Midterm

LRC 312c

Chelsea Tamietti

3/21/13

Section A

For this particular transcribing of my case study’s language, it occurred during my first

visit on our literacy walk around his neighborhood. At first I prompted a few signs and familiar

objects to get things started, but after that Jake took over and was pointing out objects right and

left and telling us all about them. We took the literacy walk with me, my partner, our teacher,

Jake, and his mother. We walked around his neighborhood because he wanted to visit some

family friends.

Jake is a four year old boy. He is a bilingual child who mostly speaks Spanish especially

with his family. When I first met him, he didn’t speak any English in the classroom which was

difficult because he didn’t understand what was expected of him. His English has improved, but

he has a tendency to switch from English to Spanish, especially on certain words. His parents

want him to be fully bilingual, and that is why he speaks only Spanish to his father and family,

but will speak English to his mom and in the classroom. This was an issue when he first came to

the preschool because he didn’t socialize with anyone verbally. Thankfully we had a bilingual

teacher who helped him out and was able to communicate with him, but he still struggled. He

had a hard time transitioning to English, and it was because it was confusing for him to try to

speak English when he had mostly spoken Spanish his whole life. Thankfully, he eventually

started talking more and more in English. This is partly due to him becoming more comfortable

with us and his peers, but also his parents were working with him on his English as well. He

would still use Spanish words here and there, but now he can speak full sentences in English, and

he has great grammar and sentence structure for his age. He will occasionally stutter, but it is

usually when he is struggling to find the right word. I have never heard him stutter while talking

in Spanish. His family continues to work with him on his language, and we also work with him

in the classroom. He also reads with his parents at home, and within my lessons I incorporate as

much literacy as possible.

Me: “Where are you going to take us Jake?”

Jake: “Um to um to my tatas friend.”

Mom: “Oh his tata’s friend, so my dad’s friend, Mari and Oscar, we usually visit or pass by their

house. Do you want to go this way or the other way? Which way?”

Jake: “But where where is?”

Mom: “I guess their house is closer this way. If you see anything you like tell us about it ok

Jake.”

Jake: “What?”

Mom: “If you see anything you like tell us about it.”

Me: “Jake do you know what this is?”

Jake: “Uh huh.”

Me: “What is this? What does this do?”

Jake: “Idk”

Me: “What do you get from these little boxes do you know?”

Jake: “I don’t know.”

Me:”You get your mail.”

Jake: “Uh you you, you put your key in here.”

Mom: “What does mommy get out? I usually park the car, I usually drive to pick it up because

I’m too lazy, and what do I get out? Do I get out candy?”

Jake: “Hehehe, No.”

Mom: “What do I get out?”

Jake: “Look this is a bigger one.”

Mom: “Oh because it’s open I see what you’re saying sweetheart.”

Me: “Jake what’s this for? What is this? Do you know what this is?”

Jake: “Uh uh it uh It has water in it.”

Me: “What do they do with it, what do they do with the water?”

Jake: “It it opens it it opens it opens and boom.”

Jake: “Look its chiquitos.”

Mom: “Oh little seeds, that’s nice. It reminds me of the green beans you eat.”

Jake: “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.”

Mom: “Yes sweetheart?”

Jake: “I I I want to run” (laughs) (all laugh).

Mom: “How about this, you wait here, and I’ll walk ahead and you can run to me? You can wait

here because you will beat us. Okay run to the trash can.”

Jake: “But I I want to run with you.”

Mom : “Okay 1.2.3 go.”

Mom: (Jake points to some poop on the sidewalk and asked what it might be) “Is that rabbit poop

or rabbit food? Or some type of food? No se. It might be dirty my love.”

Jake: “Who put it here?”

Mom: “Maybe the people who live here.”

Mom: (Spanish)(can’t make out words)

Jake: replies in Spanish (too quiet to translate)

Mom: “He doesn’t think its poop.”

Jake: “There’s some more.”

Mom: “How many? How many are there Jake? How many circles?”

Me: “Here lets count, How many?”

Jake and I: “1.2.3.4.5.6”

Jake: “Mom eww, why is it black? Wait look, what’s this? It’s from the cars.”

Me: “Your right it’s from the tire.”

Jake: “It was an animal, right here (kills ant).”

