Flourishing in the First Five Years by Donna Wilson

Author:Donna Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: R&L Education
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

U

Understanding/Use

Josh squints at the final picture. “Pumpkin?” The teacher shares a reminder, “Remember, all the words start with the /j/ sound.” “Oh, yeah,” Josh says with a laugh. “It’s a jack-o-lantern.”

Future Readers and Writers

Although some children become readers and writers before entering kindergarten, most are more accurately described as “pre-readers” or “emergent readers” (Strickland & Shanahan, 2004).

Learning to read, taken in conjunction with learning to write, is a process known commonly as emerging literacy. As in language development, the key to emerging literacy is regular exposure to meaningful activities, both written and spoken. Reading aloud to children is just one component that sets the stage for eventual literacy. It’s also important to let children see and interact with written words in everyday situations and to provide them with the opportunity to practice the act of reading and writing (Wilson & Conyers, 2009).

Early reading is a powerful indicator of future reading. Children who have early success in reading are likely to spend a considerable time doing it, whereas those who read poorly are likely to get frustrated and do as little of it as possible. A gap, which only widens as time goes on, develops between the successful readers and the unsuccessful readers. This creates a phenomenon known as the “Matthew effect,” taken from the biblical passage that describes how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer (Stanovich, 1986). Successful readers get an intrinsic reward from their reading. The more they enjoy reading, the more they practice it, and the more they practice it, the better they get at it. Poor readers, who already are struggling because of poor decoding skills, fall further behind due to lack of practice. Not only do their reading skills suffer, but their lack of exposure to books also deters their vocabulary growth and their exposure to general knowledge gained through books.

A 10-year longitudinal study confirmed that those who get off to a fast start in reading are more likely to read more over the years (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998). The study found that a higher volume of reading has positive effects even on children with modest cognitive abilities by building their vocabulary and general knowledge. The researchers determined that those who read a lot enhance their verbal intelligence—“that is, reading will make them smarter” (p. 14).

Just as children are emerging in reading, they also begin their first attempts at writing. They typically start off with drawings and scribbles, which are precursors to written language. Children often use the letters of their name as an early basis for writing other words. In their early writing attempts, children may use a beginning letter to represent the whole word. This progresses to the addition of ending letters and then vowels within the words. Children’s first successful attempts at spelling will be with high-frequency words (e.g., the, and, it, etc.) and later with words that they sound out phonetically. This is a painstaking process; thus, it’s important that children find writing meaningful and enjoyable. Observing other people

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