WEEK 9

WHAT:

As this week we discussed about participants and young children's meaning making which i thought was a very interesting discussion  as earlier i had never thought about the question how children make meaning and then i came across these two readings dealing with story reading and meaning making which i thought provided  a very useful and interesting insight into how children develop literacy and numeracy by reading stories.

MAIN ARGUMENT:

The literacy reading was by Isbell, R., Sobol, J., Lindauer, L., & Lowrance, A. (2004) and this reading claims that story reading has a strong  influence on the oral language development and comprehension of young children.

.It states that shared book reading benefits children in two way by providing them with acquisition of language and literacy skills.

.They also experience vocabulary growth, knowledge of handling books and many other skills.Children who are frequently exposed to storybook reading are more likely to use complex sentences, have increased literal and inferential comprehension skills, gain greater story concept development, increase letter and symbol recognition, and develop positive attitude.

The other reading was BY Young-Loveridge, J. M. (2004) and called " Effects on early numeracy of a program using number books and games". It states that  various literature suggests that books and stories can be used to enhance students’ mathematical thinking.It also purports that using mathematics storybooks is related to higher levels of mathematical activity. In summary, the results of the study show that playing number games and reading number stories and rhymes with a specialist teacher is an effective way to enhance the numeracy learning of young children.

This finding has important implications for teachers wanting to boost the numeracy skills of particular students who may be falling behind teachers in early childhood centers have an important role to play in supporting and enhancing the informal mathematical abilities which children bring to preschool. If early childhood teachers made a point of becoming more aware of which activities are appealing to particular children, they would be able to capitalize on the opportunities for mathematics learning.

NOW WHAT:

There is a lot of implication for teachers learning happening in these two readings on literacy and numeracy and how as a teacher we can use story books to enhance children's learning and and development by carefully choosing story books and helping children to make meaning of the world around them.

REFERENCES:

1: Isbell, R., Sobol, J., Lindauer, L., & Lowrance, A. (2004). The effects of storytelling and story reading on the oral language complexity and story comprehension of young children. Early Childhood Education Journal, 32(3), 157-163.

2: Young-Loveridge, J. M. (2004). Effects on early numeracy of a program using number books and games. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 19(1), 82-98.