Literacy Week 2

Reading response for Week 2
Article: Emergent Literacy, New Perspectives, by William Teale and Elizabeth Sulzby

This article was very informative.  My parents always said that reading to me as a young child had a huge impact on my reading and writing in school.  I always believed them, but it is nice to have a literacy professional say the same thing.  

What surprises me about this article is that experts ever thought that reading was simply a cognitive skill, and no more complex than that.  Literacy is crucial to active participation in most societies today.  Being able to communicate is our greatest blessing as humans; it is what sets us apart from other mammals.  

On p. 3, I was surprised by the statement that children seeing adults use functional literacy (the TV guide, newspaper, greeting cards) is significant in literacy learning.  A lot of what we read that is functional is considered literature trash, and thus its importance is dismissed.  

I was surprised by the evidence about students repeated readings of favorite storybooks is more than just memorizing the book.  Children are piecing together the words to make sense of the story.  I am pretty sure most parents rereading the same books over and over feel like they are shortchanging their child's reading education, but the article made it sound like it was a very important step in literacy development.  

I was pleased to read on p. 5 that interactive storybook readings have powerful effects on literacy development.  It is so much fun to read stories to children, and interact with them during the story.  I am glad that evidence has shown that it is important, and not a waste of time.  I also found the emphasis on expository reading on p. 7 as helpful.  It is nice to hear that reading informative books to kids is not necessarily boring.  The activities to incorporate with informational books described on p. 9 were very creative and seem to be appreciated by the children. 


The authors' emphasis on using labeling in your classroom to teach writing and reading was interesting.  Labeling and posting things in your classroom has a dual role: it is effective classroom management and it is also an educational tool.  I always thought it was just helpful to classroom management.  

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