Chapter Notes/ Class Notes March 25, 2010

Teaching children in the emergant literacy stage involves providing experience with books and book handling as well as direct instruction in the skills needed for the next stage. It is important that children develop a foundation in print concept and book handling, because that foundation is the basis for learning how to read connected text. Although decoding instruction is important, placing too much emphasis on decoding early on will lead to confusion later. Instead programs for early readers should involve a balance between word work, text experience, and oral language development.

A typical program for children reading at the emergent level would involve experience with predictable books, general book handling, phonological awareness instruction, word-recognition work, and responding to a wide variety of teacher read-alouds. (McKenna&Stahl,2009)

The most important fact is to remember to provide a foundation for the child so later reading will be successful and at the same time prepare the child quickly for formal reading instruction.

Class Notes Journal

This week's discussion included a discussion of struggling readers. A way to help struggling readers is to examine siminal and pivotal moments in their life. Siminal moments are events that occured that planted a seed that led to a pivotal moment in their life. Pivotal moments are traumatic events such as the loss of a parent, or lack of self confidence because of negative experiences in school. These factors strongly effect the learning of a child. Many struggling readers' family background and personal experiences need to be considered when assessing a student and planning an intervention.

We also discussed our Diagnostic Report that is due for our next class. In our report we need to consider siminal and pivotal moments in our subject's life and include this in our report. We also need to have cited sources that will support our testing.