Emergent Literacy
When should reading instruction begin is a persistent question for parents, educators and policy makers. For decades advocates on both sides, earlier versus later, debated each other expounding on their research. For our money Delores Durkin provided the most reasonable answer. At any age a child is ready to learn something about reading. The one-year-old learns that reading is fun when sharing a picture book with mom or dad. The four-year-old who is trying to write his name is learning to segment sounds and relate them to letters. The first grader is ready to learn the letter-sound patterns of English and all of these children are steadily building their vocabulary knowledge.
In Teaching Reading in the 21st Century we embrace the view that from an early age, young children are learning purposes of reading and writing, the structure of English, and the system by which print represents words and ideas. Emergent literacy, a period that spans preschool through second grade, is the time where young children build their language knowledge and receive explicit instruction in the structure of books, print and words. For many children this happens naturally at home when they read and write with parents and other family members. Some children, those growing up in low-income households, rely on school to learn all that could be acquired at home. Our text was written for these children and we stress the following:
The teaching of phonemic awareness through explicit instruction and natural exploration of invented spelling.
Learning the alphabet and the alphabetic principle of the English language.
Building children’s ability to spell and recognize words while honoring the developmental nature of word recognition.
Extensive use of interactive read-alouds that help children understand the purpose of books, the parts of a book, and the structure of texts.
Providing extensive opportunities for children to listen, speak, read and write within play and through direct instruction.
At the end of the chapter we take you into the classroom of Jonni Wolskee the most successful kindergarten teacher we have even seen. Not only does Jonni teach is a school with a high proportion of low-income children and English learners, but all this children learn to read in her classroom.