Dialectic+NOtes


 * Chapter 3 - Vocabulary Development and Instruction: A Prerequisite for School Learning**

Vocabulary building and meaning-making || Teaching vocabulary early on in crucial to cognition later in life || //Numbers of Word Meanings Acquired// || [] [] [] || "Phonological awareness measures predict later reading achievement" (p. 65). || It is important for children to listen to the sounds of the language so thay can learn to make sense of the words latyer while they become independent readers. ||
 * //Vocabulary Development and Implications for Academic Success ://
 * //The Vocabulary-Early Literacy Connection ://
 * 1. "In order for a vocabulary intervention to have a measurable impact on general vocabulary, a child must acquire several hundred word meanings that would not otherwise be acquired" (Biemiller, p. 42). || What about those children who are from dysfunctional families, families who do not engage in conversation, and children who do not have resources to build on vocabulary? They have to learn vocabulary building at school. Also, multi-lingual families like mine may not speak English predominantly at home in order for our children to acquire the heritage languages of our culture. ||
 * 2. "Biemiller and Slonim's (2001) findings indicate that once children become literate, most children add words meanings at about the same rate across vocabulary levels" (p. 42). || What is "literate"? How about the funds of knowledge that each child brings to our classrooms? Is literacy, mastering the English language or mastering other languages count? ||
 * //Vocabulary Development: Numbers of Word Meanings and Their Sequence//
 * 3. "... An average child acquires about 860 root-word meanings per year from age 1 to end of second grade, or about 2.4 root-words per day" (P. 42). || It is imperative that we expose students to word building activities such as word games, cross word puzzles, and instruction etc early on so the child can be successful across the disciplines. ||
 * //Is There a Sequence of Word Meanings Acquired?// ||  ||
 * 4. "Although we do not have a clear theory of why word meanings are acquired in a sequence, the existence of a robust sequence should not be lightly ignored for instructional purposes" (p. 43).
 * Ask Dr. Lillemon** ||
 * //Sources of Vocabulary Acquisition in the Primary and Preschool Years - Home Support, School Support, How are Words Acquired?: The Role of Context, Speaker of the Language// ||  ||
 * 5. "However, children with small vocabularies do acquire new words during instruction about as well as children with larger vocabularies, suggesting that much of the difference is a matter of opportunity rather than ability" (p. 43) || Linguistics argue that children are born with a linguistic blue print that enable children to acquire language skills. So, it is important for parents and educators to provide children with opportunities to acquire language skills through various instructional strategies and techniques. Orality is an important factor in language acquisition. I learned three different ASian Indian languages (Dravidian languages) by listening to my grandmother, uncles, aunts, and extended family. My only exposure to the English language was at school, where the Catholic nuns spoke fluently. However, these days, given the complicated life styles, some families do not have conversations on a regular basis. How are children to build vocabulary if they do not have opportunities to hear and use the language? ||
 * 6. Carey's "fast mapping" (p. 43) || helps with both grammatical and meaning of the words in the context ||
 * 7. " This study suggests that time invested in listening to stories (with clarifications as needed) is time well spent..." P. 45) || Linguists like Biber and Halliday posit that oral language is more complex than the written language given the sentence structure. Children who grow up listening to stories or conversations, may become good writers since the structure of the language is already established in the child through speech. The study that Feitelson's study clearly reveals the impact of orality in gaining reading speed and comprehension. ||
 * 8. "There was no relationship between the number of words taught daily and the percentage of words learned" (p. 46). || Vocabulary building done without using the context may not help children understand the words taught. If words are taught using a culturally relevant text, students may be confortable using the words they learned in the classroom. If not, the words are learned in the classroom only to remian there and the words will not find room in the child's life elsewhere. ||
 * 9. "We have not experimented with expository texts as bases for vocabulary instruction and really do not know whether they are good for vocabulary instruction in the primary grades" (p. 49). || This is exactly what the keynote speaker was addressing at the SAWP conference at UTSA. According to Anderson, expository text is considered as a threat to teachers because they presume that children cannot comprehend the text. It may be that the teachers do not know how to teach expository texts and they need to train to teach this genre because such texts deal with day-to-day life and expereinces. Expository texts help children understand information presented. For example, it could be explanation about how to play a video game or how to draw a picture etc. ||
 * 10. "But we spend almost no time in on systematically building vocabulary" (p. 49). || Teachers have to train their students to pass standardized tests; they do not have time to focus on this aspect. ||
 * Neurobiological Investigations of Skilled and Impaired Reading/Chapter 5**
 * Introduction || http://hiddentalents.org/brain/113-left.html ||
 * Cognitive neuroscience deals with children's ability to acquire knowledge based on their interaction with the environment. || []
 * Behavioral Studies of Reading Disability
 * The Cortical Reading Systems and Their Roles in Skilled Reading || [] ||
 * Altered Circuits in Reading Disability || [] ||
 * Potentially Compensatory Processing in Reading Disability ||  ||
 * Neurobiological Effects of Successful Reading Remediation ||  ||
 * Next Steps ||  ||
 * Conclusion ||  ||   ||
 * Literacy Development: Insights from Research on Skilled Reading/Chapter 4**
 * "To be literate, a child must acquire a range of skills that are embedded in technological and cultural contexts" (p. 53) || Reading and literacy are two different factors in education because reading is necessary for literacy. Reading is to decipher word meaning, understand the context, etc. ||
 * "As a writing system records thoughts and actions, it archives this information fro the future" (p. 53) || Writing helps society to save and pass on information to the next generation. Reading what is written down enables students home their literacy skills. Writing and reading are two faces of the coin and both are necessary for literacy understanding. ||
 * Chapter 6 - Conceptualizing Phonological Processing Skills in Prereaders by Lonigan/2/20/12**
 * Chapter 6 - Conceptualizing Phonological Processing Skills in Prereaders by Lonigan/2/20/12**

