Early Childhood Literacy

With adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) virtually the whole of the United States is involved in aligning curricula, lesson planning, implementing, and professional development. However, only a small fraction of CCSS activity or commentary focuses on early childhood education at the preschool and kindergarten levels. Thus, it is crucial to examine closely the links between the standards themselves and applications in practice so that teachers and administrative personnel have a clear understanding of both what the standards imply and do not imply for aligning classroom practices to accomplish the CCSS in early childhood. This article focuses on clarifying issues that have been especially subject to confusion or misinterpretation with respect to curricular and instructional practices in preschool and kindergarten. It begins with a brief account of alignments between the CCSS and developmentally appropriate practices currently common in early language and literacy instruction and supported by research, followed by in-depth analyses of four issues that have generated some or considerable confusion for early childhood educators: pedagogical approach, text choices, understanding developmental progressions, and performance assessment.

This study investigates the use of the appropriate language teaching methodology in African classrooms by using Ghana as a case study since the challenges in African classrooms are quite homogeneous in African countries. The study suggests Communicative Language Teaching as an alternative language teaching methodology to improving students’ English Language proficiency. The research engaged both experimental and the control groups with a total of 86 students, comprising 44 boys and 42 girls from an elementary school in Ghana- Tema Municipal Assembly Junior High School in Nmai Djor, Accra. The researcher undertook a preliminary study to assess the performance of both groups to ascertain whether the students were of the same academic and language ability. Interview, observation and intervention lessons were used to gather information necessary for the research. The intervention lessons included pre-tests and post-tests on the selected classes. The experimental group was taught using t...

Children's spellings provide a window on their representations of spoken words. These representations may not always match those assumed by the conventional orthography. We examined one specific case in which this may be true, that of CVCC (consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant) syllables. In three experiments, first grad-ers often produced spellings such as "sach" for the nonword /saenff/ and "pit" for the nonword/pilt/. We suggest that many children consider these syllables to contain three phonemes instead of four phonemes. Rather than treating the postvocalic nasal or liquid as a separate phoneme, children consider it an attribute of the vowel. This suggestion was supported by the results of a phoneme counting test in which children often used three tokens for syllables such as /saenff/ and /pilt/. The results suggest that, in addition to difficulties in gaining access to phonemes, nonstandard phonemic representations may be a stumbling block in the acquisition of alphabetic literacy.

This short article describes and demonstrates the 3 cueing systems the brain used to identify words during the act of reading.  Also described are the 2-way flow of information during the reading process, the relative unimportance of letters, and problems with over-emphasizing phonics instruction.

Move, Act, Play, Sing (MAPS) explored early childhood teaching and learning in the performing arts through community artist interventions and relational practices and pedagogies. The research developed three early childhood centre case studies where teachers, children, and parents worked together with community artists, the research team, and other colleagues to explore emergent pathways of performing arts teaching and learning. In MAPS, community artists in music, dance, and drama worked alongside teachers and children in semi-planned, open, and improvisatory pedagogical settings set up to explore the potentialities of performing arts learning and teacher responses in the centre environments and communities. The ethnographic inquiry focused on how the early childhood teachers engaged in meaningful performing arts experiences through the research process and looked at ways in which centres could engage in sustainable, ongoing performing arts teaching and learning.

""Children under 3½ years of age or so are often thought to produce
the same types of scribbles for writing and drawing. We tested this
idea by asking Chinese 2- to 6-year-olds to write and draw four targets. In Study 1, Chinese adults judged the status of the productions as writings or drawings. The adults performed significantly above the level expected by chance even with the productions of 2- to 2½-year-olds. In Study 2, we examined specific characteristics of the children’s writings and drawings. Although the younger children’s scribbles bore little resemblance to the correct characters, they tended to be smaller, sparser, and more angular than their artwork, with less filling in. Differences were also found in paper use and implement use. Children did not appear to distinguish writing from drawing for their own names before they did so for other targets.""

This presentation focuses on a study carried out in a French immersion charter school on the scores first-graders obtained on two reading benchmark tests, the DIBELS and its equivalent in French, the IDAPEL. A statistical analysis of the results shows a strong correlation between the scores on the two tests for all the categories of reading predictors and indicate that the students’ level of French can account for some of the score differences observed between the two tests. This study thus questions the necessity of conducting two separate reading benchmark tests and offers insights to educators on reading remediation strategies.

Phonological awareness encompasses three main subsets of skills: awareness of words, syllables, and sounds. These three skills work in concert to support students’ reading development. By purposefully utilizing time in the classroom, teachers can embed phonological awareness activities during common transitions, thus maximizing students’ exposure to early literacy skills. Through these deliberately planned activities, teachers can not only provide effective instruction, but they can ensure that throughout the school day, transitions run smoothly with fewer disruptions and off-task behaviors.

