Research on children's reading development... Tuesday 22nd November 2016v

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and I Want My Potty! By Tony Ross are just few of the most popular books and children’s authors that write books designed for early years children aged 0-5 years old.

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, The BFG by Roald Dahl, The Queen's Nose by Dick King-Smith and Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney are just few of the most popular children’s books from authors that write books designed for children of the ages 6-8 years old. (Infants)

Skellig by David Almond, Matilda by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis and Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo are just few of the most popular books what are written by these authors designed for children ages 9-11 years old. (Juniors)

Elements that make children’s books successful are that they contain powerful images to help them understand, a strong character that represents an emotion, a story line that is going to teach the children something and especially for the early years children, the books that have sensitivity sections where you can feel something in the book will help them to learn things through other senses rather just than through imagery and by hearing the story being told but actually by allowing them to sense something to enhance their learning.

My favourite early years books is ‘The very hungry caterpillar’ by Eric Carle, this is my favourite book because it involves a lot of repetition which helps younger people to learn but also there are lots of bright pictures in the book to help you go along with the storyline and some books are interactive which allows you to see the caterpillar eating the food on his journey.  My favourite book from when I was an infant was ‘A diary of a wimpy kid’ I liked this book because it had some elements of humour and was set out in a way which was fun to read. Also it wasn’t too long and descriptive which allowed me to be able to read it for myself.  My favourite book form when I was a junior was Mathilda because it uses a lot of descriptive language as well as few small images to help you to visualise the characters that Roald Dahl describes so thoroughly.

Children are taught to read in schools by first being taught how to distinguish the difference between a phoneme and a letter which will help them to put together a sound and be able to pronounce the different sounds within the words. We first teach them to break down words into smaller sound (phoneme awareness) this enables them to sound out the different sounds within the words before trying to say them one after another to put the word together. When children are in the process of leaning it is important that you help them by reading to them with much more expression. This will enable them to hear the different sounds within the words but also the different intonations to help them to understand the mood of the sentence (eg declarative or an interrogative) there are some steps that children follow when they learn to read and intemperate language…

  At about 18 months, children add new words to their vocabulary at the astounding rate of one every 2 hours.

By age 2, most children have 1 to 2,000 words and combine two words to form simple sentences such as: "Go out." "All gone."

Between 24 to 30 months, children speak in longer sentences.

From 30 to 36 months, children begin following the rules for expressing tense and number and use words such as some, would, and who.

Bibliography:

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/news/222/

http://thewritepractice.com/childrens-book/

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-do-children-learn-read

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-most-children-learn-read

Questions not yet completed:

What are the arguments for and against current approaches? Make sure you cover synthetic phonics and reading schemes.

What sorts of 'miscues' (virtuous errors based on misapplication of reading skills) do young readers make and how are caregivers encouraged to deal with them (again, numerous ways)?

Vygotsky's theory of the 'zone of proximal development' is displayed within the second utterance of the transcript. 'I sitting on the bike (.) it make noises' the confusion of tenses and the missing inflection on 'make' supports Vygotsky’s theory of the 'zone of proximal development as although Tom knows what he is trying to communicate, he is in confusion regarding his tenses and therefore is in aid of some scaffolding in order to allow him to understand his misuse of tenses and therefore develop his language to allow him to be more fluent as well as accurate.

Showing a certain level of understanding, but a lack of clarity within this declarative, Tom is also supporting the telegraphic stage in Piagets theory which suggests that a child cannot learn something until their brain is developed enough, which to some extent contradicts Vygotsky’s theory as he suggest that as long as you are corrected as and when you make mistakes then you can learn something. His theory says that when a child knows something but it is incorrect they are in the 'zone of proximal development' this is where they have a certain level of understanding and with help they can learn it properly. Piaget on the other hand, he believes that until the brain is developed enough the child doesn’t have the capacity to learn the correction of something until they are developed enough to understand.

Contradicting piagets theory is Bruner. Bruner believes that anyone can be taught anything if it is simplified right down to make it easier to understand. He also says that you need to revisit and build up what you already know to expand your knowledge. As well as burner, Jim's case study of the child with deaf parents contradicts piagets theory as although he had deaf parents and wasn’t exposed to any scaffolding or the ability to pick up language from his parents he was still able to learn how to talk without the same amount of interaction as other children. In the transcript you can see that Tom is supporting all of these theories as Vygotsky’s 'zone of proximal development' can apply as top needs that scaffolding from his parents in order to help him to learn the correct tenses but also, Piagets theory is also supported as if Tom's brain isn’t developed enough and he doesn’t have the capacity to understand the tenses fully yet then he won’t be able to until his brain develops more which it could be argued that his brain wont develop enough until he is helped by his parents with other mistakes he makes until her realises what's right from wrong. As much as piagets theory therefore contradicts Vygotsky’s, it could also interlink.

Later on in the transcript, Tom asks his mum 'is these drawing cartoon network cup of tea mum' By saying mum at the end of the utterance shows that he is looking for positive reinforcement as he is demonstrating that he almost knows that the picture on the mug isn’t cartoon network but because he is unsure of how to communicate this with his mother her associates the drawing with cartoon network in the hope that his mum will understand what he is asking her about. 'is these drawings' this incorrect use of language represents Chomsky’s theory as this utterance wouldn’t have been picked up from an adult and therefore must have been born with some sort of knowledge as they wouldn’t have been taught this type of grammar or sentence structure from their care givers.