The main idea in today’s readings centered on the importance
of some form of reading instruction in early childhood. The “IRA/NAEYC joint
position statement” was really interesting to me and I like the point it makes
about how in order for children to become competent readers, all of the adults in
their lives need to work together. Children are active learners and they
develop their sense of the world from experiences. Because of this, it is also
important to use things that children are familiar with in order to teach them
new concepts, such as phonemic awareness. In the Bell & Jarvis article, the
authors describe how they used things that their students already knew in order
to teach them how to read. I thought it was really awesome how Bell showed all
of her kindergarten students that they could read on the first day of class by
simply holding up a McDonald’s or Burger King bag. I think that we often forget
that reading isn’t just about sounding out words; reading can be recognizing
symbols as well. Literacy really is everywhere and we use it in many different
ways. The Yopp & Yopp article definitely emphasized the importance of teaching
phonemic awareness and offered many examples of how teachers could incorporate
these lessons in their classrooms. The readings also expressed how it is okay
to let children use inventive spellings, or write in various ways (drawings,
scribbles, etc) because this shows that they have an understanding of the way
we communicate.
- In the “IRA/NAEYC joint position statement,” it was mentioned that in most states, you only need a high school diploma in order to be a child care teacher, what do you think of this fact?
- Should all early child care providers be required to teach phonemic awareness?
Gaining confidence in Reading is so important! I love that from the Bell article, too.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great photo! We'll talk a little bit about onsets and rimes later on in the semester.