Early Literacy Development

A Thank you note.

Writing a research paper can be very challenging, but with my colleges and teacher’s support, it made it a little bit easy.  It was a lot that we had to read, but I believe it made us better writers and also made us learn how to select good resources that will help us in our jobs. The blogs and discussions were very helpful, because we exchange comments and we learn a lot from each other.  I also want to say thank you to Ms. Sisie because of all the help she gave us, by posting due dates, and emailing examples of the papers we needed to do. I want to say Thank you to everybody, even though we met through blogging, it was nice to see pictures of you. Good luck!!!

Blog 4

Early Literacy Development

 

Observing and Interacting with Families of the Children in Your Setting.

 

I observed a Head start classroom, there are two teachers. I am going to identify the lead teacher as Ms. Maldonado, and the assistance teacher as Ms. Reyes. I observed the P.M. class, and the interactions between parents and teachers. Both teachers interact with parents every day from Monday to Thursday; the children do not have school on Fridays. Teachers have the opportunity to interact with parents because parents can go into the classrooms to drop off their children.

 

When parents and children arrive, Ms. Maldonado greets them, and parents can talk to her if they have any questions or concerns. Ms. Maldonado approached one of the parents in regards and her concern over one of her students about an evaluation they had done on the childat a public school, then Ms. Maldonado invited her to talk in private, but the parent just said that the school was going to send the evaluation results by mail. I asked Ms. Maldonado what kind of support they offer the parents when they need to go to a public school for evaluation. Ms. Maldonado response was that they offer to go with the parents to the evaluation, especially if they do not speaks English, but sometimes the parents prefer to go by themselves Moreover, the teachers and the staff administrators communicate with parents to make sure they do not miss any appointments regarding their child’s evaluation.

 

I also had the opportunity of interviewing one of the parents in Ms. Maldonado classroom. She speaks Spanish only, I asked her what the administrators do to support the Spanish speaking parents, she told me that they have an English class on site twice a week, she is attending this class, because she said that learning English is very important to her because she wants to understand what her children say to her in English, and she can communicate with other people. I also asked her if she thinks that early literacy is important, she said that early literacy helps children understand books and teaches them how start writing, she noticed that her daughter has more interest in books since she has been in the program.

 

What I learned from this experience is that daily communication between parents and teachers help build good relationships and trust.  Children benefit from the good communication because parents and teachers can work together to find the best resources for children. Another insight that I gained is that it is important to make parents feel comfortable when they come into the classroom, it can be by just saying hello, how are you? Teachers can open doors to good relationships.

 

 

Observing and Interacting With Program Director and Other Administrative Staff in your Setting

Early Literacy Development

Observing and Interacting With Program Director and Other Administrative Staff in your Setting

I was interacting with Ms. Elsa Galan; she is the site director of Incarnation Head Start. Ms. Elsa has been working for this site for about a year and a half. I told her that my topic for my research paper is Early literacy, and what she thought about it. She said that it was a good topic that once a month parents have a literacy workshop, provided by the staff of the University of Illinois in Chicago, but parents’ participation is very low and they do not attend the workshops. She also said that parents learn how to make reading fun to their children, through these workshops, and at the end of these workshops parents received books.

One insight I gained is that Ms. Elsa talked to parents at the moments they are dropping off their child, and she invites them to the different workshops she organized for them. She has good relations with the parents. Another insight is that Ms. Elsa is a bilingual site director, and most of the families in the program are Hispanic, she said that it is very important to talk to parents in their native language if it’s possible, because talking to them in their own language, develops trust between parents and staff.

Observing and Interacting With Professionals, Children, and Families in an Early Childhood Setting

Observing and Interacting With Professionals, Children, and Families in an Early Childhood Setting

The preschool program I observed is The Salvation Army, Incarnation Head Start. There are two sessions of 3 ½ hours. The morning session starts at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 12:00 p.m. The second session starts at 12:30 p.m. and ends at 4:00 p.m. Each session serves 17 children, but right now the enrollment is a little bit low, there are only 10 children in the morning and 8 children in the afternoon. There are two teachers in the classroom; Ms. Erika Byrd that is the lead teacher, and Ms. Wendy Lara the teacher assistance.

