Fact File on Emergent Learning
Source: Pearson Allyn Bacon Prentice Hall
Topics: Early Years (Birth-5), Middle Years (5-9), Learning to Read, Reading Building Blocks
- Reading was promoted during ancient Greek times by having children trace the alphabet with a stylus. In 1678, children were taught the alphabet through the use of a hornbook: a single, small page on a wooden frame protected by a sheet of animal horn. The New England Primer, the text used in most schools from 1727 to 1830, taught children to read using rhymes, two-letter syllables, and pictures. A German educator named Basedow, who lived during the 1700s, taught children their alphabet letters by making them out of gingerbread (Putnam, 1995) .
- According to the 2003 Condition of Education report, produced by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), children's reading ability upon entry into kindergarten varies considerably. Two out of three of the children studied knew the letters of the alphabet, while only one out of three knew the letter/sound relationship at the beginning of words and about one in five knew the letter/sound relationships at the end of words. Very few kindergartners could read single words or words in sentences.
- Children who are exposed to books early and often become aware that printed words have sounds, and they recognize that print carries meaning (Rashid, Morris, & Sevcik, 2005, p. 2).
- Although most families seem to be aware that reading is an important skill, 82 percent of the parents in one study said that they do not do much to encourage reading at home (Louis Harris Poll, 1996). In another study of low-income families, only 13 percent had a regular storybook reading time (Robinson, Larsen, & Haupt, 1995).
- In 1985, a national report on young children's learning, Becoming a Nation of Readers, summarized the situation this way: "The more elements of good parenting, good teaching, and good schooling children experience, the greater the likelihood that they will achieve their potential as readers" (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985, p. 117). Recent research supports this claim (Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998).
- Several studies have found that young children's motivation to read tends to be high and relatively unaffected by sociocultural status; however, there are significant differences in the purposes that parents and families set for reading. There is a decided tendency for low-income families to approach learning to read as a skill and a necessity, rather than a source of enjoyment. This can exert a negative effect on children's motivation to read (Baker & Scher, 2002; Sonnenschein, Baker, Serpell, & Schmidt, 2000).
- It is estimated that one in three children in the United States experiences significant difficulty in learning to read (Adams, 1990).
- Children who get off to a poor start in reading rarely seem to catch up (Torgesen, 1998). The percentage of children who are poor readers in first grade and remain poor readers in fourth grade can be as high as 88 percent Guel, 1988).
- It is a common misconception that children who are members of ethnic and cultural minorities and/or of low socioeconomic status routinely experience difficulty in learning to read. This is not the case. However, these are the groups with whom the public schools have had the least success overall in achieving high levels of literacy (Braunger & Lewis, 1998).
- In a longitudinal study, 227 preschoolers were given an IQ test and a test of phonological awareness (PA). By the end of year two, only one child in the good-PA group had become a poor reader, which suggests that a high level of phonological awareness predicts positive reading outcomes (Heath & Hogben, 2004, p. 751).
- Most experts agree that preventing reading difficulties is more successful and cost effective than attempting to remediate them (Coyne, Kame'enui, & Harn, 2004; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Torgesen, 2002). As a result of findings such as these, the early years are the focus in efforts to prevent reading difficulties (Clay, 1993; Pinnell, 1989; Slavin, Madden, Dolan, & Wasik, 1996).
- The National Institute for Literacy suggests that emergent literacy is best supported when teachers build on children's spoken language by talking and listening, teach children about print and books, emphasize the sounds of spoken language (i.e., phonological awareness), teach about the letters of the alphabet, and read books aloud (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2003, p. 9).
- According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, almost 50 percent of adults living in poverty have below-average reading skills (Donahue, Voelkl, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999).
- Since over 99 percent of U.S. families own a television set, efforts have been made to use television to foster literacy growth in young children. Sesame Street and Between the Lions are examples of programs designed to support emergent literacy (Linebarger, Kosanic, Greenwood, & Doku, 2004, p. 2).
Excerpted From:
Excerpt from Early Childhood Language Arts, by M.R. Jalongo, 2007 edition, p. 155-157.
© 2007, Allyn & Bacon, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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