Jake “But mom I want to show you something over there.”

Mom: “Ok what is it darling?”

Jake: “Look at this poop. That is like a hand.”

Jake: “A hand, like a finder?”

Jake: “No like a ha…no finger on a hand.”

Mom: “No more looking at poop honey.”

Jake: “You see that… uh, it, ah you hear that, uh uh uh it go like this” (imitates flying bird) (he

laughs).

Mom: “Were you talking about the bird or the plant home?”

Jake: “Oh oh o wow ow.”

Mom: “Are you okay silly? You are quite an actor my love. No put it back sweetheart. Be careful

my love.”

Jake: “But I’m just being silly.”

Mom: “You are being silly and you are really funny Jake.”

Jake: “What’s that, what’s that?”

Me: “Careful.”

Mom: “It looks like a baby of the last cactus we saw.”

Jake: “No there is something.”

Mom: “Oh it’s scraped a little.”

Jake: “But, look, you see right there, come here, I will show you, you see that chekita?”

Mom: “Ya it has little lines on it.”

Jake: “It has a shrub on it.”

Mom: “A what?”

Me: “A bug on it.”

Mom: “It’s a home for the bug sweetie.”

As shown in the transcribing above, Jake has relatively good sentence structure and

mostly uses complete sentences. He occasionally will stutter, but like I said in the introduction, I

have noticed it’s when he doesn’t know quite what to say. He occasionally will use telegraphic

speech, but you know what he means and it isn’t always necessary to say more. In the above

example, you can also see that sometimes Jake doesn’t finish his sentences. He doesn’t do this all

the time, but he did it a few times on our walk. It could be that Jake did this because he knew that

his mom would know what he is referring to. During the second visit we talked a little about this

and his mom said that this is common for him, but he does get frustrated when she doesn’t

understand what he means or is referring to. Most of the time it is obvious what he means or is

talking about, but sometimes he needs to be prompted to get out what he wants or is talking

about. Also, you can see that he will sometimes use Spanish words instead of English. He does

this quite often, and it wasn’t represented much in this sample above, but his sentences will

sometimes all be in English except for one word.

On the walk, we were also impressed with all that he pointed out, and all that he could

associate with that object. Like the cactus and why there were scrapes on it, and why there was a

bug on it. Also, with the tire mark, and how he instantly knew that was from a car, I was very

impressed. I never noticed how much you could see and interpret on a walk around a

neighborhood that didn’t contain any signs.

Before I did my second home visit, I noticed language and literacy aspects within the

classroom while observing Jake. Concerning some questions from the “Kidwatching” book, I

have noticed that Jake usually is clearly understood when talking to others. He seems to speak

more clearly though in his play rather than when he is talking to a teacher. When he talks to a

teacher, he is quiet and has a tendency to walk away from you as he is talking. He also stutters

more when he is talking to the teacher about something. When I discussed this during our second

home visit, his mom confirmed that she even has a hard time understanding him when he talks.

She said that now that he is in preschool, he has gotten a lot better, but there are still times where

she has to ask him to repeat what he said.

He also really struggles with staying focused and listening to oral directions within the

classroom. He will listen if he is interested and he loves sharing stories, but overall he struggles

with staying on task and following oral directions. After interviewing his mom, I learned that it is

not just in the preschool setting that he has a difficult time listening to directions. She said that he

will usually follow directions, but if he doesn’t want to do what he is being asked, he won’t do it.

She doesn’t think that it is because he doesn’t understand what is being asked of him, she thinks

it is based on his interest and if he wants to do it or not.

One day I noticed him in the library center “reading” a book. As I was watching him I

noticed that he was holding the book correctly, and turning the pages correctly, so I decided to

work with him some more and read to him. He enjoyed this for a while, but then he wanted to

interpret the story in his own way according to the pictures. He made up his own story by

looking at the pictures and interpreting what he thought they meant. He picked multiple books to

read together, and first he would let me read, but within a few pages, he would take over telling

the story. The library isn’t his first choice in centers, but whenever I read a story to the class he is

very attentive and will answer any questions I have concerning the books. During this time

though, he will answer the questions but with a yes or no answer. If it was a question to draw

things from his personal life, he wouldn’t respond. On occasion, Jake will relate the story to his

own life and make connections, but it isn’t all the time or very many connections. One time only

that it had happened was during the week where we talked about the desert and I read a story that

had a turtle in it. Jake shouted out that he had a turtle like the one in the story. He will make

inferences about a story as well. One time I was reading with him in the library center and we

were reading a book about dinosaurs. On the first page there was a bunch of pictures of dinosaurs

with different faces. He would point to different ones and say if he liked them or not. I asked him

why he liked certain ones and he said because they were happy.

