When surveying Josh’s interest in reading (appendix one ), he indicated that he enjoys reading and feels that he is good at it; also mentioning that he liked to read at school and at home, and that he likes to be read to. Josh’s reading material is primarily visually based, often a picture book or comic, and he says that usually it is his mum and dad who reads to him, and alternatively he will read to his little brother Max* and his class teacher. When asked who he knew was a good reader, Josh answered that his aunty Sara* was, but struggled to explain why he thought so. Similarly, when Josh was asked to explain why he thought people read, his answer was short; explaining that reading was nice and it helped people. Josh explains that when his dad reads to him, the content is usually books about motorbikes, and that he most enjoys reading after he’s watched some cartoons.
Josh’s Reading Demonstration As identified in VELS, Victorian Essential Learning Standards, learning focus; children learning at the first level of VELS progress much as Josh has, by engaging graphically linked texts that have a repetitive and predictable pattern to the text; picture books are often used for this purpose as the pictures correspond with the story. From this, Josh would learn that there is a constant message in the text, and that often that his understanding and prior knowledge of the text’s topic will enable him to predict the meaning of the story. VELS also states that children in the first level are taught to read in a sequence from left to right and with a top to bottom structure (VELS website, 2009). An example of this is Josh’s reading of the book Big Animals, written by Josephine Selwyn (2005), which is part of the Macmillan Learn Abouts series . ‘I am a big animal’ appears on every even numbered page, with a photo of a differing animal, labelled on the opposing page (appendix five ). As pointed out in Suzan Hill’s book Developing Early Literacy: Assessment and Teaching (2010), the words ‘I’, ‘am’, ‘a’ and ‘big’ are all within the top 60 high frequency words for children learning to read (pg. 166, 2010). When Josh encountered this sequence of words, he found it quite easy to predict the flow of the book, yet struggled with the word ‘animal’ looking at the picture on the opposing page and answering ‘lion’ or ‘elephant’.
Josh’s funds of knowledge were demonstrated when reading the second book the Little Golden Book of A, B, C’s, by Cornelius DeWitt (1981). Recognising the title as ‘A, B, C’; Josh immediately started singing the alphabet, he also had the knowledge to identify many of the pictures in the book, without reading the letter they were attached to. When prompted to read the letter pointed out; at first Josh was able to identify by sight recognition, but as we progressed through the book to the later letters, Josh found it much harder to answer, instead reciting the alphabet to try and remember the letter required. Similarly, when prompted to identify the words in correspondence with the pictures; the word ‘cat’, for instance, would be directly placed next to the illustration of the cat. Some words were harder to identify, however, thus Josh would look at the picture and guess the word. The word 'farmer', for example, was linked to a stereotypical illustration of a man with a pitchfork and overalls (appendix six ); Josh identified this word as 'man'. This both demonstrates that Josh doesn't have the reading fluency yet to interpret longer, harder sounding words, and that he is at the stage of reading development that relies on illustration linked text.Josh's reading comprehension, as Hill explains, falls into three categories; literal, interpretive and inferential, his literal understanding of the books Big Animals, and the Little Golden Book of A, B, C's,enabled him to answer from what he saw on the page, rather than what he read (2010, pg.193).
Through observing Josh’s reading, I can identify that his level of reading fluency, as defined in Hill’s reading fluency rubric, is of level one standard, otherwise known as emergent reading. There is little variation in his rate of reading, and he has minimal understanding of punctuation, Josh reads word-by-word, and often pauses between each word and shows little emphasis on words requiring it. He does, however, show some expressive interpretation, which suggests that he is developing steadily in his reading fluency (2010, pg 170).
Writing
Josh’s Writing Survey
Josh had a mixed response to the writing survey (appendix two ); suggesting that while he feels he writes quite well, he doesn’t enjoy writing as much as reading; that he is quite neutral to writing at school and doesn’t like writing at home, but he would like someone to help him write. When asked about what he likes to write; Josh explains that he can write his name and that he writes about cars, horses and calves, and also enjoys writing stories. He explains that the best story he’s written so far was about dinosaurs, but he also likes to write stories about Pinocchio. When Josh has trouble with a word, he says it’s painful, but he asks someone to help him with this, he also explains that he gets his ideas about what to write from books, because they’re cool to read. To Josh, his Nanna is a good writer, and he suggests it’s because she knows how to read, he says that in his family, his dad also writes about things like motorbikes. When Josh was asked to describe why he thinks people write things, he says it’s because they like to.
Analysing Josh’s writing The level one requirement for writing, as stated by VELS, focuses engaging the learner to write simple texts and topics familiar to the learner, in order to convey their overall message or idea. The learner will start to use conventional lettering, start to use groups of letters and simple grammar and punctuation such as capital letters and full stops, and they will start to link the relationship between sounds and the words they’re spelling (VELS website, 2009). For this part of the interview, Josh was asked to write and draw a few of the words in the book the Little Golden Book of A, B, C’s (1981) (appendix three ), with the aid of Hill’s ‘emergent and early writing assessment’ sheet (2010, pg. 290); Josh’s writing fluency is in the emergent stage, or level one. His scores for the three main elements of emergent writing, as defined by the emergent writing assessment sheet, were a two for written language, three for ideas and three for text conventions. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development demonstrates a sub-categorisation of the writing fluency levels; in which Josh would be entering the level 1.25 of writing development. At this stage, there is a slightly more structured understanding of writing, more defined lettering and attempts at sentences. More defined grammar is attempted at this stage of writing development, and the learner will often try spelling more unfamiliar words, start to link phonics with words and also start to link illustrations to engage the meaning of their writing (DEEDC Website, 2010).
