Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children

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Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children

Introduction

The early years of a child serve as an effective foundation for literacy development in the future. With this in mind, it is appropriate to come up with strategies that promote both language and literacy development among young children. Green and Peterson (2006) stated that the degree to which these children acquire the necessary language skills is a strong predictor of their future academic excellence.

One of the strategies is phonics and phonemic awareness (Lin, 2001). Phonemic awareness helps the child to know that speech is composed of identifiable units, which includes words, syllables and sound. To assist children in literacy development, teachers should incorporate phonemic awareness into the curriculum. The instruction involves teaching children to categorise various phonemes into words and later combine the various words into a phrase.

Adult-child relationship greatly influences language acquisition. In their infancy and toddler years, children require numerous one-on-one interactions with their parents and older siblings to enhance their oral literacy skills. Parents can communicate with their children using simple language aided by appropriate non-verbal cues. At school, the children need teachers to play with, sing with or do other activities.

Children also need a print-rich atmosphere to support their language progress. Children who access writing tools, with which to express themselves in various symbolic ways, get motivated to learn faster, compared to those with limited accessibility. These materials include books, papers, pencils, and visual aids. In the classroom, a teacher can provide various teaching aids like charts to aid literacy development.

The teacher should use varied reading and writing activities in the classroom. Since children have a very a short attention span, the teacher should use short stories, which are conversational as learning aids. The teacher can decide to read aloud to ensure that each learner gets what is taught (Neuman et al, 2004). The ability of children to process written material stems from their daily exposure to stories, informational texts, poems and other literature materials.

Individualizing children’s needs is very important in literacy development. Different children have different cognitive abilities and information processing. Some children are fast learners while others are slower. A good teacher adjusts teaching strategies according to children’s requirements.

Teachers should integrate language explorations into the curriculum. The curriculum should be intellectually engaging, as well as challenging, to expand the children’s knowledge of vocabulary and the world. The teacher can investigate real topics or events that relate to children’s everyday experiences. When these children investigate, they get the chance to ask questions and use their skills to explore their surroundings.

In Conclusion, early literacy enables a child to get the necessary academic skills that impact their future life. Through the various educational strategies, the child is able to develop into both a competent reader, as well as writer.

References

Green, SD, & Petersen, R. (2006). “Language and Literary Promotion in Early Children Settings:

A survey of Center –Based Practices.” ECRP, Vol. 8, Issue no. 1

Lin, Chia-Hui. (2001). Early Literacy Instruction: Research Applications in the Classroom.

ERIC Digest. ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading English and Communication. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://www.readingrockets.org/article/397/” http://www.readingrockets.org/article/397/ on December 11, 2013.

Neuman, SB, Copple, C, & Bredekamp, S. (2004). Learning to Read and Write:

Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children. National Association for the Education of Young Children-Washington, DC.