likes and dislikes
• Likes to send notes
• Interested in all types of codes
• Likes to work slowly
• Wants to discover how things work

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The Early Literacy Learner

• Like to take things apart and put them back
  together again
  
• Likes to repeat tasks
• Likes to be read to

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Growth Patterns The Pre-adolescent (ages 8-11)

• Increased coordination
• Numerous injuries
• Tension outlets nail-biting, hair twisting,
  lip-pursing
  
• Highly competitive
• Is very aware of issues of fairness
• Likes to be read to

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The Pre-adolescent

• Exaggerates
• Likes to explain ideas
• Talkative
• Likes groups and group activity
• Growing interest in rules of logic
• Mostly reading to learn instead of learning to
  read

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The Adolescent (ages 13 up)

• Sarcasm emerges
• Colloquialisms in play
• Both playful and serious
• Music a major pre-occupation
• Develops a broader vocabulary
• Can be loud

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The Adolescent

• More abstract reasoning is evident
• More willing to admit an error,revise their work,
  or try something a second or third time
  
• Aware of problems in the world and invested in
  finding solutions
  
• Can be loud
• Enjoys research

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The Implications for Home and Family Literacy

• What are the implications for your every day
  lived life with your child?
  
• Surround/immerse children with books and writing
  materials
  
• Celebrate approximations
• Model the act of reading and writing

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The Implications

• Offer feedback to your child
• Encourage children to put into use the skills
  they are learning

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What Counts as Reading?

• Emergent Literacy Learning and the Emergent
  Literacy Learner
  
• The belief that children learn to read and write
  from birth on. Children grow into reading and
  writing with no real beginning or ending point.

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What Counts as Reading?

• Children exhibit early literacy behaviors by
  engaging in developmental reading (concepts of
  print stage) and constructed writing (the
  pre-communicative stage).

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What Counts as Reading? Concepts of Print

• Knowing how to hold a book
• Distinguishing top from bottom back from front
• Understanding that print proceeds from left to
  right
  
• Understanding that words have spaces between them

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Concepts of Print

• Developmental Reading matching pictures to text
  even if words are inexact

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Transacting with the Text Building Strategic
Readers

• Is your child able to
• self-monitor for accuracy, syntax, and meaning of
  text
  
• search for and use all kinds of information in
  the text
  
• remember important information

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Building Strategic Readers Transacting with the
Text

• notice when information does not make sense
• predict what will come next in a text based on
  what is known
  
• connect to the authors message by recalling
  his/her funds of knowledge (background knowledge
  and experience)

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Building Strategic Readers

• Think beyond the text to consider what the writer
  is implying, but not telling directly
  
• Think critically about a text in terms of
  evaluating it for accuracy, point of view, etc.

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Transacting with the TextGuiding Your Child
Toward Independence in Reading

• Strategic readers can

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Just Some Simple Things

• Get involved in the life of your child and
  his/her school (attend PU seminar sessions,
  support your child at writing celebrations, ask
  questions of your childs teacher, become
  familiar with the curriculum it reflects 21st.
  century research-based pedagogies).
• Put notes in your childs backpack or lunch bag.

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Just Some Simple Things

• Its never too late to get involved in reading to
  your child or writing with your child.
  
• When you are too tired, share a story with your
  child instead of reading to your child.
  
• Ask your child to tell you a story.

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Just Some Simple Things

• Know the five finger rule
• Know there is a great deal of variability even
  within a text level

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What Influences Children Most?

• The single most influential factor in promoting
  lifelong literacy and literates--the Read Aloud

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The (Interactive) Read Aloud

• MJ Adams 1000 lap hours
• Familiarizes children with the language of books
• Aids in story retelling and in developing a sense
  of story
  
• Increases a childs vocabulary and adds to
  his/her background knowledge

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The (Interactive) Read Aloud

• Introduces a child to a variety of genres, text
  structure, authors, and illustrators
  
• Offers a model of good oral reading fluency,
  intonation, phrasing
  

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The (Interactive) Read Aloud

• Stimulates a childs imagination
• Provides a child with opportunities to hear
  stories s/he are unable to read on his/her own

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The Read Alouds Dos

• Begin reading to your child as soon as possible
• For the early literacy learner, use books that
  are full of rhythm, rhymes, repetitions, and
  chants
  
• Use predictable text
• The art of listening is an acquired one it must
  be taught and cultivated gradually

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The Dos

• Start with picture books that have only a few
  sentences per page, then move on to books with
  more text and fewer pictures
  
• Always preview the book
• Always introduce the book (author, title,
  illustrator)
  
