Reflecting on Early Literacy

Who'd have known that emergent literacy encompassed so much? and how does one summarize so much that has been learned in the past six weeks?

Well, I get that children progress through four phases of development - beginners, novices, experimenters and conventional readers and writers. Beginners are dependent on others for their reading and writing experiences. Novices write with the intention to communicate and their pretend reading is based on their understanding that reading must be meaningful. Experimenters understand the alphabetic principle. Through their reading and writing, they experiment with the sound-letter correspondence. The reading and writing of conventional readers and writers increasingly resemble what adults in their language community would call "really reading and writing"

In order for we as teachers to help children pass through these phases, we must assess to know each child's level of development. Our assessments will provide us with instruction on how to encourage that child's growth toward the next phase. Our assessments must be on-going and reflective, systematic and comprehensive. I know I am often guilty of turning in all my data by our deadlines and then, feeling short on time, just moving on with instruction. I don't give the time to hypothesize and reflect on that hypothesis after instruction. In the future, I will truly strive to take more time to reflect. It is through analyzing and reflecting on my data, as well as ensuring my assessments are valid, reliable, quantitative and on-going that I can effectively scaffold each and everyone one of my students so that they may reach their highest potential.