Literature is at the heart of the Australia English Curriculum and is integral to the teaching of language and literacy. How can children’s literature be used to develop an understanding of the components of language?
Books are alive! Children’s literature in particular is at the heart of the Australian English Curriculum and is integral for teachers to use in teaching language and literacy. Teachers must use children’s literature to enhance the understanding and development of the various components of language? How can books make stories come alive? What is children’s literature? What are some of the components of language? And, how can teachers effectively impart understanding with the aid of children’s books in teaching? Firstly, this
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21,45) state clearly throughout the book, Language and Learning, that children’s literature is an effective ‘tool’ in developing language. There are many books ‘that fit with the themes of language and literacy’, ‘doing things with language’ and ‘grammar’. This means that literature starts with oral language as a base and the stories heard can be added to with pictures initially, then the written word forms a readable language. Talking about stories makes them come alive. Using pictures creates a sense of intrigue in the reader to help bring the story to life. Thus, the doing things with language fits the story. Next, grammar used in the literature can be expounded on in greater detail so as the co-relation between what the students read and what they can write is expanded on. Practice in doing both is an effective way of learning the skills. Learning the components of language leads to greater understanding when a student is asked to make their own …show more content…
Understanding the meaning of grammar then is crucial. Traditional grammar is seen as the parts in sentences taught more than thirty years ago. An example of this is the learning of the writing conventions such as punctuation or abbreviations. Functional grammar is seen as the ‘knowledge of language’ (Emmit et al., 2010 pg. 92). Grammar is the set of rules by which we use language. These rules change as the language changes and it is necessary to keep learning as language evolves. Children’s literature uses functional literacy to relate the knowledge of grammar to three functions of use. Using actions, reflection and connection teachers can teach the skills of proper usage of functional grammar with texts of varying interest to the students. Thus opening up the student’s world to connecting everyday knowledge to their writings, reflecting on how it affects their experiences and in turn using that learnt language in the real
Critique of Nell K. Duke and Victoria Purcell-Gates' Genres at Home and at School: Bridging the Known to the New Nell K. Duke and Victoria Purcell-Gates insightful article, "Genres at home and at school: Bridging the known to the new" reports on genres found at home and at school for two groups of young children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Duke and Gates identify genres commonly found in both settings, as well as those commonly found only in one setting or the other. Children encounter many different kinds of text in their daily life. There are many different kinds of written language used for many different reasons, especially at home and at school. This article suggests ways that being aware of genres young children encounter at home and at school offer opportunities to bridge home and school literacies and enhance children's literacy development.
This activity suits the child’s current stage of oral development will interest them and aid in them progressing in their oral development. Children at this stage of development enjoy listening to stories which is good not only for their receptive skills, but also for their expressive language (Fellows and Oakley, 2014), in all four key components of spoken language. It helps with phonemes by getting the child to focus on the phonological patterns throughout the text (Fellows and Oakley, 214). Syntax knowledge allows them to observe the sentence structure and grammar in the book which allows them to develop a stronger awareness of the syntax. Visual aids in storybooks can aid in the child in the understanding of semantics (Fellows and Oakley’s), as the story is read aloud their receptive skills hear those more difficult words, when paired with a visual cue such as a picture in the book the child understands better and thus they are able to gain a better understanding of how to speak these difficult words. A better understanding of pragmatics can also be gained from storybooks as they understand how people communicate in society such as greetings and asking for things (Fellows and Oakley,
Mrs. Hamm discussed that she actually uses three different programs to help teach language and literacy to her students. The first program, which is actually her favorite of the three programs, is called “Read Aloud Library”, the second program is called “Language for Learning” and the third program is called “Reading Mastery”. Mrs. Hamm discussed the programs as being very helpful tools in helping children develop their reading skills. Mrs. Hamm integrates literacy in her classroom in many different ways. In the different programs, the students read one book together in which they work on for the week by breaking down the chapters so that children can retell the story and learn th...
Winch, G., Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L., & Holliday, M. (2010). Literacy: Reading, writing and children’s literature (4th ed.). South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.
Sekelj and Rigo (2011) stated that there are three phases of learning the English language. The first phase is the pupils of Year 1 to Year 4, where in this phase, pupils are preferably do a lot of mechanical drilling and practicing some patterns of grammatical features which occur in the context of dialogue that are related to their real-life without any metalinguistic explanation in order to allow them to participate orally and physically as much as possible in dialogues, role playing and dramatizing. It is because, in this stage, it is important to make them conscious of their progress and increasing their motivation to use the language. Teacher should use a variety of activities to teach grammar such as by using songs, riddles, games and stories because it could be very helpful and an efficient ways in teaching grammar as what had suggested by Long (2000) where this FonF approach is effective because it is learner-centered and tune to the learners’ internal syllabus. According to Sekelj and Rigo (2011), Vilke (1977) said that, at the early age, the unconscious acquisition process is superior to the learning one due to the child’s cognitive development. Next, the second phase is Year 5 to Year 6 where in this stage, grammar start to be taught explicitly but with simple and clear explanation and awareness of accuracy of grammar structure should be
1. Introduction In our lifetime we go through various amounts of different types of texts. We start at a young age with texts such us nursery rhymes and as we get older, we learn to develop our literary and linguistic abilities, progressing to short novels, fiction and even educational reference materials necessary to complete our education.