less"(p.77) || It is important for young children to acquire all the language skills at an age appropriate time. Speaking and reading may be learned first before they learn to speak and write. According to Stanovich, if children persist to have difficulties with reading, the 'Matthew effect' will set in, where children with difficulties in reading will continue to fall behind every year (Lonigan, 2006). || http://youtu.be/LIfKR2gbV0s http://youtu.be/zwTeZOJ1yeM http://youtu.be/Ufdm3ufV6pg and http://youtu.be/HKzf1GMLUkU tutee use) || phonology, rules, and vocabulary || Fowler || 2. There is a correlation between phonological awareness, processing skills, print knowledge, and orality in children 3. Emergent literacy skills are inter-related 4. Decoding is dependent on code-related skills; comprehension is dependent on orality 5. Early literacy is crucial for a child's success in school and later in life ||
 * 1."Children who experience difficulties learning to read tend to read
 * 2. "...three interrelated clusters of phonological processing abilities: phonological awareness, phonological access to lexical store, and phonological memory" (Wagner & Torgensen, 1987 as quoted in Lonigan, 2006, p. 77) || The child needs to get acquainted to the the letter sounds; then use the sounds on a constant basis; finally the sounds get fossilized. The child who follows these three steps will become confident in reading and other reading related activities. ||
 * 3. Emergent literacy || Research shows that there is not differentiation between pre school and school exposure to reading, but it is crucial that the children begin school with phonemic awareness so the teacher can build on that skill in the classroom instead of starting before it is too late. ||
 * || http://www.idealcurriculum.com/emergent-literacy.html
 * 4. "Outside-in and inside-out skills" (p. 79) || text context knowledge and semantics and syntactic knowledge
 * 5. ":...phonological awareness- and letter knowledge are important determinants of early reading acquisition for children when measured in pre-school and kindergarten" (p. 81) || Instead of using the deficit approach, where we complain about children's lack of skills, we ned to help our kindergartners to acquire the phonological awareness by teaching them in class when they come to us. Some one has to take responsibility for the common good in our society and why no it be the kinder teachers? ||
 * 6. "Phonological awareness appears to develop along two dimensions, linguistic complexity, and cognitive operations" (p. 83) || It is not enough to learn a word, but it is imperative that children comprehend the meaning of the words learned. MY ESL students do not come with a big word bank and some tend to use labels that they do not know. I usually explain all the labels I teach to my students. ||
 * 7. Lexical restructuring model ||  ||
 * http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2IgUqSCkP64C&oi=fnd&pg=PA89&dq=fowler%27s+lexical+restructuring+model&ots=FKwC_UyvMQ&sig=Ny4AFUHvSWrGlJAofShDuTPFuL4#v=onepage&q=fowler's%20lexical%20restructuring%20model&f=false
 * 8. Summary || 1. Reading begins before formal school starts
 * Chapter 7 - The Development of Phonological Sensitivity by Burgess**

and the ability to manipulate the sound structure of oral language (p. 90) || 2. syllable-level 3. onset-rhyme level 4. phoneme-level skills || 2. Phonological awareness is important for vocabulary building and reading activities 3. Burgess's assumption about the ability of a child's language skills 4. Reading is learned 5. Mere letter recognition withour phonemic exposure may be detremental to reading 6. Phonology depends on orality 7. Many deductions are theoretical in nature and they do not have empirical evidence as proof ||
 * 1.Definition || Phonological sensitivity is the sensitivity to
 * 2."Many of the questions surrounding the role of phonological sensitivity in the development of reading stem from the manner in which phonological sensitivity has been conceptualized" (p. 90) || The different studies in this chapter clearly shares the different interpretations researchers have on phonological sensitivity. Fo some it is speech sounds, level of phonemes, rhyme detection, while for others, it is "the more global set of processing abilities that require sensitivity to speech sounds and ....to the ability to manipulate words at the level of phonemes (p. 91) ||
 * 3. Phonological sensitivity is a unitary construct || Refer to the different studies in the chapter ||
 * 4. Children's mastery of skills || 1. word-level
 * 5. "Therefore one would expect that the increasing relative tasks as children mature would make predicting phonological sensitivity easier in older children" (p. 92) || Apparently phonological sensitivity depends on the child's age and maturity. http://www.freereading.net/index.php?title=Phonological_Awareness_Activities ||
 * 6. Treiman's study || phonological awareness is crucial for success during the early years ||
 * 7. "These factors can be divided into knowledge and abilities and environmental experiences and exposure" (p. 94) || Children who are exposed to reading while they are young develop an interest in reading since there is the letter sounds fossilized in them. It is important to read to young children so they can imitate the reading when they are ready to read on their own. ||
 * 8. Orality || The more words you hear, the more able you are in constructing sentences and paragraphs later in life ||
 * 9. "Both letter knowledge and oral language ability are associated with a variety of home environment variables, including socio-economic status (SES) and shared reading experiences" (p. 95) || I do not agree with this claim because I come from a society where poverty and illiteracy plagues the communities that are historically marginalized. In spite of testing conditions, many children thrive and do well in schools and social circles. I think the problem is with the school system, government, and the lack of awareness in parents. Certain pockets of society in San Antonio have no realization about education since generations are uneducated and have menial jobs. I have heard the expression, "I am the first college material in my family". This bothers me to think that in the USA, we still have people who do not have the will or information about college and higher education. Social factors and exposure may be apart of the problem, but the bigger picture lies with the government and the schools. ||
 * Summary || 1. Preschool education reflects on the home literacy environment

