Facilitating Emergent Literacy, Reaction Paper Example

Introduction

The study discussed below addresses coaching practices for educators, as potentially enhancing child literacy development. With an emphasis on the benefits of enabling younger children to gain decontextualized language and comprehension skills not typically encouraged in home environments, the work encourages the concept of a coaching model to supplement these vital attainment capabilities in children.

Knowledge Gained

I came away from this study with an increased awareness of the interactive processes inherent in child literacy. More exactly, I was unfamiliar with the range of study regarding how critical shared reading practices are in the development of abstract language skills, in that children seem to require a multifaceted approach in reading and verbal presentations in order to formulate their own modes of perception and individual, literacy growth (Girolametto, Weitzman, & Greenberg, 2012, p. 49). Through the “abstract,” it seems, children form the concrete.

Implications

Clearly, the success of the study goes to promoting further education for teachers, specifically in regard to expanding story-telling parameters and broadening the interaction between themselves and children. Until very recently, there has been little data regarding emergent literacy techniques (Barone, Morrow, 2007, p. 26), and the study must encourage educators to more fully investigate the opportunities to enhance literacy development cited.

Significance

The impact upon myself is one of generating interest and optimism. In plain terms, the traditional paradigms of teaching literacy to young children do not accommodate the circumstances of the children themselves, which then creates a template only effective to some. Expanding the model of reading alone, then, fosters response, which abets growth in the child. Less satisfactory to me was the lack of home-language focus, as nearly half of the children involved spoke a language other than English in the home. This raises the question of whether one form of emergent literacy is being sacrificed for another, as interpretations made through knowledge of one language are often seen as “mistakes” in another (Whitehead, 2007, p. 20).

Conclusion

Ultimately, as noted, the study is valuable, particularly as the results indicate that the coaching of the educators is the deciding factor in improvement in the children. Equally critical, however, is that the acknowledged limitations of the study’s size require expansion, as it is also necessary that the element of bilingualism be more addressed.

References

Barone, Diane M., & Morrow, Leslie Mandel. (2007). Literacy and Young Children: Research- Based Practices. New York: Guilford Press.

Girolametto, Luigi, Weitzman, Elaine, & Greenberg, Janice. (2012). Facilitating Emergent Literacy: Efficacy of a Model That Partners Speech-Language. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 21, 47-63.

Whitehead, Marian R. (2007). Developing Language and Literacy with Young Children. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.