Andrew loves books. I love catching him reading. I am always walking up to him and he is just sitting on the floor or the couch “reading” to himself. So adorable! I try to take a picture and he says cheese!
Well I am flying solo this week- Kyle has been out of town since Monday. He will be home tomorrow. We are excited. The kids miss him. Both of them were asking for him today.
We started a family yoga class yesterday. The kids did great. Abby followed along really well. She now knows the tree pose, the butterfly, downward dog, the cow pose and the cat. She showed them all to Maemae last night. She is amazing! Andrew walked around during the class. He even tried to sit and do a few poses! And then he would come and hug me or climb on top of me every once in a while.
Abigail is really into the Wiggles, a kids show. She calls Andrew “Jeff”, one of the characters.
I am taking a class right now on how kids learn to read. I am also volunteering once a week at Fox Hollow, a French immersion school. Here is this week’s assignment for my class I am taking (see below). Abigail was my subject. I had to do a literacy event, analyze it and write a paper about it. Watch the video:)
Function : Abigail understands that written language tells a story. That is obvious because she sits and looks at the book. She knows book are entertaining and provide a great activity for her and me.She knows it is an opportunity to spend special time with mom. McGee and Richgels mention that novice readers understand “….reading and writing as part of family and community activities…..(p.82).”
Abigail understands that books tell stories. She is excited about reading a book and knows that if she sits next to her mother she will be read to.
Meaning: Abigail knows booksharing routines. She knows to sit by me and follow along by listening and looking at the pages. She knows to look at the book and illustrations when I start reading text. When I start reading she directs her gaze to the book. She seems engaged in the story. She knows she can ask questions as I am reading and after. She has learned to answer questions. She was also able to point out the different characters and objects in the pictures when prompted. Sometimes she looks at the pictures to find the answers. For example she points to Brother Bear when I ask who was pulling who on the bus. She understands that pictures represent people and that the pictures in the book can help her answer the questions.
Abigail has developed concepts about stories. She notices characters and story events. We reread the book a second time today and she pointed out two events in the story- the part where Brother Bear pulls Sister Bear on the bus and the part at the end when Sister Bear pulls Brother Bear on the bus. She also notices the setting of the story.
Abigail made the connection of what was going on in the book (with the leaves changing) with the read world. Abigail finds relevancy to her own life in the story through thoughtful questions I asked.. She looked outside at the leaves changing color on our street. She acknowledged that Sister Bear was starting school just like she did. She pointed to the picture of where Sister Bear would attend school.
Abigail can construct literal meaning from the story, as demonstrated by her answers to my questions, me connecting her prior knowledge to the story, and her comments. She constructs inferential meaning when she says “yes” when I ask about Sister Bear liking school. She gathers this from the illustration of Sister Bear pulling Brother onto the bus. She notices Sister Bear’s feelings.
She predicts the next event in the book at the end saying “ and then they were there [at school], play with the teacher and went home, took a nap.”
It is not obvious from the literacy event if she understands that a word has a meaning.
Forms: Abigail is using principles of spatial direction: left to right. She understands that we read left to right and top to bottom. She looks at the left page then the right when we are reading the book.
Abigail may recognize that the words are made up of the alphabet and that they are used to tell a story. It is not obvious if she understands word spaces or upper- and lowercase letters.
It seems like Abigail comprehends the story thoroughly through pictures and your oral retelling, not through interacting directly with the print. It is hard to tell from this read aloud what she currently knows about letters. In McGee and Richgel’s “Summary: What Novice Readers and Writers Know about Written Language (Figure 3.13, p. 82),” they note that novices are acquiring the capacity to “recognize alphabet letters as a special set of graphic symbols (p.82).” Abigail, who is accustomed to being read to, understands this much about print.
Meaning Form Links: Abigail is not yet aware of phoneme-grapheme relationships. She does not understand spelling patterns.
I think Abigail understands that the printed word instructs me what to say for the story. She listens while I read her the story and follows along with the pictures. She may be making a connection to the words and my voice as I read to her.
She understands that there is a relationship between the printed language and the pictures. She associates the text on the page with the pictures, and the telling of a story. She can “differentiate pictures from print…(p.82).”