This article discusses issues of technology, interactive media and preschool education related to the areas of early language and literacy. From discussions with other researchers and practitioners, we suspect that the status, situations, and children’s reactions to technology reported on here apply widely across disciplines and curricular areas in early childhood. We focus first on current research related to the role of technology in preschool children’s early language and literacy instruction and then discuss what we believe is critically important to address by any preschool or other level of educational institution in order to redress serious shortcomings in the role of technology in the classroom education of today’s young children.

In this conceptual essay, we offer rationales and evidence for critical components of a working model of text complexity for the early grades. In the first three sections of the article, we examine word-level, syntax-level, and discourse-level features of text, posing questions for future research. In the fourth section, we address elements of text treatments—the collection of texts with which beginning readers will interact longitudinally over the course of their early literacy development. This conceptual essay provides a unified treatment of the complexities of early grade text through the introduction of a theoretical framework, assimilating the extant research into a theory of early grade text and delineating a theoretical and empirical strategy for transforming the framework into a mature model.

A number of children struggle with literacy, social/emotional skills and motivation to attend school. While there are a number of initiatives to support these children, an imaginative method of support is through our canine companions. The Delta Society Classroom Canines TM program provides assistance to children identified as having difficulties with literacy learning and/or social/emotional skills. Through the program, a trained dog and handler visit a school on a weekly basis and work with children in a classroom setting. This research investigated the impact of the Classroom Canines TM program on the reading and social/emotional skills of selected students at a primary school in Queensland, Australia. It utilized both quantitative and qualitative data, including reading scores, attendance records, classroom observations, artefacts (work samples), interviews with teachers and students, and researcher journals. Findings from the study support the benefits of dog-assisted programs ...

Lesen- und Schreibenlernen ist endlich wieder Thema geworden. Aufgrund seiner Bedeutung für die individuelle psychische Entwicklung, den Bildungserfolg und die Lebensplanung von Menschen sowie seiner gesellschaftlichen Relevanz wird es derzeit auch öffentlich intensiv diskutiert. Ergebnisse der internationalen Forschung belegen die fundamentale Bedeutung des Schrifterwerbs auch für die kognitive Entwicklung. Sprachliches Lernen als kognitives Lernen wird dann unterstützt, wenn die Schrift - und damit auch die Sprache - von Kindern als systematisch und regelhaft wahrgenommen werden kann. Der Unterricht hat daher die Aufgabe, ihnen dieses von Beginn an zu ermöglichen. Die Beiträge dieses Bandes stellen aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln die Notwendigkeit und die Möglichkeit einer systematischen Hinführung an die Schrift heraus und weisen auf Konsequenzen einer Schrifterwerbsdidaktik, die auf die Darstellung der Regelhaftigkeit von Schrift und Sprache abzielt, sowohl für die unterrichtliche als auch die außerunterrichtliche Diagnostik, vor allem für die Konzeptbildung des Unterrichts hin. Entsprechende praktische Beispiele beenden den Band.

For adults, written spelling is generally superior to oral spelling. To determine whether the same holds true for children in kindergarten through second grade, we compared children's ability to spell real words (Experiment 1) and nonsense words (Experiment 2) orally and in writing. Building on the work of Tangel and Blachman (1992, 1995) and others, we developed a reliable system to assess the overall quality of the children's spellings. We also examined the phonological and orthographic legality of the spellings. By first and second grade, written spellings were superior to oral spellings in both overall quality and representation of phonological form. This held true for both words and nonwords. The results suggest that children, like adults, more accurately analyze the linguistic structure of a spoken item when they can represent the results in a lasting, visible form than when they cannot.

Courtney Cazden en Sarah Michaels hebben beiden een belangrijke rol gespeeld in het onderzoek naar de waarde van gesprekken in het onderwijs voor het leren van kinderen. Dit interview met Cazden en Michaels vormt de opmaat naar de special ‘Goede gesprekken met jonge kinderen’ die verschijnt in het decembernummer (2016) van HJK.

Introduction
Interactive Writing is a teaching strategy which provides opportunities for the explicit teaching of both authorial skills (text structure, grammar, vocabulary) and secretarial skills (spelling, punctuation and handwriting) as well as reading. Children become apprentice writers who work alongside an experienced writer (the teacher). The teacher and children share the authorship, and ownership, of co-constructed texts. Interactive Writing is particularly effective in the first two years of school although Wall (2008) has successfully applied the strategy with third grade students. “This strategy is designed to utilise what children already know and can do (collectively), to teach them new skills and provide reasons for writing” (Mackenzie, 2010, p.27).

Authors: Joel Brown, Koomi Kim, K. O'Brien Ramirez.
This article examines how a second-grader demonstrates that reading is not about decoding letters and words in linear order but is a complex activity involving the reader's decisions with respect to several aspects of their knowledge of their language and how comprehension is key to transacting with texts. The paper observes and documents the reader's reading comprehension process using eye tracking and miscue analysis.

