Week 11: Your Personal Language and Literacy Development Journey

As a scholar practitioner and family advocate in the field of early education, it is evident of how much of my passion has become a lifestyle. I eat, breath and sleep early childhood education. I currently run my very own educational support services. I provide tutoring, homeschooling and parent advocacy in regards to their children. Daily I am fostering language development with students.

One of the memories I have is with one of my Japanese students. This student of mine moved here from Japan not speaking any English. Two weeks later she was speaking chopped up sentences. I am so proud of her progress because she had to adapt to new friends, new surroundings, change of language and lifestyle.  I’m glad this big change happened while she is younger because it’s easier for younger children to adapt.

During our sessions I would go back to the basics and have her review each letter and then in the weeks to come letter sounds. She is a very fast learner. I then had her identify lower case letters by participating in small activities. One particular activity she loved was rainbow rice and bottle tops. We took a bag of white rice, used four different pans, Ziploc bags, food coloring and vinegar. I then used a bunch of old water bottle tops and wrote lower case letters on them.  Once we mixed all the ingredients, let them dry and mixed all the rice together, we had ourselves a rainbow rice party with letters.

As my student picked up letter and letter sounds fast, I then introduced her to reading. We would look at pictures and I would have her tell me what she sees and then match up the word to that picture by sounding out the word that sounded close to what that picture was. I have been working with this student for two years and now she is fully speaking English, reading, writing and singing at the age of 4. She is now learning addition, subtraction  and reading  at a second grade level all while continuing her sessions with me.

I have found this course highly effective in my field of practice. I have been attuned more towards the child language development versus a child overall development. Most childcare development courses I have taken just look at a broader aspect of all domains. This course focused on a specific domain.

An article I found in this course that was interesting as it relates to my experience with my Japanese student is What happens in the brain when you learn a language?  It was discovered that your brain actually expands when you learn a second language (Mackey,2014).  “Early language studies based on brain research have shown that Japanese speakers can learn to hear and produce the difference in “r” and “l” by using a software program that greatly exaggerates the aspects of each sound that make it different from the other” ( Mackey, para. 7.,2014).It is a great advantage to learn a second language overall.

I would still like to learn about the milestones of children in language and literacy. How can you predict when a child is supposed to know or had developed this many words or an understanding of that when each child’s development is different? I believe that more information of this topic will affect my future topic greatly for parents. I have been dealing with competitive parents who wonder why this some kids are smarter than their kid or why the sister is not as smart as the brother in reading and writing. This would help me explain to the families on a research level versus my basic answer for them.

Mackey. A. (2014). What happens when you learn a language? Retrieved fromhttps://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/04/what-happens-to-the-brain-language-learning

Reflection

Throughout this course, I was fed lots of information. Most early childhood courses I have encountered in the past has been basic instructed courses whereas this course broke down developmental domains and gave more analytical backgrounds through research. This course allowed me to really see the set foundation of a child’s ongoing development.

I would like to learn more information about child developmental milestones, considering that each child is different and unique and learns differently. I would also like to know more about community practice, finding out what the issues are in my community and how to address those issues. As much as I do, I do not feel as though I am involved enough.

One of the things I have found valuable throughout this course was the resources. There were many resources that I was able to share with families. I created a folder for doctoral research and dropped most of the resources in that folder. Some of them are useful for my practicum as well.

An idea on how we as scholar practitioners can effect positive social change would be to be consistent and fearless when working with children and families. We cannot be afraid of positive change and the more we notice needs to be changed, the more responsibility we will gain. Don’t sleep. Do not become lazy, the world may not know it, but they depend on us because we as early educators set the foundation for young children in order to be successful throughout their lives

Language and Literacy development Journey

As a scholar practitioner and family advocate in the field of early education, it is evident of how much of my passion has become a lifestyle. I eat, breath and sleep early childhood education. I currently run my very own educational support services. I provide tutoring, homeschooling and parent advocacy in regards to their children. Daily I am fostering language development with students.

One of the memories I have is with one of my Japanese students. This student of mine moved here from Japan not speaking any English. Two weeks later she was speaking chopped up sentences. I am so proud of her progress because she had to adapt to new friends, new surroundings, change of language and lifestyle.  I’m glad this big change happened while she is younger because it’s easier for younger children to adapt.

During our sessions I would go back to the basics and have her review each letter and then in the weeks to come letter sounds. She is a very fast learner. I then had her identify lower case letters by participating in small activities. One particular activity she loved was rainbow rice and bottle tops. We took a bag of white rice, used four different pans, Ziploc bags, food coloring and vinegar. I then used a bunch of old water bottle tops and wrote lower case letters on them.  Once we mixed all the ingredients, let them dry and mixed all the rice together, we had ourselves a rainbow rice party with letters.

As my student picked up letter and letter sounds fast, I then introduced her to reading. We would look at pictures and I would have her tell me what she sees and then match up the word to that picture by sounding out the word that sounded close to what that picture was. I have been working with this student for two years and now she is fully speaking English, reading, writing and singing at the age of 4. She is now learning addition, subtraction  and reading  at a second grade level all while continuing her sessions with me.

I have found this course highly effective in my field of practice. I have been attuned more towards the child language development versus a child overall development. Most childcare development courses I have taken just look at a broader aspect of all domains. This course focused on a specific domain.

An article I found in this course that was interesting as it relates to my experience with my Japanese student is What happens in the brain when you learn a language?  It was discovered that your brain actually expands when you learn a second language (Mackey,2014).  “Early language studies based on brain research have shown that Japanese speakers can learn to hear and produce the difference in “r” and “l” by using a software program that greatly exaggerates the aspects of each sound that make it different from the other” ( Mackey, para. 7.,2014).It is a great advantage to learn a second language overall.

I would still like to learn about the milestones of children in language and literacy. How can you predict when a child is supposed to know or had developed this many words or an understanding of that when each child’s development is different? I believe that more information of this topic will affect my future topic greatly for parents. I have been dealing with competitive parents who wonder why this some kids are smarter than their kid or why the sister is not as smart as the brother in reading and writing. This would help me explain to the families on a research level versus my basic answer for them.

Mackey. A. (2014). What happens when you learn a language? Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/04/what-happens-to-the-brain-language-learning