Respond to 2 peer Discussion post

Respond to the following in a minimum of 175 words:

This week focuses on primary students, ages 6 to 8 years. Describe how language and literacy evolves in children ages 6 to 8. How does this inform teaching practices? Explain and provide specific examples to support your response.

Reply to at least two of your classmates. Be constructive and professional in your responses.

Respond 1

Jenn

Children at this stage are able to take what they’ve learned phonetically and begin creating written representations of words. It is so important to let children experiment with letters and sounds. If they are able to describe meaning from what they have written…they are on their way to blossoming into writers! I have always tried to create a writing environment that promotes emergent spelling. I have noticed that they become more confident and are more likely to try even it is not the conventional spelling. “As with novices, written language serves a variety of functions for experimenters. A new purpose for their reading and writing is simply to experiment. Another is to preserve readable messages. Teachers can use four additional assessments to track the growing development of experimenters: sound-letter recognition, finger-point reading and identifying words, invented spelling, and reading and writing new rhyming words. They continue to gather work samples, especially of children’s writing, and to systematically observe children.” (McGee & Richgels, Chapter 4, 2012).

Knowledge of high frequency words (sight words) also helps a child in this early reading process. By the end of kinder and beginning of first, students who have a knowledge bank of these words can find success in reading, in my experience. This comes from class activities and centers that support sight word practice and parent involvement at home.

McGee, L. M., & Richgels, D. J. (2012). Literacy’s beginnings: Supporting young readers and

writers (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc. Retrieved from University of Phoenix online database

Respond 2

Madison

The phase after being a novice writer is called the experimenting phase. This comes with new understands and behaviors that mark them above the previous phase. They have a thoughtful attitude toward and the overall awareness of print. There is a discovery of new words in their vocabulary. There is a discovery of relation between sounds and letters, and there is an ability to focus on only one or a few aspects of conventional reading and writing at a time (McGee & Richgels, 2012, p. 89). Experimenters also know that print works in a special way, and they “are likely to have a fully developed concept of story or story schema” (p. 91). What is the most interesting to me is that they are aware that they are not fully equipped in constructing their own messages and are less confident that novices when it comes to producing a readable message. When it comes to their reading development, experimenters sound literate.

When it comes to how teachers manage activities in the classroom, they can make literacy centers, for the the children to explore, engage in talk-through activities, work on words as a class, instruct spelling activities, conduct interactive writing activities, and conduct a whole-class word study (p. 252-258).

McGee, L. M., & Richgels, D. J. (2012). Literacy’s beginnings: Supporting young readers and writers (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.