scientific discoveries baou the correlation between reading instruction and outcomes in children ||  || (p. 102) || Several studies connected as recorded in this chapter proves this relationship well 1.NRP's phonics metanalysis 2. Camilli, Vargas, and Yurecko/renalysis of NRP's meta analysis 3. Castles and Coltheart's finding about the insuffieicent link between reading and phonemic awareness 4. Ehri's report on NPR's analysis 5. Kjeldsen's investigation of the systematic training 6. Other studies ||
 * ~ Chapter 8/Phonemic Awareness and Reading : Beyond the Growth of Initial Reading Accuracy by Beth m. Phillips & Joseph K. Torgensen ||
 * 1. Reading First initiative
 * 2. "It is a requirement of the Reading First initiative that teachers be trained in methods for including explicit and systemic instruction in phonemic awareness during kindergarten and early first grade to assist children in acquiring early reading skills" (p. 101) || I agree with this proposition that we need trained teachers to help our children with literacy skills. Without the training in phonetics, a teacher cannot possibly help a child develop that awareness because phonemi awareness comes after being taught in a classroom setting. ||
 * 3. "Children can use a variety of strategies to identify unknown words(Ehri, 2002), but if they do not become skillful at using lettersound cues early in developoment, they almost invariably remain inaccurate readers (Foorman, Francis, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1997)" || Letter sounds are the building blocks to reading proficiency. If the child is not comfortable decoding the sounds, children cannot string the words together to make a sentence later on in life. Reading accuracy depends on the child'a ability to identify and decipher the words accurately. ||
 * 4. Theoretically, phonemic awareness contributes to the development of reading accuracy primarily through its impact on the development of phonemic decoding skill"
 * 5. Felton's definition of reading fluency || Able to read without glitches or problems ||
 * 6. "After all, the primary purpose of learning to read is to get meaning from text, and individual differences in speed of all the processes referred to in this more inclusive definition could theoretically influence over-all reading fluency' (p. 105) || Reading helps across the disciplines and students have to read several different genres and be able to process the same to succeed in classes. Reading isn acquired skill because you have to develop it by practising. ||
 * 7. "... The role of phonemic awareness as a necessary, but not sufficient, attinemnt for growth in the development of alphabetic reading skills' (p. 109) || All of the above studies and mata analyses are based on theory and not experiences. It is important for researchers to consider the actual classroom to determine if the relationship between phonemic awareness and orthograpy help chidren decode words fueuntly ||

Informal Experiences Learning letters 1. Reading Books to children || Reading aloud to the child helps in developing phononological awareness and later reading fluency || []
 * ~ Chapter 9/ The Roots of Learning to Read and Write: Acquisition of Letters and Phonemic Awareness by Ehri and Roberts ||
 * 1. Distinguis between graphemes and phonemes
 * 2. Print || Print medium is very enticing and a good tool for teaching literacy. Cardoso-Martins's studywith brazilian adults who were non readers could not benefit from the advertisements. It may not have been introduced in a meaning ful way. ||
 * 3. Personal Names || Personal names are easy to learn because the children use it consistently in their live ||
 * 4. Mnemonics || sound and action mnemonics ||
 * 5. ELL/"ELL children need to achieve some proificiency with spoken English before reading instructon begins" (p. 126) || ELL need immersion although they have the schema to learn a language. Their L1 may be syntactically and semantically different from the Englishh language. However, teaching English using non culturally rtelevant materailsas may not help in immersion, but may become an imposition to the L2 learner. Also, the writing systems may be different inc;luding the side and the strokes etc. ||

Chapter 10 - The Influence od parenting on Emerging Literacy Skills by Landry and Smith Chapter 11
 * 1.'Recent work in the field suggests that the young brain is psuchologically predisposed to pay attention to certain aspects of the environment, particularly communications with caregivers" (p. 135). || I think it is Vygotsky, who posits that a child who is harnessed on the back of the mother while she is working in the fields tend to learn more through stimulation than the child bound in a crib. Social cultural interaction has an immense effect on the growth of chuildren because it is familiar to children. Also, language is learned through three factors - motivation to learn, exposure to the language, and constant use of the language. This is how I picked up three different and syntactically complex Asian Indian languages. ||
 * 2. "Parent's interactive strategies, particularly the quality of their language input and shared book reading, show strong relations with children's language development" (p. 135). || One, the child has familiarity with the parent, so this creaets a cosy atmosprhere for the child. Two, the child constantly observes the parents due to proximity and tactile interaction. I read books to my children even today because they love to hear the narratives than read it themselves. Listeninjg is a languaeg skills that is not taught effectively. ||
 * 3. inside-out and outside-in skills || These skills are crucial for the wholistic development of a child's literacy skills. The expressive language is acquired by consistent practice for the ELL because ELL are multilingual and are trained to expres in their own languages. I tend to think in my varnacular language for brainstorming and I later transfer the thoughts onto English. ||
 * 4. Bruner || []Bruner and Piaget both are constructivists who strongly believe that people construct knowledge and co-construct on aregular basis. Children are no exception to this phemonenon. ||
 * 5. "Studies have also demonstrated that parents adjust their speech to infants and young children to support language learning" (p. 137) || This is an interesting development in adults. Unless one has a child, it is rather difficult to get used to the child's lingo and speech pattern. ||
 * 6. "These literacy experiences occur through games, nursery rhymes, songs, daily conversations, and book-reading activities" || Today's society is technology oriented and children have an excellent opportunity to harness the resources available to learn literacy skills. Today's children are digital natives and are not afraid to use technology.Consider for example, the cartoons such as "Dora the Explorer", who teaches children about geagraphy and math skills. Literacy skills must be taught at an young age. ||
 * 7. "...trips to the library and parent's own personal reading habits" (p. 138) || This is the montessori model, where children learn from the modeling they have. My mother was a montessori teacher who provided me with opportunities for success with literacy. I was guilty about doing my doctorate when my children are still young and dependant on me. However, I think I am providing them with an excellent model of what is involved in higher education in the USA. I hope whan I am doing my HW, my children realize that there is a lot of reading and writing involved in their lives ahead. ||
 * 8. Rogoff || [] ||  ||
 * 9. Literacy Skills || This chapter describes the importance of literacy skills in a child's life. Children must be exposed to a variety of methods that parents, caregivers, and schools can use tyo help their chid succeed from early on in their lives. ||
 * Chapter 11 - Teacher-Child Relationships and Early Literacy by Pianta ||  ||
 * 1. ||  ||
 * 1. ||  ||
 * 1. "This chapter examines the intersection(s) of literacy development..." (p. 150) || This relationship can be best understood the interdisciplinary approach to analysing concepts anissues to achieve better results. ||
 * 2. " ||  ||
 * Chapter 10/The Influence of Parenting on Emerging Literacy Skills**

b. instruction and phonemic knowledge c. theory based model required for helping struggling readers ||
 * 1. "AS they grow from birth, children engage in increasingly elaborated and symbolically mediated interactions with caregivers in which emotion, cognition, and communication..." P (149) || This is an interdisciplinary approach to teaching literacy and this approach is efficient because children learn and flourish in places where the people are affectionate communicators. ||
 * 2. "Relationships support literacy in terms of providing language stimulation and conversion..." (p. 149) || There are so many families where children do not travel together or talk at dining tables. What happens to such children? Also, how about ELL, who may be using other languages at home and at social circles? How do they acquire the English language? Is school only the place for them to explore and what happens if the teacher is not trained to deal with such students? ||
 * 3. The role of a teacher || Any adults are teachers and not necessarily those who teach at schools ||
 * 4. Adult-child relationships || heuristic/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC223489/pdf/pnas00109-0010.pdf ||
 * 5. Summary || a. teacher-child relationships

