Caught not Taught
Disclaimer: This is a really "nerdy" educator post that is probably interesting only to me, but I'm going to write about it anyway because...well, because I want to! If Chuck can write about Zombies, then I guess I can write about literacy development. I know...zombies are more interesting. It's okay...you can click over to the Zombie posts instead. I won't mind.
I don't really know when this happened but I realized within the past week or so that Mihret has picked up on the concept of "word." A week or so ago, Mihret was "reading" a story to me. She remembered the story for the first few pages and then turned to me and said, "I don't know the words on this page. Will you read it to me?" That was the first time I remembered her using the word, "word" in relation to print on a page. A day or two later she again asked me if I would "read the words" to her.
I realize that might not seem like an amazing accomplishment, but the concept of "word" is a foundational literacy concept. A person has to understand that language is made up of words and that words are made up of letters in order to learn to read in an alphabetic system like English. The concept of "word" is actually pretty abstract if you don't see a language in written form. When we talk, lots of our words flow together, so when you are listening to an unknown language, it is often hard to tell when one word stops and the other begins. When children are learning a language, they usually start out by learning words that are associated with people or concrete objects. As they develop language, they pick up on more abstract concepts.
I never took early childhood education classes so I don't know exactly when children develop "concepts of print." All I know is that all of the older kids I've worked with--even those with significant reading problems--already had a basic understanding of the way printed language worked by the time I met them. At some point along the way, kids figure out which direction to hold a book, that English print goes left to right and top to bottom, that the things people say can be split up into words, and that words are made up of letters. I would guess that, like Mihret, most children pick up those concepts through exposure to books - not because anyone specifically taught them those concepts. Anyway, since I've always worked with older children, Mihret is the first child I've been able to watch develop "concepts of print" and I'm finding it fascinating.
About six months ago when Mihret discovered that she could get out of bed by herself, we would often find her in her room with the light on "reading" a book that was upside down. She often "reads" books now - to herself, to her dolls or stuffed animals, and recently to us - but she always holds the book the right way now. When did that change?
A few nights ago when Mihret had that high fever, we were looking at her Bible story book. She was looking at a page that had pictures of people in the Bible with their names under their pictures. She pointed to the picture of Mary and said, "What is the M for, Mama?" I said, "Mary." " What is the P for?" "Peter." "What is the other M for?" "Moses" etc. until she went through all of the names. Mihret has been interested in letters and the sounds they make for a while, but it was another example of her understanding "concepts of print."
When did she figure out that the black letters on the page were the words that we read? Maybe she's known it for a long time and just figured out how to describe it, or maybe the concept just came together for her. Either way, the educator in me gets really excited when I see it.
posted by Carrie at 3:01 PM
|
2 comments
