Becoming Literate

EDU 611 Current Trends in Reading

Language is:

By mouth By signs

Characteristics of language

GIVE EXAMPLES

Arbitrary

Rule Governed

Dynamic

THE WOMB OF LANGUAGE

MODELS - MOTHERESE Child Using Language Accepting all approximations Community

What is the foundation required for a child to learn to read successfully? Why are so many

children considered to be

DEVELOPMENTALLY DELAYED?

CLAY AND ROSENBLATT

Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves and the momraths outgrabed. Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the JubJub Bird, and SHUN the frumious Bandersnatch. And so with vorpal sword in hand, long time the manxome foe he sought. So rested he by the Tum Tum Tree and stood awhile in thought.

Transactional Theory of Reading

JEANNE CHALL

READERS MOVE THROUGH THE STAGES OF READING IN A PREDICTABLE ORDER

As children learn to write:

they completely develop one stage before moving to the next;

Learn to make letters and words before they understand that print communicates;

Develop their understanding of written language in a sequence that is distinguishable for every child.

Rarely take risks, wanting to make everything perfect;

QUIZ

Growth in one system produces growth in all three systems.

In 1978 I received a very large grant to study children's writing. This was the first and largest grant ever funded by the National Institute of Education in the study of children's writing. Lucy Calkins, Susan Sowers and I studied the composing processes of children for two years. Two books came from the study: Lessons from a Child (1983) by Lucy Calkins and my first book, Writing: Teachers and Children at Work by Heinemann in 1982.

In 1983 Jane Hansen and I set out to study the relationship between reading and writing first working in a first grade in Somersworth, New Hampshire, then moving to Lee and Stratham, NH. My five books making up the Reading/Writing Teachers Companion series came from our studies in those communities. Jane wrote her book, When Writer's Read, (1987) in that same time period.

Emergent Literacy

Ethnic and cultural minorities– Oral language development– Strategic thinkers– Vocabulary growth and cognitive development– The richness of the language interactions

David Pearson – As a profession we seem most able to provide help to those students who need it least and, least able to provide help to those who need it most.