Chapter 12/Environmental Supports for Language Acquisition by Erika Hoff

[] || b. findings of other studies c. review of literature || [] || "One question concerns the best target for intervention. Should intervention be aimed at phonological, lexical, syntactic, or stylistic aspects of language?" (p. 170). || Did we not agree that phonemic awareness is important when the children are young and this should be ignored in older children? The syntactic and stylistic awareness is for older children, I think. ||  ||
 * 1."Children learn language by anlyzing the speech they hear"(p.163) || I learned two other Asian Indian languages before I learned English. I am fluent in all the three languages,but my strength is the English language because I have used it all my life. ||
 * 2. "...children's vocabulary are related to differences in the amount and nature of the speech they hear" (p. 163) || If the parents are professional, then the children tend to pick up technical words from the parents. Fo example, my husband uses the medical terminology all the time and my children seem to understnd the names of medications and procedures etc. I am constantly discussing the education topics, so they talk about that lingo. In fact, my daughter was the only one who could spell inetrdisciplinary in her class and you know where she gets it from. Also, we take the childrenj to the Hindu camps twice a year and they know all the vacabulary from the scriptures and fine arts due to the exposure.
 * 3. Longitudinal Study || a. Vocabulary growth in children
 * 4. Study finding || Vocabulary enhancement depended on the environmant and exposure children had in their early years. ||
 * 5. "Children cannot learn words they do not hear. Thus children who hear only a limited vocabulary will acquire only a limited vocabulary" (p. 166) || I do not agree with this equation because I am from a culture where children are multilingual, and they do not hear many English words, but do have a decent vocabulary bank. A good example for this is the movie "Slum Dog Millionnaire", where Jamal is knowledgable with the vocabulary and concepts posed on the show. His learning is through socio-cultural inetraction and not from formal schooling. He is also from the marginalized section of the society that is low SES.
 * 6. "Learning to read is easier for children if they are familiar with the way language is used in writing" (p. 168) || But, children learn to speak first and then they begin to recognize the orthography. Writing is an advanced language skill. Linguistics such as Chafe and writing specialists like Elbow have posited that speech like attributes enters into writing in children's rhetoric.
 * Also, chapter 28 on "//The Impact of Early School Experiences on Initial Reading//" clearly explains the evalution of speech and writing., "Speech may have evolved roughly 125,000 years ago, symbolic art such as cave paintings appeared about 20,000 years ago, but writing systems are relatively recent inventions, emerging in full force only about 4,000 years ago" (p. 420). There seems to be a contradiction here. Ask Dr. Lillemon!** ||
 * 7.
 * 8. Mother in this study || The only limitation for this study is the absence of the fathers becaude fathers can be a major force in children's literacy development/enhancement. My children think a great deal about their father when ti comes to family talk and socil interaction. My children have said that their da has more rational intelligence than emotional intelliegence. ||  ||

Chapter 13/The Misunderstood Gaint: On the Predictive Role of Early Vocabulary to Future Reading by Senechal, Ouellette, & Rodney b. listening comprehension c. reading comprehension || findings
 * 1. Shared Reading || Facilitates oral language development ||
 * 2. Three types of child behaviour || a. phonological awareness
 * 3. Vocabulary and Listening comprehension || Directly proportional ||
 * 4. Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension || The three studies show that there is no correlatiohn between vocabulary andf reading comprehension. The p values are statistically not significant and this proves that there is no correlation, but educators and parents may thjink that these skills depend on each other. ||
 * 5. Study 1 in ORC

Study 2 findings || a. word recognition is crucial for language comprehension b. reading fluency is related to comprehension

a. vocabulary in KG was a yard stick to measure the reading comprehension. This is in support of study 1 ||  || http://youtu.be/uwfScIXLrkc || http://youtu.be/tP0bh55hfBk [] ||
 * 6. Limitation of the studies || Longitudinal and single measure of vocabulary used. The meaning-making attribute was neglected and shared book reading was not valued in these studies.
 * Section IV - Cultural and Linguistic Diversity**
 * Chapter 14/Effective Intervantions for English Language Learners (Spanish- English) at Risk for Reading**

Implication s for at-risk ELL Readers
 * 1. Use both English and Spanish in reading programs - dual langauge approach

Reading instructions in English and Spanish are similar (Gersten and Geva, 2003) || 2.Focus on the beginning reading first and then focussed reading activities

Gersten and Geva's (2003) six instructional practices in reading for ELL || 3.Allow the students to realize that English is more difficult than Spanish with regard to reading

a. explicit teaching b. English language learning c. Phonemic awareness d.Vocabulary development e. interactive teaching thast maximizes student engagement f. instruction that produces opportunities for accurate responses

Phonemic awareness is crucial for beginning readers and vocabulary development for advanced readers. "English is a language with most difficult orthography" (p. 192)

Spanish has shallow orthography

English takes twice the time for orthography development comapred to Finnish, Spanish, Italian.

