Language and Literacy Development in Children - Article Example

Language and Literacy development in children This essay will describe the language development of my pupil who is of Turkish origin. She has taken English as her second language. She speaks and understands only Turkish. This essay will describe how she was taught to read and understand English. It will describe the various methods and strategies used in developing this child’s literacy. I am giving a pseudo name to the child to facilitate writing the development process. The child will be called twinkle in this essay. Description of the Child: Twinkle is a four year old girl and comes from a rich Turkish family. She speaks and understands only Turkish. English is an additional language which she has to understand. She is a very happy child with very little attention span. She keeps moving form one place to another and has difficulty sitting in one place. She doesn’t understand the language spoken by her classmates and thus communicates in smiles and hand movements. She is very vibrant and alert but refuses to sit down in one place and listen to the teacher. She likes to look outside the window more than what teacher is writing on the board. She is always very keen on the interval and loves to run outside the moment the bell for break rings. Since she did not sit in one place and refused to read or open books, I started studying the child carefully. She was very lively but always spoke in Turkish. It was a challenge to make her understand anything in English. She would smile and move away. I called up her parents on phone to understand if she was always on the move at home. I understood from her mother that she was the same at home. She was always running around or up to mischiefs. She would very rarely sit and read or do her homework. She was outdoors most of the time and was always reluctant to come inside the house. She would keep exploring the garden, play in the mud, run amok with other kids and refuse to sit even to eat. Her mother would run after her and put food in her mouth while she was playing or moving about. I understood that twinkle had to be trained to be indoors and sit and read. I asked her mother what she did most of the day. Her mother said, she was also running around doing house errands. Since there were a few house-helps she did not have to be in the kitchen. Thus she would play with her child in the park. Take her for shopping or all outdoor activities. Go for swimming classes in the afternoon and socialise in the evening in the outdoor club besides their house. From this information I understood that the child had seen her mummy always outdoors and doing lot of activities. Twinkle accompanied her mother everywhere and thus found sitting at home boring as compared to the exciting world outside. Her mother did not have the habit of reading novels or magazine. She would watch television or listen to music. Twinkle too loved listening to music and watching television. Steps taken in capturing the Childs interest in reading 1. The teacher asked her mother to read magazines or books when twinkle was around. She did not have to ask twinkle to join her. Her mother was supposed to read when twinkle was inside the house. I also advised her mother to keep interesting books with large colourful pictures at home. She was specifically advised not to hand them over to her. They were left around the house so that twinkle could discover them and pick them up by herself .This suggestion was given based on the principle that child education begins at home and child learns from imitation. A child loves to imitate their parents. If twinkle would see her mother sitting and reading peacefully in one place everyday, she might want to imitate her mother and do the same. 2. I understood that since twinkle did not follow the language she was not keen on listening what is being said to her. So the first step in her development was to get her to pay attention to what was happening in the class. To do this, I brought an audio cassette of English rhymes. I played it in the class and made everybody sing it. Twinkle was very excited when the rhyme started playing with music. She suddenly stopped moving and stood in one place to listen to the music. Later twinkle saw that her classmates repeated the words when the background music was playing. Twinkle was interested enough to participate. So she started producing similar sounds with everybody. She did not understand the rhyme but managed to sing the lines based on her listening ability. 3. I started acting out the rhyme. It was a nice little dance. I encouraged other children to act in similar fashion. When I said “all fell down”, all the children were made to fall down. This was fun for twinkle; slowly she learnt those phrases and started understanding what they meant. 4. The next stage was to introduce her to English alphabets. This was done with the help of huge colourful pictures. I would bring these pictures and hang them in the class for some time. Till the time the pictures were in the class, twinkle would keep looking at them and say something in Turkish. Although twinkle did not understand English I continued to explain in English. I made other students come and point out at the picture and name it. Twinkle started paying attention to this form of teaching. Slowly I decreased the size of the pictures and started keeping them on every child’s desk. This made twinkle sit in one place to examine the smaller pictures on her desk. Every picture accompanied an alphabet and a word. This process was based on the popular synthetic approach. This approach generally involves a highly systematic whole-class teaching programme that is usually started very early in Primary. The sounds and their corresponding written symbols are taught in quick succession - up to five or six sounds per week. A multi-sensory approach is included where children see the symbol, listen to the sound, say the sound and accompany this by doing an action. This multi-sensory approach appears to support most learners in remembering many of the sound-symbol relationships. 