For this module, I observed a family of a young lady whom is in the Pre-k classroom. She is a very smart young lady and on her way to becoming a very successful kindergartner as well as in her years to come. I observed the energy and spunk that this child has when it comes to learning and understanding the things around her. As her teacher was teaching, she was fully attentive to what she had to say. She raised her hand and asked questions and they were legitimate questions. What really got me was when the teacher was going over sight word and how fast this child was saying the words and raising her hand to answer the question of what does this mean. it is so important that children are able to learn word and to know and understand their meaning. When we give children words and don't give them the rest of the tools they need to use the words correctly along with the meaning, it serves as no purpose to them because they are just words stored in their memory bank. To often I have found that my own children have been taught words but not the meaning and in learning literacy, it is important to know how and when to use words as well as the meaning of them.

when the child was picked up, I asked her mother if she did a lot of reading at home and she stated that she tries to read everything. I expressed to her how great that was because it was helping her to build her literacy skills as well as allow her to become comfortable and use to reading. I asked the mom what she thought about literacy skills being used in taught in the early years of life and she stated that it is very important that children learn to read, write, and understand the language in which they speak. She felt that the more books and words that children learn and understand will help them become better readers as they grow and to be successful in school.

I have learned that there are some parents that believe that literacy skills are important and not afraid to go beyond the knowledge of pre-school to help their child to learn. I have learned that there are some parents that think as I do and understand the importance of literacy in the early years.

observation of director

For this assignment, I observed the director of The Children's House Park Forest.Shed has been a director at this center for ten years now and believes that every thing she does is for the children that she cares for in her center. she has her BA in child development and is currently in school to continue her education.

I talked to her about literacy and the importance of literacy for young children. Because she has five children of her own, she believes that literacy is very important to all children and needs to be address with every student and parent. Because she is one to create activities that involve parent involvement, she has every teacher to create homework packages that they children take home and complete with their parent. The packages are not thick but must have at least four pages one for each day. It is filled will reading assignment, recognition of letters and numbers and story for the children to enjoy. The parents have been very cooperative and make sure that they bring the assignments completed and brought back on Friday. If a child doesn't have their folder upon pick-up on Monday, the parent asks before leaving the building.

Because so many funds have been cut for childcare, the school doesn't have all the books that she wants in the classroom so she goes out and purchase them from library sales and other places. She also set up contacts to have two book fairs a year at the center for parents and teacher to purchase books to read in the classrooms, and at home with their children.

I think that reading and language is very important because it is something that we all use throughout our lives not just in school. It is important that the children of our future have the chance at the literacy skills they need and the help that they need to develop it.

module 2 post

While doing my observation, I observed a three year old teacher that has been teaching for four years and has her BA in early childhood education. In her class, she was allowing the children to have center time and one of the centers was library and another a writing center. The children in the library really didn't have a great deal of books to chose from, but they took the books that were there and tried to read them to each other. The children in the writing are were using creative writing, which means that they were not sure of the spelling of the words, but spelled them to the best of their ability.

I also observed a four year old class where the teacher was going over sight words that the children would be hearing in the story that she would be soon reading to them. The children for the most part were well behaved and pay attention to their teacher eager for her to begin reading the story. A she read the story, she stop to show the children every page and allowed them to talk about what was going on on the pages. It was as though the children had been waiting all day for story time because this was a book that they all wanted her to read. At the end of the story the class had and discussion about what happened first second third, and at the end of the story. It was great to see how the children were so involved in what was going on and how well they were doing.

My observation showed me that not only is it necessary for children to build on their literacy skill, majority of them enjoy reading and learning to write. Al thought they may not understand the importance of what they are learning, just to be able to have a classroom of children that are eager to listen and become involve in the stories being read to them is a great sight to see. Knowing that there are some teachers that really care about teaching their children to read and helping them to understand the concept of how a book is put together brings tears to my eyes because it doesn't happen every where and I know this because I left a daycare that my son attended because they didn't do any of these things.

The strengths of these professional are their desire to teach and to reach every student that they come in contact with when it comes to teaching them to read and write. The challenges is getting some of their parents to become more involved in what their children are learning and to be supportive and helping them to become fluent readers.

I think that this observation should me that it is important as educator that we teach children literacy at an early age. I think that the earlier we begin reading to children and allowing them to read to us whether it is really reading or beginning reading , it makes a difference in each child's future.

One thing that I want to research in my paper is the importance for parents to become involved with literacy at home. I understand that as parents, we become overwhelmed with work and other things around the house, but making and taking the time to help our children with their home work and reading to our young is very important.

advocacy posting by L Allen

The insight that I have gained in doing my interviews is about the lack of reading materials that are placed in the classroom to promote reading. Although young children are not all able to read, having books placed in the classroom that they can explore with and help them to become familiar with books and how we hold them and read them will help them to better their understanding of how and why we read. This has influenced me to find ways in which I can help get more books into some of these centers and to help children have a better opportunity at reading and learning. My area of interest for my research paper would be The lack of reading material in early childhood classrooms. The other two topics would be the lack of reading materials in the home and the lack of support for reading in the home.