Students need to learn two systens with English - alphabetic and logographic || 4.Try to bridge the student's prior knowledge of one language to English language learning

Knowledge of one language will enhance the student's metalinguistic knowledge while they are trying to learn another language

Use phonemic awareness if the students are beginning to learn their first language ever || 5.Let students use the English language by speaking in class and help them engage in Bloom's taxanomy

Avoid multiple choice questions that may limit the vocabulary building opportunities for ELL

Make sure to model complexity with regard to syntax and semnatics so the students are exposed to that kind of instruction

Give out-of-class group assignments where students are encourages to acquire academic vocabulary || 6.Emphacize on vocabulary and concept building activities

Use explicit instruction to teach vocabulary

Make sure to use the vocabulary that is in the student's register; words that are not in their schemata will cause problems and may even thwart their interest to acquire the English language. The sociocultural tenents may be appropriate for ELL || 7.Encourage and practice collaboratine and interactive learning activities

Pair the ELLs with other stuidents in the class so thay can interact and use social constructivists approach to language acquisition

Students feel at ease with their own peers than with the teacher questioning them in front of the class || Future Directions for Beginning ELLs with Reading Difficulties

I do not appreciate the fact that in the USA, bilingual automatically means English and Spanish. What about students from other countries of the world such as the East, Middle East, and Africa? What about heritage languages that have complex and intricate orthography and inntonation units? US receives thousands of students each year from these countries and they need English language instruction/immersion as well. I totally agree with the authors of this chapter when they indicate that ELL teachers are ill prepared to teach the ELL. Teachers must consider summer institutes and extensive training opportunities such as the National Writinjg Project and TESOL conferences so teachers acn acquire the latest teaching methodology and build a professional networking group for professional and personal growths. Teachers msy consider culturally relevant materials while teaching ELL because standardized materails will not benefit ELL. According to Genishi & Dyson (2009 ), the students are diverse these days, but the curriculum are not. So, it is our responsibility to train competent teachers to teach diverse students including the ELL.


 * Chapter 15/Recent Research on the Language and Literacy Skills of African American Students in the Early Years**

All students bring their funds of knowledge according to Moll. For example, "The Freedom Writer's Diary" is a good example how a teacher can help African American students. || cannot we try and teach African American students? ||
 * 1."African American students evidence considerable difficulty understanding the general purpose of the text and are unable to elaborate the theme with details, or to connect it to their own real-life xperiences" (p. 198) || This is a deficiet approach that needs to be examined.
 * 2. "AAE is characterized by an expansive set of morphological, syntactic, semantic, phonological, and discourse features that differ systematically rom the ways that the same meanings would be expressed in Standard American English" (p. 199) || Teachers have to learn to adapt to the cadre of students we get. When we can teach international students who speak languages that have no resemblance to the English language, why
 * 3. "Prior to school entry, many African American students have primary exposure to literacy practices that differ from those of their mainstream peers" (p. 205). || Every student has his/her own literacy practices and how does the one that African American students have any different. I am from a culture that students do not have any exposure to the English language, but at school. Students from my culture do well once immersed in the language at school. ||
 * 4. " Recent research indicates that a better alignment between home and school practices can be achieved fairly readily with significant positive benefits" (p. 205) || Yes, as long as the students receive culturally relevant materials, they feel comfortable. They also may begin to contribute more if the curriculum resembles their home environments. ||
 * **Chapter 16/Cultural Diversity in Early Literacy" Findings in Dutch Studies**
 * **Chapter 16/Cultural Diversity in Early Literacy" Findings in Dutch Studies**
 * **Chapter 16/Cultural Diversity in Early Literacy" Findings in Dutch Studies**