I observed the afternoon class, and as the children were arriving parents were helping their children to hang up their jackets, then they went to wash their hands for lunch. Children were helping to set up tables, and I noticed that they have a routine, because they knew what to do without the teachers help. During lunch time teachers and children were talking, some children were talking in Spanish, and Ms. Byrd told me that most of the children are from Hispanic families. She does not know a lot of Spanish, but Ms. Lara is bilingual, and they help each other, when children say something and Ms. Byrd does not understand, Ms. Lara translates to her or she translates for the children.

After lunch children went to get a book, and then they went to sit on the carpet. Ms. Byrd had a Helpers Chart, and children look at the chart to see who the book collector is. Ms. Byrd started circle time by dancing with the children, and then she started reading the book of the day. This is the activity that I observed the most, because it is related to my topic that it is early literature. Ms. Byrd started the reading activity by showing the cover of the book to children and after that she asked them what they thought the book was about. After she was finished with the book Ms. Byrd told children that they were going to draw a picture about the story, and that they will dictate a story. Children went to draw the picture, while others went to play. Children dictate their story in English as well as in Spanish.

Ms. Byrd and Ms. Lara had a good communication. Ms. Lara was taking care of the children that were having a hard time during reading time. One insight I gained was that Ms. Byrd has books in each area of the classroom, for example she has books about cars and numbers in the block area, and books about different families and cooking books in the housekeeping area. One more insight I gained is the way she reads the books to children. She makes faces, she changes her voice if she needs it according to the character of the book, and this really engages the children into the reading activity. Another insight is that it is important to talk to children in their own language if it’s possible, like Ms. Byrd and Ms. Lara they took turns to take history dictations according to the children’s language.

 

 

Interview

I interviewed an early childhood teacher about Early Literacy; I gained so much insight that I think it is going to be my research topic. I explain to my host teacher that my interest was on Early Literacy because I notice it is very important for children to get involve in literacy because when children are expose to literacy, children learn to read, write, and learn to understand cognitive concepts, that will help them to  be good readers.

My host teacher told me that children need to develop the concepts of listening and comprehension before they move to a higher level of learning, because if they don’t develop these concepts they will have problems due to the lack of these skills, so it is very important to involve children in literacy activities since they are babies or toddlers.

My host teacher shared some issues, she thinks effects the readings skills of children. One of the problems she sees is that children do not follow directions when it is time to read, and they move around and they have difficulty focusing during reading activities, so these children do not grasp the concepts that will lead them to understand what is being read to them.

Another problem that she thinks affects the students is that parents don’t get involved, they don’t have time to read to their child, or some parents don’t know how to read. Consequently these children’s reading skills are poor or they don’t have interest in reading activities.

One insight that I gained is that trough literacy activities children get ready to be good readers when they are in upper school levels, and that it is very important to get parents involve to do more reading activities at home.

My second interview was to the librarian, she explained to me that they have different literacy programs to involve the families that live in the community. One of the programs is called “English Language Learner Story Time” This program is for parents and children from birth through age 5. Through stories, songs, and different activities parents and children learn and build their English language skills. She also shares that they visit schools around the neighborhood to talk to the teachers, because now teachers are also putting more emphasis in teaching History as well as Math and Reading. So at the library they want to have the appropriate books to support students that go to the library to look for resources.

An insight that I gained from this interview is that parents really want to help their children, there are a lot of resources outside of the school, and we as teachers can redirect them to the right place.

 

Research paper topic

I'm thinking on doing my reseach paper on Language Development, early literacy or ADHD. Can anyone give me an advise?
Thankyou