During our second visit, I also asked his mom about how he does with books and telling

stories. She said that he has a great memory for events that have happened in the past. She said

that he loves to listen to stories, but he also loves to share stories. He had gone to a movie the

night before our interview, so we had him tell us what had happened in the movie. His

description was short, but he was able to tell us quite a bit of what had happened in a certain part

of the movie. He also had his favorite book handy at the table where we did our interview. This

book was Click, Clack, Moo, The Cows that type. He right away picked up the book (the correct

way) and started flipping through the pages (right to left) to show us his favorite part. Once he

got to the page he summarized what the story was about. When he was finished I asked his mom

if he liked to sit and read stories. Mom said that they do sit and read with him, but it isn’t his first

choice in activities. She said though, that when they do read, he enjoys the pictures and will help

turn the page and point to the words with her as she reads. I then asked if he helps with making

lists or doing recipes, and his mom said that he will help her cook, and will follow directions, but

he doesn’t help with lists or reading. I asked if he ever tries to read words or write random letters

and she said that he doesn’t, but she said that they were trying to work on that with him. I noticed

that he doesn’t ever do this at the preschool, but I didn’t know if he might to it at home.

As far as personal interests go, I know that he loves action characters and loves to act like

them within his play in the classroom. He likes power rangers, and kick patowski, teenage

mutant ninja turtles, and many more. Within his play he will either pretend to be a character, or

have the objects he is playing with be the character. He is fun to listen to when he plays because

there is always something going on, and everything has a purpose.

Since Jake enjoys these TV shows and characters so much, it would be good to get him

talking more about why he likes them and what they do that he likes. I think it would be a fun

activity to have him draw one of his favorite characters and then help him write why it is his

favorite character. I could also bring in books that would help him with this. I could bring in

stories about these characters and see if he could interpret the story by what he already knows, or

if reading the stories to him would help him to retell his favorite episodes.

When it comes to language and letter recognition, Jake can point out letters especially the

letter that begins his first name, but he can’t point out words (as far as I have observed). When I

read off of charts in the classroom, he will repeat what I said, after I said it though. He also can

write most of his letters fairly well, and can recognize letters fairly well. He struggles with a few,

but overall he knows about half of the upper and lowercase alphabet. When he first arrived at the

center he knew about two letters. This told us that he didn’t really work on letter recognition

much before he came to our center. We worked every day on letters whether it was the letters in

their name, or working on different letters during small group. We would have them trace letters,

write them on their own, play letter bingo, discover what letters make what sound, draw letters in

shaving cream, and many more. He has come a far way, but again, he still struggles with a lot of

letters. At home his parents got him some work books that focus on numbers, letters, and art, so

he is working more at home now that we brought our concerns to his parents. From the work that

Jake has brought into the classroom, he mostly is working on his name, which is great, but he

needs to continue working on the other letters of the alphabet.

From observing my case study child and working with the other students, I have learned

that they understand that books are very important of a number of reasons. Books have colorful

and sometimes funny pictures that children can relate to and draw conclusions from. They also

have learned that the words have meaning and that they tell a story about the pictures. My

students would hear the words and be able to draw conclusions about what is happening in the

story but also what might happen next.

I have learned so much about Jake from these home visits, but also in all the months that

I have been watching and observing him within the classroom. He is a very interesting child

because of all that he knows but also for all the things that he doesn’t know and is still learning.

It has been interesting to see how much he has grown and looking back to when he first came up

until now. So much has changed and improved concerning his development that it is fascinating.

His family has been so easy to work with and such a great help. I was able to connect with them

so well because they were such caring people and they really wanted to work with me and they

supported me in anything that I needed concerning Jake. I have such a great appreciation and so

much respect for both Jake and his family. I am so thankful that I was able to work with all of

them because I feel that I learned so much about how important family can be in a child’s life,

but also how important it is to communicate and work with the parents to help further their

child’s development.