5. Tina started naming the alphabets and also sat in one place to name them. I introduced a small game. Children sitting beside each other will ask each other names of the pictures. This encouraged communication in English. They were not allowed to use any other language. Slowly and slowly twinkle started communicating in small words in English. This idea was based on the principle that children learn more from their peers. I also used the analytic approach to develop her vocabulary. Analytic phonics involves analysis of whole words to detect phonetic or orthographic (spelling) patterns, then splitting them into smaller parts to help with decoding, for example onset and rime - onset (vowel sound(s)) at the beginning of a word or syllable and rime (always beginning with a vowel to form the remainder of that word or syllable. Thus I clubbed all common sight words. For Example, when teaching the word “could” I would support twinkle to generate and read the rhyming words that share the same written pattern “would”, “could” etc. 6. As twinkle developed interest in listening and producing sounds, I introduced writing alphabets. I did this by giving them crayons instead of pencils. They were encouraged to draw the pictures and write the alphabet beside it. So this became another fun activity for all of them. They began scribbling initially. But as time passed, they learnt to write those alphabets. Twinkle too started writing. Every time twinkle did her homework I would smile and look happy and praise her. I made a custom to clap for the child who did her homework and did it best. Twinkle liked this process and began doing her homework. 7. Slowly I introduced story books and started telling stories in English with actions. Twinkle had difficulty understanding the stories but she would listen anyways. She discovered those story books at home and began flipping through them. I requested her mom to read to her. Her mother knew only Turkish and could not read them to her. So twinkle would sit and stare at the pictures most of the time. Her wanderings were reduced and she stared spending time flipping through the story books. 8. To keep her interest in those stories I bought a video cassette to the class. I played the video which had the story in cartoon form. The video was beautiful and was projected on a wide screen. Twinkle understood the story which was played in English based on the video. Once in a week I would play a new story. Thus twinkle started understanding the stories in action form. This was based on the idea that children pay attention to things that they understand. They loose interest when they do not understand what is happening. This practice was based on the synthetic and analytic approach which requires that the alphabets and texts be introduced and embedded in real activities on a long term. Meaningful texts and help in “real” reading keeps their interest on The steps mentioned above were carried out based on special focus on synthetic and analytic phonics. There are two main approaches to teaching phonics: analytic and synthetic. Both approaches require the learner to have some phonological awareness (the ability to hear and discriminate sounds in spoken words). Both approaches can also contribute to furthering children's phonological development. Phonological awareness is an essential skill for reading, writing, listening and talking. I synthesized both the approaches and used them based on the requirements of every child. Different children require different techniques of teaching. Each approach develops a particular skill. A blend of both can cater to the varied learning requirements of a child. To understand the various principles involved in development of language in children I read a lot of books on this topic. I read, Teaching English 3-11 Myers, ‘The reading book', Reading in early years handbook' and ‘How to teach reading’. I visited different book stores and toy shops and purchased books and toys with audio-visual aids that helped in learning languages. By applying some principles explained in these books and different theories on literacy development, I managed to get twinkle interested in reading, writing and listening to English language. Speaking English was limited to the class environment and thus she was slow as compared to other students whose native language was English. However, twinkle enjoyed communicating with me in English. I encouraged her to speak with me in the following manner. When I showed her the picture of rain in the story, I asked her open ended questions. I asked her whether she liked to get wet in the rain. She said “yes”. I asked her what else she liked doing in the rain. So twinkle started trying to use words in English and communicate with me. She made efforts to make me understand in English what she liked and did not like. I encouraged this medium of exchange everyday. Here twinkle would get to express her opinion on what she liked or didn’t like in the story. Slowly, twinkle started communicating in short sentences. They were very short sentences of two or three words initially. Later she started using four to five words in one sentence to communicate what she wanted to say. Now she carries library story books home. She has developed the reading habit. She also communicates with her classmates in English. Her concentration span has increased. She is now able to sit in one place and do the assignment given to her. With little appreciation and teaching aids, I was able to develop her language skills. Hopefully she will turn out an avid reader. References Barrs M & Thomas A (1991) The reading book Bielby N (1998) How to teach reading Campell R, (2nd Ed) (2002) Reading in early years handbook' Daniel Kies, Department of English, Language Development in Children, College of DuPage http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/lgdev.htm Guide to Children’s Literature, Indiana University,Kokomo http://www.iuk.edu/~kolibry/docs/ChildLit.pdf Karen L. Rush , Caregiver-Child Interactions and Early Literacy Development of Preschool Children From Low-Income Environments, University of Oregon. Promoting Literary, http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/Images/invissuespha_tcm4-122365.pdf Roger Barnard & Ted Glynn, EDs.Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters, Bilingual children’s language and literacy development, 2003 http://journals.tc-library.org/index.php/tesol/article/viewFile/62/68 J & Bennet C, Teaching English 3-11 Myers, 2004 The Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development, http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~pild/homeschoolstudy.htm Read More

