WRITING (WEEK 8)

SHARED READING AND SHARED WRITING DEVELOPING CHILDREN'S LANGUAGE THROUGH SHARED READING The term shared reading is used to describe the interaction that occurs between an adult and a child when reading or looking at a book. This interaction may include one adult and one child, or one or more adults and several children. The interaction may occur in any setting (e.g., a child care center, a preschool classroom, an outpatient clinic, childrens homes). Several different terms are used by experts to describe this interaction, including interactive reading, reading aloud, book sharing, book reading, storybook reading, adult child storybook reading, and book-reading interaction. All of these terms are interchangeable, essentially focused on giving a name to the important interactions that occur between adults and children when they share a storybook. The terms book sharing or shared reading are used to emphasize the active involvement and engagement of both the child and the adult in a shared interaction focusing on a book's words, pictures, and story. Shared reading is a unique learning context for young children that involves much more than simply looking at pictures. Although one of the most salient features of storybooks is their illustrations, storybooks also provide children with access to a world of sights, sounds, and words that may be quite different from what they experience in their homes, their communities, and their schools. For example, it is through a storybook that a child may first experience the magic of the animal kingdom (e.g., lions, giraffes, camels, snakes, turtles). One popular book, Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell (1982), provides children from the earliest ages with the names of these and other animals, allowing them to experience vocabulary words that are not likely to arise in their everyday environments. A simple and often delightful text for even very young children, Dear Zoo exposes children to linguistic concepts that will be important as they develop, including the descriptive adjectives grumpy, fierce, scary, and naughty, as well as concepts about how to handle objects (e.g., fragile, heavy). It is hard to believe that a text containing only 31 different words used in 25 short sentences can help children develop such a range of early yet important concepts. Storybooks provide children with the words they can use to explore both basic and abstract vocabulary concepts. However, books do much more than teach children new vocabulary. Consider some of the language and early literacy opportunities created during shared reading. Storybooks increase childrens familiarity with the sounds and grammar of their language, expose them to the pragmatic rules that govern the use of language, and provide them with models of how stories and narratives are organized in their culture. At the same time, storybooks teach children fundamental knowledge about how books themselves work and how print is organized, and they provide children with repeated exposure to the alphabet and the way in which letters and sounds map on to one another in an alphabetic language. Not the least important, storybook-reading experiences also provide children with opportunities to build relationships with the adults in their lives. It is within the context of childrens relationships with adults that children's developing competencies about language and literacy may emerge (Pianta, 2000). GED1073 LANGUAGE AND EARLY LITERACY PREPARED BY: NIRMALA DEVI RAJOO Page 1

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With all of the benefits that storybooks offer, it is important to understand that book sharing is not intended to teach children to read. If reading could be taught so easily, nearly all children would be reading by the time they enter school. Instead, book sharing helps children develop a foundation for learning to read. It is not unlike the foundation that children acquire when they listen to music. Listening builds musical skills and knowledge such as becoming aware of pitch and melody, associating sounds with particular instruments (e.g., piano, violin, drum), recognizing that musical notes can be distinguished from one another and can have different meanings, and being able to repeat a tune or sing a song. However, for nearly all children, learning to read music will require explicit instruction. The same is true for learning to read. Consider next some of the research evidence that describes the influence that shared reading has on developing children's foundation skills. THE ROLE OF THE EDUCATOR IS:

to demonstrate and develop specific reading strategies, to help students develop sight vocabulary, to have students at all skill levels working together, to provide students with concept-rich materials, to encourage students to discuss reading experiences, and to help create a body of known texts that students can use for independent reading and as resources for writing and vocabulary development.

OBSERVERS WILL SEE:

students in a circle near the teacher, a big book or large white paper of books or poems, the educator engaging in students discussions, mini-lessons on strategies for reading, and a variety of reading levels in the same group.