1. "..."many children entering primary school each year will experience difficulties with acquiring basic skills, particularly reading" (p. 211) || This places an enormous burden on teachers becayse they have to alter their curriculum significantoly based on the early literacy skills the children bring to the class. Underprepardeness is a stumbling block in literacy. How do we manage a heterogenous class with stduents with varying literacy skills? || a. Exposure to literacy products and literacy uses in everyday life b. Informal instruction in social interaction c. Affective context of literacy-related social interactions in everyday life (p. 212-213) || If the mother is too busy giving birth every year and is burdned with socil/familial obligations. how can such a woman focus on literacy? If there is lack of access to lingistic products (sppech and writing) due to poverty and geaographical location, etc, how does the child learn pre-literacy skills? Whow does the child interact with if the child is left to spen time on its own while the mother is busy with chores? The affective comes if the family is happy and well fed presumably. If the family is sturggling tomake the ends meet or has too many children to raise, how much attention/affection do older children get in the family? The answers to these three facets depend on the context and place that we are talking about. ||  || a. Static cognitive approach b. Phonemic awareness || How about children whose forst language is not English? How can such children acquire phonemic awareness in middle school or high school ecven if they move to the USA later in life? What kind of intervention strategies are available to older learners? ||  || How can one ignore the minor deficiencies in a child's learning pathways? How about the child's lack od willingness to participate in classroom due to language deficiency, for example? ||  || According the Fischer & Yan in the above article, "People interact and develop together in ensembles, not acting in isolation.Even when people act alone, their activities are grounded in close relationships and socialsupports. Skill theory tools work well in analyzing these growth processes, combining cognitive,contextual, social, and emotional factors" (p. 24). ||  || http://youtu.be/sKxmF6UXbSw ||   || http://youtu.be/zqsRFAJVN9c Deepavali or the festival of lights is another major holiday. http://youtu.be/_uT04ZD7hcg http://youtu.be/vMguvWvA5Yk ||
 * 2. ""...causes os early difference in development that are associated with sociocultural factors" (p. 211) || Sociocultural theorists such as Vygotsky and Piaget have argued that children learn twice - once individually and again through sociocultural interaction. If the latter is absent in a child's life, then learning suffers. So, it becomes the teacher's obligation to create the sociocultural environmant using the other students in the class or theachers from the child's background ||  ||
 * 3. "Most immigrant Turkish parents in the Netherlands originate from poor rural areas in Turkey and have low levels of schooling and literacy, especially women" (p. 212) || Those cultures of the world where women are illeterate and ignorant of the outside world pay a price. Women play a vital role in the developmkent of the child since the child spends most of the pre literate years with the mother in many cultures. If the women are not able to teach the child literacy skills because of lack of knowledge of these skills themselves, the children will be behind in school and the burden of equipping such children with pre literate skills while the class is acquiring literacy skills falls on the poor teacher. It is time that cultures realiz ethat their women need to become literate and independent so they can make an impact on their children. ||  ||
 * 4. "Literacy Acqusition Devices"
 * 5. "Reading (and writing) in school is about certain types of texts that form particular genres" (p. 214) || How about those children who do not make tit to schools due to poverty and child labour instances? If the children do not have access to communicative registry in English, how will they acquire academic language register of Halliday? ||  ||
 * 6. "To determine what constitutes early literacy skills, differentiate perspectives are possible" (p. 214)
 * 7. "Cultural Canalization" (p. 216) || "The effect of natural selection on development to produce pathways that are insensitive to minor genetic or environmental variation; results in the phenotypic norm of the species) (dictionary)
 * 8. Fischer's Skill Theory (p. 226) || [|http://www.gse.harvard.edu/~ddl/articlesCopy/SkillTheoryDevelopKFFinalCorr.1201.pdf]
 * 9. "Finally, the affective quality of mother-child relationship may also influence the affective quality of children's subsequent social relationships with teachers and peers in kindergarten and primary school and thus affect school achievement (p. 226). || I agree with this finding wholeheartedly becausee a child is a product of his/her society, family, religion, and literary practices. The epistemological underpinnings depends on these factors that have a major impact on a child. ||  ||
 * Chapter 17/Considering Culture in Research-Based Interventions to Support Early Literacy**
 * This chapter deals with literacy activities that undeserved communities engage in and how these activities are overlooked or not addressed in our classrooms. I can relate to this aspect because I am an Asian Indian living in the USA, and many of the literacy activities that we Asian Indians are engaged in are not addressed or unwelcome in traditional classrooms. I teach Hinduism to my children through Asian Indian dance and music performances. I take them to events almost once a month so my children can learn the culture, heritage, and religion through these engaging activities. However, their teachers and schools may not be familiar with the art forms or may not discuss the value of these activities. On the other hand, opera, jazz, piano recitals, and concerts make their way into the classrooms because it is popular cultural practices of American people. For example, the epic saga Ramayana is available in various genres and the most popular one is the video rendition. This video can be used to introduce children to the different rhetorical modes such as narration, description, persuasion, etc.
 * Chapter 17/Considering Culture in Research-Based Interventions to Support Early Literacy**
 * This chapter deals with literacy activities that undeserved communities engage in and how these activities are overlooked or not addressed in our classrooms. I can relate to this aspect because I am an Asian Indian living in the USA, and many of the literacy activities that we Asian Indians are engaged in are not addressed or unwelcome in traditional classrooms. I teach Hinduism to my children through Asian Indian dance and music performances. I take them to events almost once a month so my children can learn the culture, heritage, and religion through these engaging activities. However, their teachers and schools may not be familiar with the art forms or may not discuss the value of these activities. On the other hand, opera, jazz, piano recitals, and concerts make their way into the classrooms because it is popular cultural practices of American people. For example, the epic saga Ramayana is available in various genres and the most popular one is the video rendition. This video can be used to introduce children to the different rhetorical modes such as narration, description, persuasion, etc.
 * 1. " A second premise concerns relationships between family practices and the instructional activities at school that define conventional school literacy practices, such as the activities within which instruction for decoding and comprehension occur" (p. 230) || This highly improbable unless the schools identify the various cultural groups represented in the classes. As long as schools intend to acculturate their students, the interface of family and school practices may not be possible. ||
 * 2. ""These descriptions of family activities and parental beliefs have a general, as well as a local, significance for interventions" (p. 234) || Again, what about those schools where the majority of teachers are for a predominant culture? Unless teachers adapt to the needs of the cadre of current students, this intervention is far from truth in our classrooms. Teacher education about culturally relevant practices and culturally relevant texts is important for this kind of transaction to occur. ||
 * 3. "The ideas teachers hold are important to interventions focusing on improving connections between home and school activities" (p. 236) || Some teachers may be of the opinion that if they bring the foods related to a particular culture, then they value that culture. Others may be of the opinion that the clothing may be enough. But, the transaction between the home and school practices is possible only by discussing the holidays and observances etc. For example, Hindus celebrated the festival in March called Holi and many teachers are not aware of this holiday and they may have several Hindu students in their class. These celebrations are marginalized because these are not the main stream ones that Americans celebrate such as Christmas and Halloween.
 * **Chapter 18/Vygotskian Perspective on Teaching and Learning Early Literacy** ||  ||
 * 1. "First, literacy, as a system of signs that is collectively developned and culturally transmitted, as used by Vygotsky as the prime example of "cultural roots" that transform the course of human development-..." (p. 243) || Learning dies not happen at school or in classrooms; it can be facilitated anywhere the child has an access to. For example, the performing arts can be an excellent venue to learn. The museum are also a place where children learn to acquire skills like VTS etc. It becomes the obligation of the parents to expose their children to various culturally relevant events. ||
 * 2. Vygotsky's Cultural Historical Theory
 * Principle 1 - Ontogeny as well as Phylogeny
 * Principle 1 - Ontogeny as well as Phylogeny


 * Principle 2 - Higher and lower mental functions


 * Principle 3 - Cultural roots


 * Principle 4 - ZPD


 * Principle 5 - Make-believe play for ZPD


 * Principle 6 - Written speech includes play and drawing || This principle calls for both mental and cultural development. Especially with writing, which is considered as a cognitive process, is dangerous because cognitive science seems to overlook cultural practices.

Mammals seem to have the lower mental function, but it is the homo sepiens that hav ethe higher mental function "acquired through social interaction and learnin gto use specific cultural tools" (p. 245) When the human baby is born it is no diferent than an animal baby, but as the child grows, he/she acquires skills including literacy skills.

Attention, memory, and thinking develop through the exposure to signs very early in a child's life. Parents who do not bother to stimulate their children by exposing their children to signs will deprive the childern of cultural roots. I have always been a great enthusiast of the nursery rhymes for my children. This genre stimulates the child's literacy skills and introduces them to the wonderful world of imagination and they also teach schemata.

Some parents sem to over stimulate the child; it is crucial one stays with the ZPD of the child. The child must be abvle to comprehend and then after consistent practice can try to move up.

