Phonemic Awareness and Literacy Strategies

The readings for this week focused on developing literacy skills in pre-k and kindergarten, and provided a strategies and notable supplements for reading and writing foundations. All three articles emphasized development of literacy skills in young children and sought to encourage children to identify similar letter sounds, syllables, and acknowledging those words that rhyme or maybe that sound the same but offer different spellings and meaning.

Yopp and Yopp's discussion of phonemic awareness provides that instruction must be deliberate for certain literacy skills, not incidental. According to the text, effective instructional instruments include songs, nursery rhymes, wordplay games, riddles; the more playful and engaging an activity, the more beneficial it will be. It is also crucial that the activities are social and allow for experimentation with language.

This discourse for literacy education seems simple when you think of all of the readily available resources for song, games, etc. However, the  social aspect of the activities is more important than you may initially realize, especially for special needs. My brother is almost 10 and attends an all autistic/special needs school in New Jersey where my dad lives. He is very smart; he can work any piece of technology, his memorization skills are incredible, and he can identify rhythms even with sounds that the average person fails to recognize (he plays the xylophone to the rhythm and note of the sound of the buzzing of the fluorescent lights at his therapy center). One our biggest struggles with him, however, is that he scripts from Sesame Street and some of his iPad games. He has literally gotten so good at it, that he can uses quotes in appropriate contexts and believes that counts as conversation.

He loves videos like this, and they have helped him recognize the process of reading and sounding out, but the only words he would write when we were first teaching him were the ones from these clips (Sesame Street videos are the first searches found one any phone, computer, or iPad he can find). Because he struggles with socializing, scripting in conversation and "silly talk" (scripting to himself completely out of any context) become his primary form of communication. For those who are going into special education, have you considered limited socialization skills and how certain tools could be counterproductive?

I preferred some of the points and suggestions that Bell and Jarvis posed in their piece because they offered observations and techniques that could empower students across a variety of backgrounds and circumstances. In the very beginning of their article, they mention that literacy is everywhere. Everywhere taking into consideration even less traditional literacy outlets, colored street lights, pictures and symbols on signs, cereal boxes, etc. I liked that taking things like this into consideration when introducing students to literacy allows them to feel empowered and have a sense of pride in having some prior literacy experience even if they are not from "bedtime story" homes. My little brother definitely loves bedtime stories, but his ability to read is still behind other children his age. However,  his love of Sesame Street and the fact that the majority of his collection is VHS has begun to improve his reading and writing skills.

He has begun to collect VHS's (from eBay--yes, he finds them on it himself and asks to order almost daily after school--and from yard sales) because he loves to carry the boxes around and read them. He also loves to write what the boxes say on the boards in his play area. This transition is a huge deal for his literacy, and it has encouraged him to read other things and attempt at writing other words. 

As for my future class, I liked the idea in Bell and Jarvis for a alphabet name chart. I even thought that to encourage those globalized minds, I could plan for teaching about the different regions or continents of the world and have an alphabet chart for the countries in the region. I also thought, addition to the journals from last week's post, to encourage creative writing and writing skills in general, Pen Pals would be a cool idea for my globally conscience classroom. 

This is just one source for something like that: http://kidworldcitizen.org/2011/11/11/pen-pal-programs/

I thought it would encourage curiosity for other cultures and allow them to be introduced to other places through the eyes of children their age around the world. I think it would also be great because it would emphasized how interconnected we are with the rest of the world.

How would you implement creative writing in your classes? 

What were some game ideas or activities that you thought would be effective in your classroom?