Literacy development and identity construction can be supported by children's play with toys and by providing props and proxies that suggest particular roles and inspire storytelling. A view of toys as texts recognizes that children's play with media characters, dolls, and accessories offers a window into their interests and a rich resource for reading and writing in school. When allowing children to bring their toys into the classroom, you have to beware that some may not see this as appropriate especially parents, teachers and administrators. By providing opportunities for others to come into the classroom and see how the toys are being used allows for understanding.
Future steps in rethinking toys and revaluing play in schools.
- Engage in literacy teaching that values play as a multimodal meaning-making system.
- Encourage children to play with their favorite toys or action figures as an integral part
Of storytelling and writing.
- Provision the environment and create regular opportunities for child-directed play.
- Create time for children to discuss, collaborate, and negotiate their own play as part of
Reading and writing workshops along with providing books, props, toys and art materials.
- Advocate for reintegrating play into elementary curricula as a tool for twenty-first-
Century litany learning.
- Attend to children's interests and purpose in play to better understand children's
Intentions and meaning.
- Recognize that play opens opportunities to reproduce as well as challenge stereotypes.
- We need to be prepared to mediate play that is exclusionary by talking with children,
Showing excluded children how to gain access to play group by suggesting a logical role
Or action for their character, by joining a play scenario to demonstrate inclusive play
Practices.
- Contribute through our own teacher research to an emerging body of literacy research on
Social context and children's popular culture.
- Toys as text aligns with many literacy research articles.
- Be aware of growing digital opportunities to integrate popular toys with school literacy.
- There are many online opportunities to connect to children's out-of-school literacies.
RESOURCES:
Reclaiming Play Reading Toys as Popular Media Texts by Karen Wohlwend and Pam Hubbard
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Reclaiming Play
Future steps in rethinking toys and revaluing play in schools.
- Engage in literacy teaching that values play as a multimodal meaning-making system.
- Encourage children to play with their favorite toys or action figures as an integral part
Of storytelling and writing.
- Provision the environment and create regular opportunities for child-directed play.
- Create time for children to discuss, collaborate, and negotiate their own play as part of
Reading and writing workshops along with providing books, props, toys and art materials.
- Advocate for reintegrating play into elementary curricula as a tool for twenty-first-
Century litany learning.
- Attend to children's interests and purpose in play to better understand children's
Intentions and meaning.
- Recognize that play opens opportunities to reproduce as well as challenge stereotypes.
- We need to be prepared to mediate play that is exclusionary by talking with children,
Showing excluded children how to gain access to play group by suggesting a logical role
Or action for their character, by joining a play scenario to demonstrate inclusive play
Practices.
- Contribute through our own teacher
- Engage in literacy teaching that values play as a multimodal meaning-making system.
- Encourage children to play with their favorite toys or action figures as an integral part
Of storytelling and writing.
- Provision the environment and create regular opportunities for child-directed play.
- Create time for children to discuss, collaborate, and negotiate their own play as part of
Reading and writing workshops along with providing books, props, toys and art materials.
- Advocate for reintegrating play into elementary curricula as a tool for twenty-first-
Century litany learning.
- Attend to children's interests and purpose in play to better understand children's
Intentions and meaning.
- Recognize that play opens opportunities to reproduce as well as challenge stereotypes.
- We need to be prepared to mediate play that is exclusionary by talking with children,
Showing excluded children how to gain access to play group by suggesting a logical role
Or action for their character, by joining a play scenario to demonstrate inclusive play
Practices.
- Contribute through our own teacher
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Shared Reading
An important part teaching reading is shared reading. A great way to do shared reading is read alouds. If you start with a picture walk where you go through a book the children have never read. Together you will explore new words and new concepts. You can suggest words for children to look for. As you read the story children will chime in with comments and things that they notice. Once you have read the story several times with the students, you can have them create their own version of the story and create their own class book. Shared reading is a great way to get children involved and thinking about reading.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Learning with Peers
It's a well know fact that children learn from their peers. Children are often able to learn more from their peers about a lesson than from a teacher. Peers think on a child's level where as the teacher may not always be able to. This method of learning can be applied to any subject including literacy.
This type of learning can be called the social practices discourse. "Social practice discourse describes a recursive cycle in which two-way mediation between the child and others in the social and cultural environment creates a zone of proximal development, a space where mentors facilitate as novices learn literacy to mediate the environment."
Children feed off each other when learning. When in literacy center, two children do some creative writing. When finished one child hids his work from another. When the other child notices this she tries to guess what the other has written. It becomes a guessing game. In the end the girl is able to read what the boy has written.
Teachers role is to listen in on these conversations and learn about the children and what they have been exposed to culturally and socially in their environments.
This type of learning can be called the social practices discourse. "Social practice discourse describes a recursive cycle in which two-way mediation between the child and others in the social and cultural environment creates a zone of proximal development, a space where mentors facilitate as novices learn literacy to mediate the environment."
