Well-Designed Literacy Centers

It is important that when teaching emergent literacy that we as teachers not only motivate our students to read, but that we provide meaningful opportunities to implement that skill. One way to do this is to incorporate literacy centers into our reading blocks during the typical school day. According to Literacy Development in the Early Years: Helping Children Read and Write written by Lesley Mandel Morrow, "A classroom literacy center is comprised of a library corner and a writing area. In literacy centers children have choices, they collaborate, and they face challenging tasks and help each other to succeed with them," (323). 

Morrow mentions several necessary furnishings to literacy centers. These include, but are not limited to: a rug, headsets and audio stories, puppets, literacy posters, an "Author's Spot" for writing, a library corner, felt or magnetic boards, elements of softness (like stuffed animals), and many more. 

With emerging readers, I enjoy each of the above mentioned aspects of literacy centers because they allow students to have independent and creative interactions with the stories that they are reading. For example, felt of magnetic story boards allow students to represent the characters that they are reading about in their own creative ways. One aspect of the literacy center that I would add in my own classroom would be an illustration area that allows students access to drawing materials and different types of paper. This would allow students to represent what they are attempting to read physically if they are not yet of an ability level where they can read and write down their own ideas. This also allows for creative adaptations and interpretations of each story that a child reads. 

The library corner of the classroom is one of the areas that I feel is most important to well-designed literacy centers. According to Morrow, "The library corner is the part of the literacy center used for storing books," (326). Although fairly straightforward, Morrow also discusses different ways to display the books for the students, as well as different types of books that should be in the library corner. A few organizational arrangements include shelving the books with their spines facing out, but another organizational arrangement includes organizing the book by category or theme, and placing the books in categorized bins so that students can decide what to read based on a topic that may be of interest to them. For emerging readers, I think the latter method would be quite effective because students are likely to have a greater vocabulary of topics in which they are interested, which can lead to better comprehension of these particular stories, and can grow their individual vocabulary, as well as content-specific vocabulary. In sorting books in this fashion, they do not always have to be sorted by category, their type or genre can be another form of classification. For example, I would separate picture books from informational books or traditional literature, because students at a lower reading level would likely prefer picture books. 

In my classroom's literacy center design I would include a rug, pillows, and bean bag chairs for students to free read, a technology center for students to interact with e-texts and participate in software and online reading enrichment activities. I would also include white boards and felt boards for the students to interact with, along with an illustrator section. Each student in my classroom would also have a notebook where I would ask them to practice being an author during our literacy center time. I would include a center option where students can listen to audio recordings of stories as they read along. I would organize my library corner with my books set by themes that we will discuss during the year, and all other books will be organized alphabetically by title. If students choose to read these, they will place their name book mark in the place where the book was located so that when they return it, they can see where it goes. In this way, I can also monitor what the students are reading. I would also have the students ensure that each day of the week they participate in a different center so that they are not constantly participating in the same literary experiences each day.

Overall, teachers are responsible for designing their literacy centers based on the needs of their students and experiences that they believe would be most beneficial to them. Above are aspects and ideas for a well-designed literacy center approach, but each classroom will differ. 

A few questions to think about:

Which aspects named in the text would you incorporate into your own literacy centers?

What will you be doing as the students are participating in literacy centers?

Are there any aspects of a well-designed literacy center approach that you do not agree with?

writing, spelling, & literacy

Early in the chapter it talks about how similar learning to read and write are. I could not agree more. Working around 2 year olds at Apple Tree, there are often times when the children will sit on their own and look at books, turning each page, looking at the pictures, and then moving on to the next page or even book. They all do so in a manner that you know they are not reading the actual text but they are looking at one page long enough that you know they are creating their own stories based on the pictures in the books. It is the same observation when the children are drawing. Just like with reading books, the children will go get their notebooks out of their cubbies in which is a sign I need to provide them with markers or crayons so they can draw. While drawing they will make up scenarios and tell stories out loud of what they are drawing (even though to anyone else its just a mess of colors). Even the younger toddlers who are not very fluent in their vocabulary are making noises while they are drawing. These observations go along with Vygotsky's theory that literacy starts with drawing.
By working and observing with a range of young children at Apple Tree, I have noticed many of the developmental stages this chapter has discussed. By working with my classroom of children right around the age 2 and then observing in the classroom of children around the age of 4 there is actually a very noticeable difference in developmental stages. The 4 year olds are full of stories and want to express every little detail to you. For example, one of the 4 year olds wanted to draw a picture of her mom one day because she said she missed her while she was at school. Her picture was very clear and even if she had not told me what it was or who it was, I would have been able to tell it was an older female she knew very well. Along with her drawing, she told stories of her mom the whole time.
Both of these experiences go right along with what is discussed in this chapter. Drawing is a form of literacy because its a form of communication. What are some other strategies that teachers and adults can use to keep students as interested in writing when they get older as they were when they were younger and just starting? Why is drawing becoming "less and less privileged" when we know children naturally enjoy it?  

