Best Practice Applies To All Ages

Come join the Tuesday Slice of Life, Hosted Weekly by Stacey and Ruth at their blog, Two Writing Teachers.  Enjoy everyone’s posts as they offer a small slice of their lives.

        Usually, every other Saturday to Sunday, I get the pleasure of a visit from my Granddaughter Ingrid, whom you’ve read about in other posts.  She was three in April.

        Ingrid and I do lots of things when she visits and I’ve written about some of them, and lately, because of all the reading aloud, looking at books together, being in pre-school all year, Ingrid has become interested in writing.  She can recognize all of her letters, and write some of them, mostly those with straight lines.  Her father teaches her lots of songs that are real, and they listen to music together, things like The Sound of Music. Her mother makes up little rhyming songs for her about everything. I have added more books to Ingrid’s experience, but mostly I think my addition to her literacy is that we’ve looked at things and noticed details about them.  



        I’d like to think that helps to make her a good observer of the intricacies of letters.  Now, she has a book that she is filling with scribbles, which she says are her stories.  I sit with my notebook sometimes when we have returned from an outing, and she gets her spiral out, selects her favorite writing utensil, and fills pages, then sometimes sings to me, or reads, mostly silly stories that have words in them that fit her knowledge of stories.  They are Once Upon a Time, and mostly animal names-piggy, wolf, sheep, PIGEON.  And she sneaks in “poopy” now and then, mostly because her parents tell her she shouldn’t say that word, so she tries it out on me.  My middle school students did the same thing only they didn’t use the word “poopy”. 

A story about the balls. 

To apply to all ages, in every way we can think of for our students:

          Ingrid has had numerous opportunities to experiment with language, oral and written, including books.

            She has spent time practicing using words, in conversations and songs and telling her own stories.

            Many experiences in different places and out of doors have added to her ability to name things, learn new details, and begin to form opinions about what she feels about those things.  Are they exciting, scary, slimy, tickly, risky, fun, or even uninteresting?  The evaluation of things experienced and the acceptance of that opinion add to the feeling of power over one’s world. 

            Ingrid is definitely on her way to becoming a successful reader and writer.  I enjoy watching the changes she makes every time we spend time together.  And, the same thing happens when I spend time with students of other ages:  They too are journeying to improve their literate lives.  They are given opportunities to experiment (choice in what to read and write), time to practice (in and out of class), and experiences to evaluate (school or non-school related).