I am a product of Montessori because my mother was a montessori educatopr for 30 pklus years. My children went to Montessori schools in Sa Antonio as well. Montessori is big on play-way method of teaching by allowing the childen to have freedom to move from station to station. It is the oppisute of the prescriptve curriculum where the child may not be in his ZPD. [] [|http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=montessori+method&FORM=HDRSC2#x0y759] [] ( I use this for my ELL)

Luria's theories augment Vygotskian propositions [] [] Drawing and imaginary play helps children acquire writing, so parents and teachrs have to encourage these activities. ||
 * Chapter 19/Preschool Classroom Environments and the Quantity and Quality of Children's Literacy and Language Behaviours**
 * 1. "Reading is especailly important early school achievement that is based on perceptual, language, and cognitive skills" (p. 257) ||  ||


 * Kalpana M. Iyengar – Dr. Lillemon (Kalpana was at the AERA Conference)**
 * Chapter 19/ Preschool Classroom Environments and the Quantity and Qualtity of Children’s Literacy and Language Behaviors**

Chapter 19 deals with children’s exposure to literacy activities both inside and outside school. The connection between literacy and child’s success in school is examined using longitudinal studies. In addition, the kind of activities for literacy enhancement is also suggested for educators and parents to consider. The chapter corroborates evidence obtained from research-oriented curriculum and suggests activities for children’s success. According to Farran, Aydogan, Kang, & Lipsey (2006), “…the development of a lexical basis for reading requires sufficient vocabulary so that new words may be learned from context… and syntactic knowledge…” (p 275). Hence, word recognition and contextualized reading is crucial for early literacy development. The authors analyze longitudinal studies to predict the importance of verbal readiness for school success. Further, the authors deduced how the ere is a strong correlation between language skills and social skills and how the lack of either one of these skills is responsible for the behaviourial problem in boys. This problem can also lead to poor peer relationship by becoming problematic in child’s life later both at school and in society. The chapter emphasizes on the print related learning in early childhood based on Booth and Waxman’s findings about how this learning is characteristic of home sapiens. The section on preschool intervention deals with the programs developed to encourage early literacy development in preschoolers. One such program is the head start program that seems to work in theory, but not in practice because of the lack of trained professionals to guide the participants. Another component in enhancing literacy in preschool children is the inclusion of props and their use in child’s literacy development. The classroom must house materials that can facilitate child’s conceptual development of various places that we go to such as the post office, library, grocery stores, clinics, etc. The authors call for using these materials in a play context reminds me of my training at the Montessori school during my preschool years. According to Christie and Enz, such activities help in vocabulary building on the prop chosen. Another factor for literacy development in young children is the teacher mediation in literacy activities. Children who had teachers model activities improved compared to children who had no modeling. The difference is that children with teacher modeling engaged in imaginative play activities, whereas children without just played with the props. Hence the authors call to include materials and props in the pre school classroom and use teacher modeling until the children scaffold. Another crucial factor for language development is the language interaction in preschool classrooms. The family interactions are important in literacy development of children. Mothers from higher SES help their children with verbalizations compared to mothers with low SES. Maternal talk is dependent on the mother’s talk and family income. Children of professional parents have 26 million words where as children of working-class parents have 13 million words. Hence, linguistically rich environment is conducive for vocabulary development in children. Finally, teacher’s emotional standing also affects children’s literacy development. Overall, children’s preschool environment is the stepping-stone to their language skills development.

Chapter 20 addresses the socio-cultural interaction as propounded by Vygotsky. The authors call or attention to oral language, alphabetic code, print knowledge, and other skills necessary for literacy development. This chapter pays emphasis on the dramatic play and its effects on literacy. Five sets of studies on (a) literacy behaviour of preschoolers, (b) literacy enriched environments and literacy development, (c) teacher’s role in children’s dramatic play, (4) teacher mediation in support of the play, and (e) teacher-students interaction during dramatic play. Theories about play and Piaget’s theories support this claim of how sociodramatic play facilitates literacy development in children. According to Smilansky and Shefatya (1990) and Bondioli (2001), “adults should take a maieutic role, with a high level curiosity and when the ability to withstand uncertainty” (p. 271). The authors of this chapter call the adults to scaffold the child within their ZPDs. Also, Piaget was of the opinion that an older child showed decentration and decontextualization compared to the younger child. The adults must reciprocate the child’s play interaction. This enables the child in building narratives about self. Children’s use of written language during play greatly enhances their literacy development. The videos of preschoolers during play sessions revealed that “play environments….to viewing it as a potential context for promoting literacy learning” (p. 272). Four dramatic play areas have been identifies in this chapter for children’s literacy development - a post office, a kitchen, an office, and a library. Also literacy props to teach the children using these play areas were indentified as well. A pre-post design study showed an improvement in all the areas of language skills. “The literacy-play episodes were identified on the videotapes, transcribed, resituated within the various contexts, and then analyzed again” (p. 273). The play situation helped children with proving a context for learning and also, children could find a platform to practice and gain critical cognitive processes. The role of adults in children’s pretend play section deals with the adult’s involvement/interaction in children’s literacy development. Three roles were identified – player, onlooker, and leader. Data collected from a study involving children with adults in a post office, an office, and a house were coded for two themes – extending and redirecting. Extending was to help the child with the child’s idea during the play time, but redirecting was taking the child’s idea away by introducing an idea that the child was not interested or did not understand. As adults, we interfere with the children’s learning processes all the time. The second study that used the onlooker, player, and leader yielded productive results. Finally, the authors discuss the role of conversations in literacy development. Based on the Vygotskian principles, socio-dramatic instances facilitate literacy development in children since they tend to negotiate and role-play constantly. A study where parents were asked to talk a lot about experiences, spent time talking, asked questions, listen to children’s interpretations and add without interruption, and follow the child’s lead instead of offering information yielded positive results with vocabulary building and speech skills. It is important to note that children add to the role-play and just take what is offered by the more knowledgeable other (MKO).
 * Chapter 20/The Relationships between Sociodramatic Play and Literacy Development**