Chapter 7: Writing, Spelling, and Literacy Development

In Chapter 7, the very first line states that children learn to write before they learn to read. This specific line stuck out to me, because I think that we don't give our students enough credit in the classroom. Children want to be given the opportunity to explore things through writing not just reading and comprehension. In a lot of instances, I think we just don't give children these opportunities because we are afraid they might fail, but how will they ever learn this skill if we don't allow them the chance to fail or exceed. When you start looking at older grades, you see reading and writing being clumped together, but on the other hand, many times you don't see writing at all in the younger grades. We just expect them to express what they know through drawing. I personally believe this could be detrimental to their learning experience. In the book it says that while children are reading and writing they are engaging in very similar activities, so why not link these two content subjects together and tie in whatever you possibly can. From the reading, I learned that children's early literacy experiences are embedded in real life experiences of thermally and community. Writing development is part of a child's literacy development. So, we should remember that even though drawing is the first step in a child's literacy development journey, writing should also be important in curriculum. From this chapter I have learned that the first stage consists of drawing, then writing, and lastly reading. So when we are planning what our students should be engaged in, we should keep this in mind. In your future classroom, would you encompass all three of these things. How would you go about doing this? Do you believe it's important for children to write at a young age?

Writing Development

When I think back to my early years as a writer, I never remember not being able to express what I was trying to say. This is because writers develop through a process of pictures, scribbles, and then letter forming.

Children begin communicating through drawing because they have not learned how to write letters or form words quite yet. After the drawing stage, children begin scribbling. Scribbling is the child’s form of writing, which is a step closer to forming real words. Children then begin to make formations of letters, although they may still be scribbles. Then children begin early steps of word formation and writing by using the letters in their own name or familiar words to create letter strings. These sometimes look to resemble words, but are usually just the same letters mixed up and repeated multiple times. Then students begin to write using invented spelling, or writing the way that they hear the words. This is one of the first stages where we begin to understand the written language of children. Lastly, children gain enough practice and background knowledge to begin writing with conventional spelling, or how we as adults write.

This long process of writing is very important to understand as a teacher because we cannot expect our young students to automatically be able to communicate through writing. It is unreasonable to expect young students to write about their favorite things, but it would be more reasonable to ask the young students to draw their favorite things, because that would most likely be accomplishable by the young students.

Our book describes several strategies for which to teach writing development from as early as infancy through third grade. One strategy that I have been taught from my other classes that the book also describes is to ask students about their work and to ask the students to talk about or describe their work. It is very important to not ask exactly what a particular drawing or symbol means or represents because children are encouraged to explore their drawing and writing abilities and figure out for themselves if the markings they have made represent certain letters or pictures. What is one way that we as teachers can assess early writing abilities but still encourage our students to explore their own creativity?

Teaching writing development is a very daunting task, and I admit that I am not entirely prepared to teach my students how to read and write, but the strategies from our chapter really do open my mind to how teaching writing development looks like. Have you seen any of these strategies mentioned or used in your practicum experience at Apple Tree? I know I ask students if they would like to describe their drawings to me, but are there other ways I can encourage writing development in the classroom?

Chapter 7 Writing, Spelling, and Literacy Development

     I found many things interesting in regards to The Mechanics of Writing in chapter 7. Chapter 7 discussed how it is important to spell words incorrectly on purpose so that the students have a chance to identify the mistakes. Teachers can also eliminate spaces, not capitalize words, and eliminate punctuations. This will also allow students to identify the mistakes which will improve their writing and spelling.

     I found it interesting how important it is for students to write their own thoughts without being concerned with the mechanics of writing. I knew it was important for students to have the opportunity to write freely, but I was taught that you should always worry about whether or not you spelled everything correctly, used accurate punctuation, and accurate spacing. Chapter 7 states that there is a time for free writing, where children should not have to worry about the mechanics of writing. Chapter 7 also states that there is a time for edited writing, where the children need to worry about the mechanics of writing. I agree with the idea that Chapter 7 presented: not all writing assignments should be turned in because this will help children with their writing and build their confidence since there is not a grade for it.
     Chapter 7 provided many useful spelling games that are easy to use in the classroom. Many students will be more willing to learn and participate in class if you make the subject matter a fun game. I personally liked the game Trace a Word. This game is when students "write" spelling words on another students back using their pointer finger and they have to guess what their partner wrote on their back. I use to play this game outside of school, so it makes sense that teachers would incorporate a game children enjoy inside the classroom.
     I found it interesting that Chapter 7 included the use of a keyboard under the subject of Handwriting. When I think of handwriting, I think of a student with a pencil and paper. It is important that students are exposed to keyboards at an early age and learn how to use the keyboard. If students are not exposed to keyboards until second or third grade, they may end up teaching themselves the incorrect way. Students who teach themselves how to use the keyboard usually end up pecking which is an inefficient way of typing and very difficult to change.
     It is important that we teach the students the correct way to write at an early age or else they will have a difficult time later on in their education career.

