Emergent literacy and the necessity to enhance students’ abilities are considered in this chapter. The key points are based on the fact that literacy development consists of several stages, and each stage should be passed successfully to achieve the best results. Students have to understand a number of concepts before they start familiarizing with the world of literacy.
The content of the chapter and the strategies offered will help many students in classrooms understand what abilities are of prior importance and realize how letters are created to formulate logical words and sentences. The main insight is that each action has its structure, and success in reading is presupposed by the way of how a student is able to learn the grounds. Our classroom discussions concerning this chapter help me realize that emergent literacy plays an important role in our education and cannot be neglected.
The ninth chapter is all about the strategies like phonics or context clues which help to enhance students’ decoding abilities. Some strategies may involve sight words, some strategies are based on signal words, and several strategies are connected to clues (Block, 2003). This chapter proves that use of dictionaries is an important activity that has to be supported by all students in the classroom. The insight of this chapter is that there are many ways to improve reader’s abilities, still, the decoding is one of those related to the backgrounds of student’s cognition. And classroom discussions show how decoding approaches may change personal attitude to everything what is told and comprehended.
The key point of the tenth chapter is to enhance student’s comprehension and help students improve their understanding of the matter. The key goal of this reading is to find out as many reliable methods as possible so that the reader is able to decode accurately and integrate past experience to create appropriate ideas and suggestions. The content may be applied in the classroom as the guide on how to overcome different comprehension barriers, diagnose comprehension properly, and reflect the process of reading. The insight is students’ initiative that promotes their desire to learn and understand more. Class discussions help to understand how it is important to define the main goal of each step to achieve the most definite success.
The key point of the 11th chapter is the reluctant writers and the necessity to help them overcome their challenges. The content of this reading become a helpful source for classroom activities: how to remove redundancies, translate rhythms properly, develop student’s voice, etc. The main insight is the necessity for teachers to motivate their students and help them succeed in writing activities. Though writer’s block is not always easy to overcome, reluctant writers have a chance to comprehend the beauty of this process. During the classroom discussions, I realize that my role in student’s learning process is really huge, and I should help students discover their abilities.
The 12th chapter defines three types of challenges students may face: grammar, handwriting, and spelling. The methods on how to support students with writing are the key points of the reading. The content helps to improve our classroom activities.
The author defines different types of difficulties like auditory inattention, use of homophones, or visual inattention. Each difficulty may be analyzed from various perspectives, and the main insight of the reading is to choose the most appropriate method to solve a problem. Our classroom discussions aim at analyzing different situations under which students cannot do their best in writing. This is why it is very important for a tutor to diagnose the case properly and choose an effective activity that will encourage every student for writing and learning.
Reference List
Block, C.C. (2003). Literacy Difficulties: Diagnosis and Instruction for Reading Specialists and Classroom Teachers. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Company.