Entry 6: Literacy Development

 In both the text by Tompkins' Literacy for the 21st Century and the article Building Preschool Children's Language and Literacy One Storybook at a Time by Beauchat, Blamey and Walpole you can see that there is a shared sense of importance to shared read aloud story time readings for young children. Both of these literary works explained how children are able to read and write in the beginning of their life and how they continue, but I think that shared story time read aloud's are not always focused on. Using shared storybook time can create skills and help basic motor skills develop by simply handling a book and learning to change the page/hold the book. "The storybook reading format complements instruction in concepts of print, providing a natural platform for modeling behaviors such as how to hold a book, turning pages from left to right, identifying a title, and differentiating between words and pictures" (Beauchat et. al., p. 34). Creating and using this read aloud time can also create a time for teachers to help students become informed about different cultures and ideas. I will use this time when I create my own classroom for childhood education in a way that students can identify with the text that is being talked about. The texts that I pick for read aloud will have a meaning to them, and each new reading will be unique from the others; new characters, new scene, and different cultures/ ethnicities/ backgrounds! 

    These read aloud's that children experience should incorporate some kind of identity information that the children are able to relate to. Helping children be able to identify and relate to in literature that we read during class is crucial in the children's self identify and it helps the teacher with student engagement. According to Gholdy Muhammads HRL Framework we must incorporate cultures and backgrounds of our students in our curriculum to be able to create an inclusive classroom.  Tompkins stated "Literacy development has been broadened to incorporate the cultural and social aspects of language learning, and children's experiences with and understanding about written language-- both reading and writing -- are included as part of emergent literacy" (Tompkins p. 211) Multiple sources such as Tompkins and Muhammad have said that in order to create a classroom that is successful we should incorporate culture. I think that this is something to fight for, as a teacher I should create a classroom that helps express all student backgrounds that are in my classroom to help them evolve into better learners. Bringing culture into writing can also be beneficial such as researching a new culture or country and writing a report on it. The students could even write notes about what they researched just to be able to retain the information that they learned about the different culture. 

Creating a classroom where I can celebrate all cultures instead of dulling them down i believe will create learners that will want to read and write, and ultimately celebrate their peers as part of the class.