The first person I
interviewed was a child care teacher.
Her program has a 3PreK half day program that has a total of 28 children
throughout the week. I wanted to know if
they had a program for literacy and reading development. She told me the she creates her own program
based on the needs of the children.
Their goal is to have the children familiar with the alphabet and to
understand that each letter has a sound.
They also work on an environmental print project where the children
bring in their favorite labels from food or from places they know like McDonalds. The children also work on recognizing their
name and the names of their friends.
They also work on writing their name by signing in each morning. Finally, they have two story times a
day. One story is for pleasure and one
story is a big book where they children can see how to track print.
I did ask if what she felt were topics
related to literacy and she told me that it encompasses story time, phonemic awareness
and pre-writing skills. She also told me
that when she meets with other PreK teachers, one of the things that concern
them the most is the lack of fine motor skills children seem to have today
which leads to a poor grip of writing instruments and a lack of interest in
writing/drawing.
The second person I interviewed is the
teacher hosting my internship, who teaches 3rd grade in a Lutheran
school. The first thing that comes to
her mind when you ask her about literacy is phonics and phonemic awareness even
in 3rd grade. One of the
biggest issues she feels is the balance between phonics and whole language
because phonics is the basic building block in reading as they grow. The second issue that she thinks about is
reading comprehension. One of the
biggest issues she faces with parents is the fact they are more concerned about
their child being a fluent reader that they forget that comprehension is vital!
So what
are the advocacy efforts? The
PreK teacher told me there were conferences that offer suggestions for those
that struggle. She is unsure if the
school district offers help for 3 PreK students unless it is a speech related problem
and at best it is rough to get them help.
The 3rd grade teacher knows that libraries offer different
programs to try and aide families and children in the area of literacy. She does attend sectionals at conferences on
the latest trends in reading when they are available. She does enroll children in reading
incentives such as Pizza Hut Book-It, Great America’s Read to Succeed to
encourage daily reading. She feels it is
important to keep the read goals reasonable and attainable and one way to do
this is to conference with the children about their reading goals and have them
help set the monthly goal. She feels this way the child will be more willing to
read.
One of the insights that I gained is the
role of the parents. Some parents are
willing to help their child and follow the suggestions of the parents but there
are some that are not. There are parents
that care more about the quantity read verses what they are reading. I know that comprehension is vital in
reading after all if a person is reading something for information it is
important they KNOW what they are reading.
But the most interesting thing I found is the fact the 3rd
grade teacher did not mention writing. I
plan on talking to her about this because I want to know if there is correlation
between good readers and good writers.
I can also see how the 3 PreK’s
environmental print project can empower children to become interested in
reading which can lead them to become readers by 3rd grade. I can also see the value of empowering
children which can lead to confidence in their abilities to learn!
So now I am thinking about writing my
paper on one of the following topics: advocating
for the strong connections between reading and writing or the value of literacy
in the preschool sector or advocating for parents to help their children with
comprehension.
Here are my questions:
1. Are the topics I am
thinking about of value?
2. Are these topics viable to write about? Can I
find enough material?