McKeown and Beck discuss the reading aloud strategy for literacy development. Children are acquainted with new vocabulary and cultural literacy with this strategy. According to McKeown and Beck (2006), “Listening to stories read brings children in touch with story structure and literary conventions that are prerequisite for understanding text and exposes children to grammatical structures and discourse forms that are not typically found in conversational language ” (p. 281). The meta analysis of 29 studies yielded a strong correlation between read aloud and literacy development. ON the contrary, another study negates this finding by proving that children’s literacy development is due to their literacy rich home environments and other social activities. Another study pointed out the importance of student comments while teachers and adults read aloud. Learning to Build Meaning section indicates the growth of literacy with applying the higher order thinking skills. Hart and Risley’s longitudinal research provided us with important findings with regard to the relationship between children and their literacy environment – (a) exposure to words at home, (b) parental involvement in children’s dialogue, and (c) relationship between verbal and cognitive competence. Decontextualized language participation is vital for analyses and other higher order thinking skills. This in turn contributes to better literacy development in children. This approach also helps in scaffolding children early on and read aloud is an excellent strategy for this goal. In addition, text talk engages children in helping them recognize new themes, developing comprehension, and the skill to articulate about literature and later in life. Another technique to help children develop text talk is to ask them specific questions on specific books like “Curious George”. The information children render is based on their prior knowledge and decontextualized participation. The authors make a case for teachers and parents to read the text as often as possible because, “…written texts- is a major source of learning and thus is at the center of academic achievement” (p. 293).
 * Chapter 21/ Encouraging Your Children’s Language Interactions with Stories**




 * Chapter 28/The Impact of Early School Experiences on Initial Reading by Juel**
 * 1. "...children who struggle with learning to read words had entered the first grade with little phonemic awareness and were slow to acquire it" (p. 410) || All of the chapters have instited on this requirement, but what about children who come to the US woithout any phonemic instruction? How do we intervene so those children are comfortable as well? ||
 * 2. " "To understand this text (page 411 about crabs) the child needs pretty sophisticated word recognition, vocabulary, and world knowledge" (p. 411) || World knowledge cannot be learned through books; children need field trips and other kinds of exposure. ||
 * 3. Vocabulary || Vocabulary building depends on the number os words children hear each day. If children are from low SES, it may be hard for them to have acquaintace with godd vocabulary. I hate using the defecit approach, but the truth is the lowert he SES, the higher the risk of lack of good vocabulary. ||  ||
 * 4. "Unlike spoken language, there is no biological specialization for writing systems" (p. 420) || This is an amazing concept because some lingusitist like Biber predict that speech is more complex form of language skill campared to writing. I think sppech comes naurally because children listen to people talk or interact on aconstant basis in their lives. On the other hand, writing is acomplex skill that has to be learned/acquired consciously. Also, unlike speech, we only tend to write in schools and outside home. ||  ||
 * 5. "Reading improves overall intellectual growth" (p. 423) || The more one reads, the more their vocabulary enhances and becomes fossilized for later use. What I have read while I was little still surfaces in me at times. ||  ||
 * **Chapter 29/Policy Decisions in Early Literacy Assessment by Salinger** ||  ||   ||
 * This chapter is about reading first legislation on early literacy assessment. || This topic is not my favorite because I do not approve of the assessments used in NCLB or in schools. However the section on the role of the teacher and instruction, student learning, and classroom time are interesting to me as a researcher of literacy. ||  ||
 * 1. "The success of the assessment triad depends to a large extent on teachers" (p. 433) || If teachers are given agency to assess children, our school swould be a much better place. Administrators without any classroom expereince and policy makers without any background in education create the assessment tools, which may be a disservice to children and teachers. ||  ||
 * 2. "When districts or states develop their own early literacy assessments, they shape them to their state standard or, more, often, to their collective vision of what literacy learning is all about " (p. 434) || How do such children function if they move from from district to another. A uniform systen of assessment without any 'seamlessness' is productive. ||||  ||
 * **Chapter 30/Early Educational Interventions: Principles of Effective and Sustained benefits from Targeted Early Education Programs by Ramey and Ramey** || This chapter deals with early educational intervention in children for literacy development. ||  ||   ||
 * 1. Definition of early intervention || The organized processes administered to facilitate literacy skills before children enter kindergarten. ||  ||   ||   ||
 * 2. "...five major scientific principlies..." (p. 448) || dosage, timing, academic instruction and language, differential benefits, and educational continuity principle. ||  ||   ||   ||
 * 3. "Programs that provide higher amounts of educational intervention (dodage) produce larger gains in children's academic performance" (p. 448) || Immersion is the solution to literacy problems. The more the students read and write,, the more they will comprehend. ||  ||   ||
 * 4. "The surgency of interest in early brain development and how experiences contribute to the structure and functioning of the brain lends support to the educational interventions are the most promising for maximizing benefits to children" (p. 451) || So sociocultural tenets and cognitive science can answer questions about learning. This interdisciplinary approach to the study of learning may yield optimal results. ||  ||   ||   ||
 * 5. "Early education interventions have been presented in many different froms, including those that are based and seek to change parents' behaviour and provide environmental enrichment s (books, learning games, educational videos), and those that combine center and home based components" (p. 452). || But, if childen cannot apply what they leanr using these mediums, how do they progress? I think, school instruction is vital in cognitive growth in children because there are trained teachers and staff that can guide children. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 6. "[The principle of differential benefits] asserts that some children show greater benefits from participation in early educational interventions than do other children" (p. 545) || Who is responsible for this disparity - the parents, teachers, or schools or the children themselves? It is our (teacher's) responsibilty t make are that every chaild is given equal importance and valued in our classrooms. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 7. "Much reamins to be learned about the content of the curricula used in pre-K programs and programs for infants and toddlers, as well as the importance of different instructional and classroom variables, in contributing to the observed benefits associated with intensive, high quality programs for children truly at risk" (p. 457) || Wow! This statement says a lot about the research findings, which are based on theoretical aspects and not on the actual classroom experiences. We need empirical evidence to prove the claim about the correlation between early intervention and literacy development in children. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 6. "[The principle of differential benefits] asserts that some children show greater benefits from participation in early educational interventions than do other children" (p. 545) || Who is responsible for this disparity - the parents, teachers, or schools or the children themselves? It is our (teacher's) responsibilty t make are that every chaild is given equal importance and valued in our classrooms. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * 7. "Much reamins to be learned about the content of the curricula used in pre-K programs and programs for infants and toddlers, as well as the importance of different instructional and classroom variables, in contributing to the observed benefits associated with intensive, high quality programs for children truly at risk" (p. 457) || Wow! This statement says a lot about the research findings, which are based on theoretical aspects and not on the actual classroom experiences. We need empirical evidence to prove the claim about the correlation between early intervention and literacy development in children. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||