It's O.K. to Spell it Wrong

In a kindergarten practicum classroom, the two lead teachers told the practicum teachers to not tell the students how to spell words, even if they asked! At first this struck me as odd, and somehow wrong, I mean weren’t we supposed to as teachers correct spelling and fix mistakes, but the lead teachers explained that it was important and ok for the students to have invented spelling and at this age it was preferred. Now of course the students could look at the words around the room and copy certain words, guaranteeing they correctly spelled the word, but no teacher in that room was going to tell a student how to spell ‘rainbow’. Instead the teachers told the students to spell the word the best they could.

            In chapter 6 this idea is supported and another reason I found to encourage invented spelling is that some students at this age, who may have not had much experience writing unconventionally may be afraid to write conventionally and not spell words correctly for fear that this writing will not be accepted. This is not an attitude we should be expressing to our students but instead that their writing, no matter at which stage is accepted, because at the core, writing is used to communicate a message. Every child has the right to communicate and so its important for us as teachers to encourage students to right even if they are afraid that no one will be able to ‘read’ it, because the truth is, you are there to teach them little strategies to make it easier for other people to be able to ‘read’ it.

            One way to help students is model writing, we already model reading so similarly it is important to not impose subjects or sentences, just like we consider students interest in picking out texts, on students but instead begin with a discussion and write their ideas or sentences down in front of them, write exactly what they say, read it back to them from left to right, and encourage the students to read the sentence themselves.

            Another way to help students when they practice writing and more specifically with spelling certain words, is to tell students to break a word into parts and listen for those parts, then tell students to use their knowledge of letters to choose the letters they hear and write them down in the correct order. This is a simple strategy and most often students will be spelling the word they are thinking of incorrectly but it helps them practice phonics with sound manipulation and gives them confidence in spelling on their own. Gradually students will realize their invented spelling is not the correct spelling and will ask how words are spelled, which is a good thing and the next stage in the process. It is important that they ask as they are gaining a new word for them to add to their growing spelling vocabulary.

            Children should be writing before they can fully read independently and writing for various purposes, and encouraged to write as much as they are encouraged to read, as practicing one helps with learning and growing in the other, and remember to tell your preschool and kindergarten students that their writing does not have to look like adult writing and its ok if it doesn’t. 

Comprehension

     

       The biggest concept in chapter 6 is comprehension. Concepts of print/about books start out the chapter, explaining different examples such as being able to identify the different parts of a book, knowing that the book is for reading, knowing where to start reading, knowing which direction to turn the page, and knowing what a title, author, and illustrator all do. (p 200). We've seen a few different examples of teaching concepts of print in the videos we've watched in class. Assessing our AppleTree student on their knowledge of concept of print was one of the first things we did in the field. After Phonological Awareness, concepts of print are important for your students to learn, because it's everything physical about a book.
      There are different materials that you can use as a teacher to be effective in teaching COP. Big Books are one of the most well known, because they're effective and so easily accessible. Holdaway thought that Big Books help children get involved by using big pictures and large text. The large print helps teacher teach concepts because students can watch pointing on larger text, and it's easier to follow along as a child.
     As previously stated, comprehension is the most important part of reading. If you don't understand what you're reading, then what good is it? Comprehension is defined as the 'active process in which the reader or listener interprets and constructs meaning about what he or she reads or listens to based on prior knowledge about the topic, thereby making connections between the old and the new. (203) So basically, reading and understanding and making connections sums up comprehension under a general umbrella. Comprehension is advanced by interaction with others while reading. This makes sense to me, because if a student doesn't understand what's happening, he or she can look at their neighbor and listen to their answer and make connections. Being aware of how your own learning is taking place is called metacognition. (204).
     I think that as a teacher, teaching comprehension is difficult because not every child learns the same. That's the main point of emergent literacy, as we've discussed all semester. As teachers, we have to cater to the learning needs of our students while still following a lesson plan and schedule for the class as a whole. Teaching in small groups has been proven to be the most effective, something we have also talked about in class. If you try to teach the class as a whole, there are too many students to try and teach the concept to in their own unique individual way, but one on one time would take entirely too long, so we teach in small groups as to maximize time and efficiency.
   I feel like this chapter was mostly review of what we've talked about in class, but it was still very helpful in explaining what we have to do as teachers to be affective and meaningful.