Chapter 4 Blog:

The current approach to how children receive language arts instruction in kindergarten through second grade is called emergent literacy. The amazing fact about emergent literacy is that it incorporates both reading and writing for the child, and it also broadens their concepts of cultural and social aspects of literacy as well. In order for children to learn and attain the information presented to them in the literary aspect, they tend to move from simply recognizing environmental print, such as signs, symbols, etc, to actually being able to read the text in a book. In order for children to progress into other levels, they must also become aware of the phonemes, phonics, vowels, consonants, and so much more. The question is how to apply all of this to a classroom in order to help the student attain and simply understand the information. First it would be important to recognize how the child is capable of progressing. One of the main focuses in the chapter was regarding how both reading and writing have three stages as children progress. The three stages include emergent, beginning, and fluent.
Within the emergent stage of reading, the child is able to understand the purpose of books and the fact that books allow communication to occur. Children pick up on predictable books and then move on to the beginning reading stage. I can remember reading to my younger niece when she was about two years old. It was one of her favorite picture books. Immediately when I was finished she asked for me to read it again. Not only that but she was also able to tell me or show me parts of the book that she liked best before we had even turned to the next page. She had not only picked up on the book because it was predictable but also because of the repetition. Also during this stage is where children begin their phonemes and also how to make sense of words. Lastly in the fluent reading, children have learned how to read in that they are able to recognize most words and can understand them particularly well. A great way to help children with this process in the classroom can be through shared reading. Shared reading not only allows the children to read the book to the class, but is also calls for rereading, discussing and responding to the book, and to have the children read it themselves independently.
As previously mentioned, writing also has a similar approach. In the first stage, the children make scribbles to represent writing. Progress can be shown as children begin to line up their scribbles rather than having them in random places on the paper. Next is where children begin writing. A key issue to this stage is that children are able to recall the alphabetic principles and they also reflect on their phoneme and vowels to allow them to create their own invented spellings. Lastly is fluent writing when children begin to write paragraphs and are able to vary their writing according to genre. A great tool that can be used in the classroom in regards to writing is called interactive writing which allows each child to write their own views on the writing activity that has been assigned and also allows them to present this to the class as well.