Chapter Four...Some interesting finds!

What conditions promote literacy development? I found out quite a bit of information that helped me answer this question in Chapter 4. Literacy is process that is cultivated at an early age that includes a commitment to read and talk with your child often and consistently in a caring and loving environment. Below is a wealth of information summary form chapter 4.

"As soon as an infant can sit on a caregivers lap, the child can learn to associate the act of reading with a sense of being loved". (p. 82) Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon is and has been a favorite bedtime story. Children can hear this story night, after night, after night and never complain. There are a lot of reasons to love this book that meets the human eye, but what is most important is going on behind the scenes. Children are making connections between hearing written language and feeling loved. This is the best foundation for learning how to read.

Before long the child will be able to recognize visual images such as pictures and illustrations. When the child reaches six months the visual system is developing, the attention system is beginning and a conceptual system is growing rapidly each day. When these three start to grow the child begins early language development and they start to understand that everything in its world has a name. True realization does not happen until 18 months. When true realization happens its like "EUREKA", it is a huge deal in the life of a two year old. Why? Because the brain has obtained the ability to connect two or more systems to make something new. "Contemporary child linguists such as Jean Berko Gleason emphasizes that every time a child learns what it is to name-whether what is named is a beloved human, a kitten, or Babar-a major cognitive change also has begun connecting the developing oral language system to developing conceptual system." (p. 84)

Phonological development comes next, which the child's growing ability to hear, discriminate, segment and manipulate phonemes in words. Then the pragmatic development, "a child's ability to perceive and use social-cultural "rules" of language in its natural contexts, provides the basis for understanding how words can be used in the countless situations described in books." (p. 85)

All of the aforementioned abilities are acquired based on the underlying changes in the developing brain, growing conceptual knowledge, contributions made by each child's developing emotion and understanding of other people. These are either nurtured or neglected by the child's environment.

Just because a child learns to name the letters of the alphabet does not mean they will learn to read early. Reading happens on a biological time clock. The brain must have the ability to connect and integrate different and specific information. Visual with auditory, linguistic and conceptual areas. The mixing depends on the maturity of each region, their relationship with each other and the speed that all of this can happen at. The speed depends on myelilination of the neuron's axons. What is myelination? You will have to wait until tomorrow!

This is all so fascinating to me, I dont' think I have ever read a play by play of what is happening as a child is learning association, building vocabulary and learning to read.