Josh’s Reading Interview
When surveying Josh’s interest in reading (appendix one ), he indicated that he enjoys reading and feels that he is good at it; also mentioning that he liked to read at school and at home, and that he likes to be read to. Josh’s reading material is primarily visually based, often a picture book or comic, and he says that usually it is his mum and dad who reads to him, and alternatively he will read to his little brother Max* and his class teacher. When asked who he knew was a good reader, Josh answered that his aunty Sara* was, but struggled to explain why he thought so. Similarly, when Josh was asked to explain why he thought people read, his answer was short; explaining that reading was nice and it helped people. Josh explains that when his dad reads to him, the content is usually books about motorbikes, and that he most enjoys reading after he’s watched some cartoons.
Josh’s Reading Demonstration
As identified in VELS, Victorian Essential Learning Standards, learning focus; children learning at the first level of VELS progress much as Josh has, by engaging graphically linked texts that have a repetitive and predictable pattern to the text; picture books are often used for this purpose as the pictures correspond with the story. From this, Josh would learn that there is a constant message in the text, and that often that his understanding and prior knowledge of the text’s topic will enable him to predict the meaning of the story. VELS also states that children in the first level are taught to read in a sequence from left to right and with a top to bottom structure (VELS website, 2009). An example of this is Josh’s reading of the book Big Animals, written by Josephine Selwyn (2005), which is part of the Macmillan Learn Abouts series . ‘I am a big animal’ appears on every even numbered page, with a photo of a differing animal, labelled on the opposing page (appendix five ). As pointed out in Suzan Hill’s book Developing Early Literacy: Assessment and Teaching (2010), the words ‘I’, ‘am’, ‘a’ and ‘big’ are all within the top 60 high frequency words for children learning to read (pg. 166, 2010). When Josh encountered this sequence of words, he found it quite easy to predict the flow of the book, yet struggled with the word ‘animal’ looking at the picture on the opposing page and answering ‘lion’ or ‘elephant’.
Josh’s funds of knowledge were demonstrated when reading the second book the Little Golden Book of A, B, C’s, by Cornelius DeWitt (1981). Recognising the title as ‘A, B, C’; Josh immediately started singing the alphabet, he also had the knowledge to identify many of the pictures in the book, without reading the letter they were attached to. When prompted to read the letter pointed out; at first Josh was able to identify by sight recognition, but as we progressed through the book to the later letters, Josh found it much harder to answer, instead reciting the alphabet to try and remember the letter required. Similarly, when prompted to identify the words in correspondence with the pictures; the word ‘cat’, for instance, would be directly placed next to the illustration of the cat. Some words were harder to identify, however, thus Josh would look at the picture and guess the word. The word 'farmer', for example, was linked to a stereotypical illustration of a man with a pitchfork and overalls (appendix six ); Josh identified this word as 'man'. This both demonstrates that Josh doesn't have the reading fluency yet to interpret longer, harder sounding words, and that he is at the stage of reading development that relies on illustration linked text.Josh's reading comprehension, as Hill explains, falls into three categories; literal, interpretive and inferential, his literal understanding of the books Big Animals, and the Little Golden Book of A, B, C's, enabled him to answer from what he saw on the page, rather than what he read (2010, pg.193).
Through observing Josh’s reading, I can identify that his level of reading fluency, as defined in Hill’s reading fluency rubric, is of level one standard, otherwise known as emergent reading. There is little variation in his rate of reading, and he has minimal understanding of punctuation, Josh reads word-by-word, and often pauses between each word and shows little emphasis on words requiring it. He does, however, show some expressive interpretation, which suggests that he is developing steadily in his reading fluency (2010, pg 170).
Writing
Josh’s Writing Survey
Josh had a mixed response to the writing survey (appendix two ); suggesting that while he feels he writes quite well, he doesn’t enjoy writing as much as reading; that he is quite neutral to writing at school and doesn’t like writing at home, but he would like someone to help him write. When asked about what he likes to write; Josh explains that he can write his name and that he writes about cars, horses and calves, and also enjoys writing stories. He explains that the best story he’s written so far was about dinosaurs, but he also likes to write stories about Pinocchio. When Josh has trouble with a word, he says it’s painful, but he asks someone to help him with this, he also explains that he gets his ideas about what to write from books, because they’re cool to read. To Josh, his Nanna is a good writer, and he suggests it’s because she knows how to read, he says that in his family, his dad also writes about things like motorbikes. When Josh was asked to describe why he thinks people write things, he says it’s because they like to.
Analysing Josh’s writing
The level one requirement for writing, as stated by VELS, focuses engaging the learner to write simple texts and topics familiar to the learner, in order to convey their overall message or idea. The learner will start to use conventional lettering, start to use groups of letters and simple grammar and punctuation such as capital letters and full stops, and they will start to link the relationship between sounds and the words they’re spelling (VELS website, 2009). For this part of the interview, Josh was asked to write and draw a few of the words in the book the Little Golden Book of A, B, C’s (1981) (appendix three ), with the aid of Hill’s ‘emergent and early writing assessment’ sheet (2010, pg. 290); Josh’s writing fluency is in the emergent stage, or level one. His scores for the three main elements of emergent writing, as defined by the emergent writing assessment sheet, were a two for written language, three for ideas and three for text conventions. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development demonstrates a sub-categorisation of the writing fluency levels; in which Josh would be entering the level 1.25 of writing development. At this stage, there is a slightly more structured understanding of writing, more defined lettering and attempts at sentences. More defined grammar is attempted at this stage of writing development, and the learner will often try spelling more unfamiliar words, start to link phonics with words and also start to link illustrations to engage the meaning of their writing (DEEDC Website, 2010).
Professional Engagement with an Early Years Teaching Program