Winch, G. J. (2001). Literacy: Reading, writing and children's literature (Vol. 4th Edition). South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press.
I hope that you were able to look at literature in a different light and that you were able to explore my thoughts, experiences and opinions on literature and literacy. To conclude this paper I would like to say my literacy journey has been a long one and one that will continue to grow and develop as time passes. Speaking, reading and writing is a part of our daily lives and that is why it is so essential and necessary to learn the basics and then continue to foster your skills and abilities. Not everyone will place the same amount of importance on literacy as I do and that is
Conclusion: Contemporary Australian Children’s Literature The black pony picked his way across Currawong Creek as delicately as a ballet dancer, and the girl sat on his back like a princess (97). The quote from the Bonnie and Sam series’ second story, The Circus Pony, highlights some of the feminine markers which function to constrain the representations of gendered behaviours and actions, in contemporary Australian children’s literature, to the boundaries of traditional understanding of gender.
With a child, I conducted a one on one reading activity which involved asking six questions (before during and afterwards). The book I chose was ‘Who Sank the Boat’ written by Pamela Allen. I chose this book because it allows the reader to predict who sank the boat. This allows the reader to make a prediction at the start of the book, which can change as they read on further. Rhyming and repetition, and because the book can be used in regards to other activities, all supported my decision to choose this book. The use of repetition and rhyming encouraged me to use expression when reading to the child, as I was able to memorize the ending sentences in the story, which were repeated on each page. Activities based upon Allen, 1998 can be created for other literacy activities including: debates, recounts, and also in Numeracy lesson’s which involve weights and sinking and floating. These activities can be conducted practically to engage student’s within their learning.
As a child, it was critical to learn how to read and read a lot in order to fluently learn english and be able to read and write. But, as you get older, reading becomes less of an everyday thing and more of an if I have to, i’ll do it. Honestly, I did not even want to read the articles I have to include in this paper, but since it is in the prompt i have to. However, that does not mean that reading becomes less important in teens lives. “Aside from introducing children to a love of literature and storytelling, reading exposes them to written language, which differs from the spoken word.
This involves the child exploring the world around them, asking questions and enquiring about situations. This natural curiosity can be harnessed to create an effective educational setting with the use of visually stimulating resources that inspire literacy related ideas, or fiction that stimulates the children’s minds. Children also have a natural element of intrigue; this can also be referred to as the imaginative function of language. This language function gives the child the ability to create a whole imaginary world around them during playtime, or become a character in a fictional story (Halliday, 1975). Reading books and group stories that include role play will help reinforce and stimulate this natural wonder within a
‘Literature provides wonderful source material for eliciting strong emotional responses from our students’ (Lazar, 1993: 3). By using literature in the language classroom, is a way of letting learners getting involved as whole people and provides them a lot of opportunities where they can express their feelings, personal opinions and reactions. Additionally, Kramsch (1993) argues that teaching literature reveals ‘its ability to represent the particular voice of a writer among the many voices of his or her community and thus to appeal to the particular in the reader’ (pp. 130 – 131 cited in Carroli, 2008: 8). Nevertheless, as teachers use the literature as an authentic text, learners immediately show their interest, as it is not an ordinary reading text which is found in the textbook. Thus, students from higher level can easily be absorbed by the plot and characters, as a result to acquire the new language at its best form. ‘The literature then becomes an important way of supplementing the inevitably restricted input of the classroom’ (Lazar, 1993: 17). Consequently, learners benefit from such authentic text, especially in linguistic areas such as grammar, syntax and vocabulary. Furthermore, the students will be encouraged to expand into political, historical and social aspects. Such aspects will form the cultural background of a particular play or novel. In addition to that, learners will have the opportunity to exchange their opinions and ideas of a poetry, novel or play. At first, it should be best for the learner to understand the language in order to appreciate the literature. The students should also be able to let the teachers help them with the most important features of interest in the text. Nevertheless, the main aim ...
Few would be encouraged to say that literature is not important in the development of individuals or society in general. However, the reality is that reading is an activity relegated to leisure time, at least for a lot of people. TV or video games, for example, may be more attractive. The importance of poetry goes beyond preferences, there is something concrete: literature is important throughout life. Is important in the development of the child, adolescence, adulthood and old age. Experts do not hesitate to enumerate several reasons that certify this question. The first thing to note is that reading is a habit. Therefore, it is learning that joins our behavior. Hence the need to bring children 's literature to smaller, approaching them first and then by reading their first books for them for later to read on their own . Poetry is an influence for people, in different ways and methods depending on their age, but simply for entertainment and growth.
* English literary heritage * Texts from different cultures and traditions * Printed and ICT-based information texts * Media and moving image texts But getting children interested in reading at a young age is seen as key to raising