Child Development/Assessment/Last Post

With a full survey of an emerging reader to think about and write about my understanding of this Clay’s book becomes deeper. Emerging readers, writers and thinkers need support. How we support them depends on culture, traditions and trending values in education?

My thinking around early literacy keeps returning to our discussion last week about Switzerland. They are patiently waiting for their youth to be ready to read. They are giving them background knowledge, experiences and choices around play and story telling and phonemic awareness to trust their gradual entrance into the world of reading text. These developmental years between 3 and 6 years of age are so important for building diversity in dendrite growth. On the contrary, many Americans are sacrificing important dramatic play and story telling time for phonics and word reading lessons in preschool and Kindy. Also, they are allowing T.V. and video games, both of which are not optimal for building phonemic awareness, to be experienced at home. I guess I am a people person who is worried about loosing the ability to laugh and play in the light of literacy. After all, literacy is reading, writing, speaking and thinking - not just reading.

My experience with the Observation Survey really has me asking these questions about child development. I ran into an interesting article that asks the question that I am commenting on above. When should more formal skills in reading and writing be taught. This quote grabbed my attention. “In fact, a child who is introduced to formal reading and writing skills before they are ready is at risk of losing confidence and more importantly, a love of learning. By forcing a child into reading and writing too early, parents and teachers run the risk of creating specific learning difficulties, under-achievement and behavioral problems” (Blythe, 2009.)

after completing my formal assessment review tonight I am feeling ready to study for our exam. However, more importantly It is feeling so good to have some knowledge about why we assess students. I am excited to be able to discuss, argue and defend my views on assessing our youth.