Steps taken in capturing the Childs interest in reading 1. The teacher asked her mother to read magazines or books when twinkle was around. She did not have to ask twinkle to join her. Her mother was supposed to read when twinkle was inside the house. I also advised her mother to keep interesting books with large colourful pictures at home. She was specifically advised not to hand them over to her. They were left around the house so that twinkle could discover them and pick them up by herself .

This suggestion was given based on the principle that child education begins at home and child learns from imitation. A child loves to imitate their parents. If twinkle would see her mother sitting and reading peacefully in one place everyday, she might want to imitate her mother and do the same. 2. I understood that since twinkle did not follow the language she was not keen on listening what is being said to her. So the first step in her development was to get her to pay attention to what was happening in the class.

To do this, I brought an audio cassette of English rhymes. I played it in the class and made everybody sing it. Twinkle was very excited when the rhyme started playing with music. She suddenly stopped moving and stood in one place to listen to the music. Later twinkle saw that her classmates repeated the words when the background music was playing. Twinkle was interested enough to participate. So she started producing similar sounds with everybody. She did not understand the rhyme but managed to sing the lines based on her listening ability. 3. I started acting out the rhyme.

It was a nice little dance. I encouraged other children to act in similar fashion. When I said “all fell down”, all the children were made to fall down. This was fun for twinkle; slowly she learnt those phrases and started understanding what they meant. 4. The next stage was to introduce her to English alphabets. This was done with the help of huge colourful pictures. I would bring these pictures and hang them in the class for some time. Till the time the pictures were in the class, twinkle would keep looking at them and say something in Turkish.

Although twinkle did not understand English I continued to explain in English. I made other students come and point out at the picture and name it. Twinkle started paying attention to this form of teaching. Slowly I decreased the size of the pictures and started keeping them on every child’s desk. This made twinkle sit in one place to examine the smaller pictures on her desk. Every picture accompanied an alphabet and a word. This process was based on the popular synthetic approach. This approach generally involves a highly systematic whole-class teaching programme that is usually started very early in Primary.

The sounds and their corresponding written symbols are taught in quick succession - up to five or six sounds per week. A multi-sensory approach is included where children see the symbol, listen to the sound, say the sound and accompany this by doing an action. This multi-sensory approach appears to support most learners in remembering many of the sound-symbol relationships. 5. Tina started naming the alphabets and also sat in one place to name them. I introduced a small game. Children sitting beside each other will ask each other names of the pictures.

This encouraged communication in English. They were not allowed to use any other language. Slowly and slowly twinkle started communicating in small words in English. This idea was based on the principle that children learn more from their peers. I also used the analytic approach to develop her vocabulary. Analytic phonics involves analysis of whole words to detect phonetic or orthographic (spelling) patterns, then splitting them into smaller parts to help with decoding, for example onset and rime - onset (vowel sound(s)) at the beginning of a word or syllable and rime (always beginning with a vowel to form the remainder of that word or syllable.

Read More