The intent of this chapter is to suspend the belief in the goodness of literacy -- our chirographic bias -- in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the engagement with texts structures human consciousness, and particularly the minds of children. In the following pages literacy (a term which in this chapter refers to the ability to read and produce written text) is discussed as a consciousness altering technology. A phenomenological analysis of the act of reading shows the child’s engagement with texts as a perceptual as well as a symbolic event that builds upon but also alters children’s speech acts. Speaking and reading are both forms of language use, but with different configurations of perceptual and symbolic qualities. Children’s literature uses textual technology and, intentionally or not, participates in structuring children’s pre-literate minds. Some of its forms, such as picture books and early readers, are directly intended to bridge the gap between the pre-literate listener and the literate reader and ease the transition into the literate state. It is my hope that the phenomenological analysis of the experiences of speaking and reading might help us understand more clearly how children’s literature impacts the minds of children. Such an analysis can awaken a critical awareness of the power that letters wield as they shape the reader’s psychological reality, and it can sharpen our sense of wonder about the metamorphosis of language from speaking to writing.

In this article, the authors provide an update on what has happened over recent months with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s proposal for an International Early Learning Study, and review responses to the proposed International Early Learning Study,
including the concerns that have been raised about this new venture in international testing. The authors call on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and its memberstate governments to enter into open discussion with the wider early childhood community about the future direction of comparative work on early childhood education and care.

This study uses data from INAF Brazil (Functional Literacy Index) from 2001 to 2011 in order to examine the impact of education and income on the level of functional literacy of individuals, using a pseudo panel data model. The results show that the educational level of the mother has a significant impact in determining the degree of functional literacy, but its effect is reduced when we include the education of the individual its elfin the model. This information is shown essential, contributing significantly to the explanation of the
variability of the INAF literacy scores. The study also concludes that the influence of  parental education on functional literacy is indirect, since it is by education attained by the individual.

Współczesność to czas wymagający głębokiej refleksji nad dzieciństwem. Wymaga ona przede wszystkim podmiotowego spojrzenia na dziecko jako na Osobę wpisaną w historię, kulturę i społeczeństwo. Współczesność obliguje zatem w pewnym sensie do rekonstrukcji Korczakowskich pytań o dziecko i zapytania o to, kim tak naprawdę jest dziecko, jakie są jego prawdziwe cechy, prawdziwe potrzeby, jakie kryją się w nim prawdziwe możliwości? Taka refleksja nad dzieciństwem towarzyszy od wielu lat organizowanym przez nas na Wydziale Studiów Edukacyjnych UAM w Poznaniu konferencjom z cyklu Świat małego dziecka oraz wydawanym przez Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM pod naszą redakcją książkom o takim samym tytule. Podczas piątej edycji konferencji (odbywają się one co dwa lata od 2010 roku) i w chwili wydania piątego naukowego tomu Świata małego dziecka, podjęliśmy decyzję o wydaniu Świata małego dziecka w formie podręcznika akademickiego, który będzie wykorzystywany przez nasze środowisko zajmujące się pedagogiką dziecka, podczas zajęć dla studentów, które prowadzimy. Debaty na naszych konferencjach zawsze bowiem ukazywały, iż takiego podręcznika brakuje na polskim rynku, że nasi studenci go potrzebują i oczekują niejako od nas, że taki podręcznik dla nich stworzymy. Jesteśmy jednak w pełni świadomi, że oddawany Czytelnikom podręcznik stanowi jedynie zalążek oczekiwanego dzieła – liczymy, że będzie on systematycznie rozwijany i rozszerzany.

When children enter public kindergartens in the current atmosphere of high-stakes testing, they often encounter an emphasis on correctness that casts doubt on the integrity of their personally invented messages, prompting them to ask not “What did I write?” but “Is this right?” This ethnographic case study examines early writing by 23 kindergarten children within the context of their free-writing time and their teacher's plan to restore intention to compensate for a mandated curriculum that overemphasized convention.

Convergence of two complementary agendas motivated collaboration between two universities (in Zambia and Finland) to establish a Centre for Promotion of Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa (CAPOLSA), focused on initial literacy learning in indigenous languages. The project’s mandate and activities are closely related to Zambia’s national context of literacy and educational provision, emerging trends in Information and Communication Technology, and the University of Zambia’s institutional context of research and development on literacy, child development and education. The Centre has afforded opportunities for enhancing the working relations between the national university and government, and for contributing to the development of institutional linkages and consultative fora. Collaboration between various disciplines, institutions and economic sectors characterises CAPOLSA’s activities. Important growth points include institutional development, growth of a sustainable community of researchers whose collective efforts will increase the scale of Africa’s contribution to international knowledge, and evidence-based planning at the interface between humans and technology.