• Many picture books can be read to a family of
  children across a range of ages

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The Dos

• Use expression and drama when reading aloud (this
  may take practice)
  
• Encourage the child to predict, infer, question,
  evaluate
  

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The Dos

• Teens especially appreciate being read to find
  the right book (a series a noted author a
  controversial topic)
  
• The Read Aloud is the forerunner of the
  self-selected book/novel

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Beyond the Read Aloud (What Parents Can Do)

• Draw and Write
• Cook to Read
• Tell and Write
• Construct grocery lists
• Develop chore lists
• Make handmade cards for all occasions

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Beyond the Read Aloud (What Parents Can Do)

• Use magnetic letters
• Engage in treasure hunts
• Practice word making with a dry erase board
• Use writing to create puppet shows (writing a
  play or theater in hand)
  
• Listen and share bedtime stories
• Label Family Photo Albums

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Beyond the Read Aloud (What Parents Can Do)

• Child as Storyteller (ask questions about the
  childs stuffed animals How did this bear get
  such big eyes? Was this bunny ever lost in the
  woods?
• Take Turns (telling a story)
• You Are Your Own Museum Whats in your pocket?
  or On trips encourage children to collect things
  rocks, leaves, shells, then catalogue what they
  have collected.

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Beyond the Read Aloud (What Parents Can Do)

• Travelogue (on family trips take along a tape
  recorder to record impressions, conversations,
  and descriptions of the places visited)
  
• Read signs
• Read the menu
• Always have a crayon, pencil, pen (in your glove
  compartment or purse) for drawing or writing

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Beyond the Read Aloud

• Read the gas station
• Read and interpret labels
• Enroll in the library
• Run Errands Game (names of places, directions,
  map-making)
  
• Engage in talking about and writing about sports
  (be a sports journalist)

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What Counts as Writing?

• Emergent Writing
• Children are generally writers before they are
  readers.
  
• Remember those scribbles and random letters and
  numbers strung together on a page? That was REAL
  writing for an emergent literacy learner.

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What Counts as Writing?

• Children moves from emergent writing to beginning
  writing children become more knowledgeable about
  the alphabetic principle
  
• spacing occurs
• left to right directionality occurs
• top to bottom movement takes place
• temporary spelling is practiced

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Early Writing

• Talking is a valued enterprise when learning to
  write.
  
• Beginning writing may take these forms
• Drawing is a childs first writing.
• Draw then write. Adult/text/book writing is
  placed beneath the childs writing.
  
• Dictate then write.

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Fluent writing

• Students use conventional spelling, capital
  letters, grammar, and punctuation to express
  their thoughts and tell their stories.

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Fluent Writing

• Encourage your child to write about what they
  know expert/master topics.
  

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Fluent WritingPersuasive Writing

• If your child needs or wants something from you
  encourage him/her to put it in writing.
  
• This promotes the use of persuasive writing.

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Fluent Writing

• Wants
• to have ears pierced
• an increase in allowance
• a new wardrobe
• to attend a dance, sleep over, movies

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Types of Books

• Picture Books
• Short Novels
• Novels
• Poetry

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Wordless Books

• Bens dream
• Good Dog Carl
• Tuesday

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Predictable Books

• Brown Bear, Brown Bear
• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
• Chicken Soup with Rice
• Goodnight Moon
• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
• The Pig in a Pond
• Tikki Tikki Tembo

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Predictable Books

• The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• The Wheels on the Bus
• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible No Good,
  Very Bad Day

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Picture Books

• Cloudy With a Chance of meatballs
• Goodnight Moon
• The Dr. Seuss books
• Ira Sleeps Over
• Lilys Purple Purse
• Miss Nelson Is Missing

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Picture Books

• Pink and Say
• Teammates
• Rotten Teeth
• The Story of Ruby Bridges
• Danitra Brown, Class Clown
• The True Story of the Three Little Pigs

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Short Novels

• The Cam Jensen Series
• The Friendship
• The Junie B. Jones series
• The Littles
• Skinnybones

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Full-Length Novels

• Because of Winn Dixie
• Bud, Not Buddy
• The Cay
• Caddy Woodlawn
• Danny Champion of the Worls
• A Day No Pigs Would Die
• Hatchet

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Full-Length Novels

• Holes
• The Kid Who Invented the Popsicle (non-fiction)
• Maniac Magee
• The Pinballs
• My Brother Sam Is Dead
• My Side of the Mountain

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Full-Length Novels

• Tolivers Secrets
• Tuck Everlasting

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Poetry

• Honey, I Love
• Timothy Cox Will Not Change His Socks
• Where the Sidewalk Ends