THE SHARED READING AND WRITING PROCESS A typical routine for conducting shared reading and writing consists of the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. Pick a book or poem you like. Read the selection to the students. Read it a second time. After the second reading, talk about words, illustrations, content, main idea, and story sequence. 5. On successive days, continue to share the story or poem to the class. Use role play to help students understand the story. Once they understand the story or poem, focus on mini-lessons on developing language strategies. Make new versions of the story of poem. GED1073 LANGUAGE AND EARLY LITERACY PREPARED BY: NIRMALA DEVI RAJOO Page 2

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6. Finally, distribute small copies of the books or poems for independent reading time, or to share with parents and caregivers. SHARED WRITING In shared writing the teacher (or parent) and the students work together to create a piece of writing. The teacher is the guide and the scribe. The students (with support as needed) come up with ideas and put them into words. This is a powerful oral language activity because it teaches children how to organize their thoughts. The teacher models the process of taking thoughts and putting them down on paper. It is also a way to use and practice vocabulary. This is how you do a shared writing activity: 1. Choose a shared experience to talk about with your students. (This could be something that you have read together, an activity that you have shared, or something that you all have knowledge of.) Ask questions relating to the shared experience that allows and encourages the children to respond. For young children, pattern sentence responses are just fine. Model some ideas. I like____________. I saw a ______________. Write the childrens responses. Continue on in the same manner. Ask the children questions and then write down the responses. You can choose how much to probe and when to stop. For very young children, this should not be a long activity. When you are finished with this process, together with the children, examine, perhaps modify and reread all that has been written.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT When teachers and speech-language pathologists talk about vocabulary, they are referring to the set of words that a child knows. Vocabulary can be split into two types: receptive vocabulary and expressive vocabulary. A childs receptive vocabulary consists of the words the child understands when he/she hears or reads them. A childs expressive vocabulary consists of the words the child uses when he/she speaks. During the first few years of life, as babies begin to say their first words, it is easy to keep track of their growing vocabularies. Children typically understand or recognize more words than they actually use when speaking. For example, a toddler might only say five different words (e.g.,dada, mama, doggie, bottle, more) but be able to understand many otherslike pointing to the light when Mommy asks, Where is the light? or beginning to cry when Daddy says, Byebyeas he leaves for work. Vocabulary development does not stop once a child can talk. In fact, children learn many new words once they start reading and going to school. The chart below shows typical vocabulary development across several ages. Notice how quickly vocabulary grows over the first six years of life. GED1073 LANGUAGE AND EARLY LITERACY PREPARED BY: NIRMALA DEVI RAJOO Page 3

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Age (in years) 1 to 1 2 3 4 5 6 Vocabulary Toddlers develop around a 20-word vocabulary during this time. By the time a child is 2 years old, he/she will have a 200300-word vocabulary. Vocabulary grows to be about 9001,000 words by the time a child is 3 years old. The typical 4-year-old child will have about a 1,5001,600-word vocabulary. By the time a child reaches school age and heads to kindergarten, he/she will have between a 2,100- and 2,200-word vocabulary. The 6-year-old child typically has a 2,600 word expressive vocabulary (words he or she says), and a receptive vocabulary (words he or she understands) of 20,00024,000 words. By the time a child is 12 years old, he/she will understand (have a receptive vocabulary) of about 50,000 words.

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Why is Vocabulary Important? Vocabulary is the basis for learning language. Educational research shows that vocabulary strongly relates to reading comprehension, intelligence, and general ability. As children learn to read, they must learn to decode (sound-out) print, but they also must have a vocabulary base (word knowledge) in order to make sense of what they decode. By third grade, however, children are reading to learn. For example, a child who is reading to learn about the Revolutionary War needs to know words like war, army, and horses (a basic vocabulary) to understand the history lesson. At the same time, however, the child will likely learn new words like artillery and revolutioncontinuing to build his/her vocabulary. How to Encourage Vocabulary Development Read to your child; read with your child; expose your child to plenty of reading materials. Talk to your child about the environment around you. Encourage your child to tell you about his or her daywhat books he/she checked out at the library, who he/she sat by during lunch, something funny that happened at school, etc. There is a variety of games, books, and card decks designed around the development of vocabulary.

GED1073 LANGUAGE AND EARLY LITERACY PREPARED BY: NIRMALA DEVI RAJOO

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