Children feed off each other when learning. When in literacy center, two children do some creative writing. When finished one child hids his work from another. When the other child notices this she tries to guess what the other has written. It becomes a guessing game. In the end the girl is able to read what the boy has written.
Teachers role is to listen in on these conversations and learn about the children and what they have been exposed to culturally and socially in their environments.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
What is this about?
Comprehension is an important part of reading. Sometimes children have trouble with comprehension because they are worried about all the other things going on in the reading, particularly phonemic awareness and fluency. Children who struggle with reading often have the most difficulty with comprehension.
One way to help children with comprehension is a fill in the blank story. You an take a common story like The Three Little Pigs and create fill in the blanks. For instance, "Once upon a ---- there were three little pigs." Children will learn to use context clues to fill in the blank to make the story make sense. This is a fun and unique way for children to work on comprehension.
One way to help children with comprehension is a fill in the blank story. You an take a common story like The Three Little Pigs and create fill in the blanks. For instance, "Once upon a ---- there were three little pigs." Children will learn to use context clues to fill in the blank to make the story make sense. This is a fun and unique way for children to work on comprehension.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Miscues: Reading Strategies
Has this happened to you when you listen to a beginning reader? The text says, "Dad cooked a meal and the rain came down," and your child reads, "Dad cooked a mill and the rain comes down." You might be thinking, "oh no what do I do she missed two words in the sentence." But don't worry this ok. Beginning readers often have many miscues while reading. Miscues refer the he readers' unexpected responses to written text.
When listening to children read, many teachers and adults refer to miscues as errors. Errors are perceived as negative and teachers often correct these errors for children. It is believed if teachers don't intervene and correct these errors then children will continue to make them all their lives. "However,after a half century of miscue analysis research and practice,there is no doubt that ALL readers make miscues and that reading development CANNOT occur without them (Brown, Goodman, Marek 1996). Also, we must trust the child's learning process. Their miscues will change over time with practice and as the child learns from the text as they read. Children will develop reading strategies and their miscues will become more sophisticated.
Some ways to support children's growth are demonstrate reading strategies and demonstrate what a miscue is and what you did to make the miscue and how you learned from it. When teachers model this they instill confidence in their students and it helps students see that everyone makes miscues even teachers. Another way is to record a child as they read a text. Then have the child listen to the recording of themselves with you. They can hear their miscues and both the teacher and the child can work together to develop strategies. It's a team effort and the teacher is not correct the miscues they are working with the child so that the child identifies their own miscues and develops strategies to prevent and improve miscues.
References: Owocki, Gretchen and Goodman, Yetta. 2002. Kid watching: Documenting children's literacy development. Portsmouth: NH:Heinemann.
When listening to children read, many teachers and adults refer to miscues as errors. Errors are perceived as negative and teachers often correct these errors for children. It is believed if teachers don't intervene and correct these errors then children will continue to make them all their lives. "However,after a half century of miscue analysis research and practice,there is no doubt that ALL readers make miscues and that reading development CANNOT occur without them (Brown, Goodman, Marek 1996). Also, we must trust the child's learning process. Their miscues will change over time with practice and as the child learns from the text as they read. Children will develop reading strategies and their miscues will become more sophisticated.
Some ways to support children's growth are demonstrate reading strategies and demonstrate what a miscue is and what you did to make the miscue and how you learned from it. When teachers model this they instill confidence in their students and it helps students see that everyone makes miscues even teachers. Another way is to record a child as they read a text. Then have the child listen to the recording of themselves with you. They can hear their miscues and both the teacher and the child can work together to develop strategies. It's a team effort and the teacher is not correct the miscues they are working with the child so that the child identifies their own miscues and develops strategies to prevent and improve miscues.
References: Owocki, Gretchen and Goodman, Yetta. 2002. Kid watching: Documenting children's literacy development. Portsmouth: NH:Heinemann.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Sounding Out
Growing up many of us learned to read through sounding out our words. Children today still learn this approach, but how effective is it? Many children find it difficult to use the sounding out approach. The trouble is that there are many words in the English language that have silent letters or can be pronounced a number of ways. One way that children define a good reader is someone who can sound out all the words on the page.
While sounding out can work for some, it does not work for all. Sounding out works on phonemic awareness, but once the child takes all that time to sound out a word in the sentence they are less likely to remember what it was about. They don't comprehend what they are reading when they are so focused on getting every word on the page right.
A great way to teach reading is through meaning, structure, and visual representation. What is the story about? What do you think will happen? Look at the pictures and see what is going on. A lot can be said from a picture. Look at the text pattern. All these are great strategies to use with children who are learning to read. Once a child had a good understanding of what the story is about and the pictures then they can begin sounding out words.
While sounding out can work for some, it does not work for all. Sounding out works on phonemic awareness, but once the child takes all that time to sound out a word in the sentence they are less likely to remember what it was about. They don't comprehend what they are reading when they are so focused on getting every word on the page right.
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