Section B.

Family is very important to my case study child and his family. They constantly have

family over, and Jake’s Grandparents play a very active role in his life. They pick him up from

school and watch him all of the time when his parents need a babysitter. For my activity that I

would do with my case study, I would do a lesson revolved around family. I believe too that

family is very important, but also that families come in all different sizes and types. Families are

people that love you and support you and are there for you, and that is what my case studies

family believes as well. I also chose this activity because families are all different and therefore

the students can’t copy what others have to say about their family. They will hopefully be able to

verbalize what they know about each unique family member within their own family.

For this activity, I will start by reading the story “Stellaluna.” This is a story about a bat

that lost her family, but ended up finding another family who accepted her and helped her in her

time of need. In the end, she found her actual family, but she discovered that both the birds and

the bats were her family for different reasons. This is a great story about how families are the

people who love you and accept you even if you are different. After the story time, during small

groups, the children will get a chance to make a book about their family. They will be given their

own book that is blank inside, a pencil and crayons. They will be asked to draw the members of

their family, and write about each member. Some students struggle with writing, so they will tell

the teacher what they would like to say about that family member, and the teacher will write it in

for them. For those of the students who can write, they can ask for help with spelling what they

would like to say about their family members. For closing circle, the students will then be given

a chance to share their family books to the class and tell them all about each of their family

members.

For this lesson, my goal is that each student will really think about their family and try to

describe each family member to the best of their ability. This lesson works on their attention for

the story, communicating through art, and telling a story about each family member. I hope that

the students will take their time and carefully draw each member. I also hope that the students

will talk about at least some of their family members when they stand up to share to the class. I

think that this lesson works on all aspects of literacy that are important; listening to a story,

creating a story and then sharing that story.

I wasn’t able to actually do this lesson, but I feel that this activity would help to

encourage Jake to talk about his family and help him to describe his family. It will encourage

him to also really think about his family and all of the people in it and what makes them special.

It will encourage him to try to work on his writing, but it will also help him work on his

communication skills, and talking to his peers. This activity will also help him to get his thoughts

out on paper as well as working on communication and telling the class about his family.

Section C

For my literacy event, I attended a salsa event with my family. Jake’s parents are very

big into salsa dancing, in fact their living room is laid out so they can practice dancing. They run

a club that meets two Sundays a month at the studio that they teach at. For the event, the first

hour was about learning to dance. They did a basic warm-up and then broke the class into

advanced and beginner. Jake’s dad taught the advanced class. I was able to actually participate in

this, but I had to be in the beginner class. After the hour lesson, it broke into free dance. They

continued to play salsa music and anyone who wanted to dance could grab a partner and go. Jake

was all over the place socializing with everyone and playing with the other children who were

there. A few times I even got to watch him dance with his parents.

This salsa event incorporated literacy in a few different ways. First, all the moves have

names, just like in any other type of dance. The moves not only have names, but also the body

positions have different names that you have to learn in order to fully learn to salsa dance. Along

with the different names for the steps and positions, the lyrics are also a type of literacy. Jake is

bilingual so he is able to pick up some if not all of the words in the songs. Spanish songs, when I

was learning Spanish, were a good way for me to work on my translating and understanding of

the words. Even though Jake understands them, his vocabulary can still grow by learning the

lyrics.

After my experience with learning to salsa dance, I feel that it would be a great aspect to

bring into the classroom. The music, the moves, and the vocabulary bring in a new culture to

probably a lot of students. I grew up dancing, and I feel that it helped me in school because in

dance class you had to memorize moves after one time hearing them, so I was able to pick up

more in school. I think that movement is a great way for children to lean and students can

express themselves through movement. I also feel that salsa dancing would be a great theme and

type of movement to bring into the classroom because it is different than other types of dance,

but is something that gets them moving and opens their eyes to other cultures and styles of

movement out there. Every person who I danced with at the salsa event had a unique style. It was

all still salsa dancing, but it was all different. This is, I think, interesting about this particular type

of dance, because you can really make it your own.

Jake’s writing of what the weather will be for the day.

Jake tracing his letters.

Jake tracing his numbers 1-10.

Jake reading a book.

Jake practicing some letters.

Jake reading with a friend.