Intro Into Literacy Processing Theory

   
   

The term literacy was first used by the learning theorist Marie Clay. Literacy is the term used for how children learn to read and write.
      The main area I want to focus in on is the term emergent literacy. Emergent literacy is the very first stage of children beginning to learn to read and write. It starts from early infancy up until age six. Reading to children is the most important factor to children learning to read amd write easier as they get older. For young children the idea of reading has more to do with a need to learn more about new situations. It is learned through processes rather than just in the isolated circumstances of a set time to sit down and focus on reading. The more one integrates language, words, sounds, and freedom of use of writing utensils the quicker children will become invested in learning even more about letters, phonics, books, words as a whole, and also trying to create what they see. You see reading and writing are learned simultaneiously for emergent readers, but writing tends to be easier to achieve than reading.

     For the early pre-schooler children are able to focus more and are able to learn how books should be treated. Board and cloth books can still be used, but should be a small percentage of the time. Story books with paper pages and a sinple storyline that focuses on only a few characters are the best for this age group. Stories with rhyming in them and a short paragraph or two per page and fun photographs as well as a little silly will make children more excited. The more emphasis the reader can put into making each character unique is also going to entertain children and engage them. Making sure to point at the words as a familiar story is being read will help children begin to recognize words with symbols. Also allowing the children to finish sentences in a favorite book is also a way they can become invested in learning to read. Allow children the time to draw and color whenever they seem interested. The more practice they get with drawing, scribbling, tracing, and more than the quicker you will see scribbles tyrn more into symbol drawing which will make learning to write a lot easier for children.