Children's authors

It is clear that the most popular children's authors are those such as J.K Rowling, Roald Dahl, C.S Lewis and Beatrix Potter. I believe that these authors have been successful because they use tools such as imagery and humor in their novels to keep children engaged. The use of drawings and images in the novels make reading more fun for children who may not want to read, and humor and rhyme are other tools that these authors use frequently to make their stories more entertaining, so that the children really want to read them. One book I remember from my childhood is “Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s dairy” by Lynley Dodd. I believe that this book was particularly memorable to me due to the use of engaging illustrations and rhyme throughout the whole story. The rhyme and layout of the novel allowed it to be read almost as a song either to or by the child, this means that it would be more fun for the child and would encourage them to read more often.

Teaching children to read

The most popular method of teaching children to read is through the use of synthetic phonics. This is where the teacher breaks words down into the sounds they make – for example, ‘dog’ would be broken down into ‘d’, ‘o’ and ‘g’ and then the sounds are blended to make ‘dog’. This technique can then be transferred to learning to read and write as the sounds in words can be converted into letters onto paper. However, there are some arguments against this method which suggest that synthetic phonics cannot be used to teach children to read everything, for example words such as ‘friend’ are more difficult to decode and cannot be broken down into sounds. This could mean that another method of teaching would have to be suggested in order for the child to fully develop their reading. Although there are some criticisms, it could be said that the method of using sounds to teach children could be more simple for children to understand and it has been found that children who are taught to learn with phonics are up to 2 years ahead of those who used other methods,

Another method of teaching would be using reading schemes. The most popular reading schemes are Oxford Reading Tree, Collins Big Cat and Rigby Star. These reading schemes are developed in conjunction with literacy experts. The Oxford Reading Tree for example, is supported by Debbie Hepplewhite, who developed the synthetic phonics method. Most schemes begin in the Foundation Stage and progressively become more difficult. For example, Key Stage 1 books are written with a mix of high-frequency and decodable words to develop a range of reading strategies in the children, while Key Stage 2 books cover a wide range of genres and subjects, linking to the curriculum. This would develop their reading further and expand their vocabulary. When a child is ready to progress to ‘normal’ reading, most discover their own books they would like to read and do this freely. However, some critics believe that the books that are used in reading schemes have bland content and a uniform appearance, which could even delay children's access to the real world.

The Miscues

Correction:
A common sign of a competent reader, a correction is a miscue that the student corrects in order to make sense of the word in the sentence.

Insertion:
An insertion is a word or words added by the child that are not in the text.

Omission:
During oral reading, the student omits a word that changes the meaning of the sentence.

Repetition:
The student repeats a word or portion of the text.

Reversal:
A child will reverse the order of the print or the word. (from instead of form, etc.)

Substitution:
Instead of reading the word in the text, a child substitutes a word which may or may not make sense of the passage.

Transcript analysis

Imitation and reinforcement are the most crucial tools for children's language acquisition. Evaluate this idea using the theories.

There are a number of theorists who believe in imitation and reinforcement when children are learning language. This includes Skinner, who’s theory relies on positive and negative reinforcement. To define these ideas, positive reinforcement is where a child receives a positive response to their speech which includes; praise, echoing, responding and reformulation. Negative reinforcement contrasts this teaching process, as it is when a child receives negative feedback to their speech including; negatives, ‘telling off’ and in some contexts, reformulation. The following transcripts (A and B) include Tom, aged 2 years and 7 months, and his parents.

In Text A, Tom is fixing bikes with his mother and in one instance says “I sitting on the bike (.) it make noises”. Tom makes an elision of the adjective “make”, where the standard form would be “makes”. The idea that imitation is crucial to language development is enforced when his mother responds “it makes noises”. Echoing not only correlates with Skinner’s idea of positive reinforcement, but it could also be said that Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development comes into play here. This repetition of the phrase will act as scaffolding to his language, and help Tom to learn. In the two texts, Tom is said to be in the telegraphic stage of language as he is beginning to form utterances, but his grammar is not yet standard. However, it is shown that Tom may be progressing to the post-telegraphic stage when he uses the pronoun “it”. The fact that Tom is using anaphoric referencing in his language shows that his thoughts and ideas could possibly be more complex than he is able to communicate, and therefore could be gradually developing his language. This could also be due to the constant positive reinforcement he is receiving from his mother.

Again in Text A, when discussing his fathers bike Tom shows again that his language is not fully developed in the utterance “the dad bike”. His mother follows this with reformulating his speech with “dad’s bike”, which is again giving him positive reinforcement. The idea of scaffolding from Vygotsky’s theory is supported once again as it is shown that Tom has learnt from his mother when he says “yeah (.) the dad (.) dad’s bike (.) dad’s bike mum (.) dad’s bike”. Tim first corrects himself after repeating the non-standard form “the dad”, and recasts his language to the standard, possessive form “dad’s bike”. This evidence may show that children do, in fact learn from both positive reinforcement and ‘scaffolding’, and would refute Chomsky’s universal grammar theory that children are born with the ability to use and understand language. However, although Tom uses “dad’s bike” correctly further on in the interaction it could be said that he may not have actually retained this information. If we were to accept Piaget’s theory that children learn in stages,  it would be likely that Tom would return to using the non-standard form.

In Text B, Tom is shown to be seeking positive reinforcement from his mother when he says “is these drawing Cartoon Network cup of tea mum”. The interrogative followed by the vocative “mum” for clarification shows that he is seeking a positive response, and could also show that he is himself unsure of how to phrase the interrogative and is possibly looking to learn from his mother. Although the utterance is non-standard, the use of the determiner “these” acts as a deictic reference and could suggest that his language is more complex than displayed in this example. However, this could also be Tom expecting his mother to understand his question within their context. Although Tom is in the telegraphic stage at this age, the fact that he uses the vocative “mum” rather than the diminutive “mummy” we would expect from a child of 2 years, this could suggest that his language is developing more quickly than the average child. This could refute Piaget’s theory of the stages of language, if Tom really is learning more rapidly than Piaget’s stages suggest.

When Tom uses the interrogative “did I kill you” in Text B, he is overextending from when his mother said “what you squashed it”. When his mother reformulated his utterance earlier in the interaction, this could act as an example of Vygotsky’s idea of scaffolding his learning. However, we could accept Piaget’s theory of stages here as Tom does not learn from this and continues to use the verb “kill”. This could be because Tom may be in a state of panic after thinking he “killed” the sheep after “squashing” it, and then overextended this panic to his mother after he “stood” on her fingers. However, it is unusual that a 2 year old child would be using the verb “kill”, and this could possibly suggest that his background with his parents is unlike the average background a child would have – as he may be exposed to more mature ideas at a younger age by his parents. Although his mother does respond “um (.) did you kill me”, in this context it could be said that this is negative reinforcement as the filler “um” could suggest that she may not have been paying attention to Tom, and she did not answer his question or offer any helpful response.

To conclude, there are a number of theorists that believe that imitation and reinforcement are crucial for children's language development are highly supported in these transcripts. The parents both use positive reinforcement regularly and it is shown in Tom’s language throughout that he is benefitting from this. In particular, his mother uses imitation as a form of positive reinforcement and it has seemed to encourage Tom to improve his language independently. So, with many respected theorists such as Skinner and Vygotsky supporting this idea, it could be easy to accept the idea that imitation and reinforcement are the most important tools. However, theorists such as Piaget and Chomsky contradict this idea. Although these theories do refute the statement, when analyzing the two transcripts Piaget and Chomsky’s ideas were not heavily supported, which makes it easy to accept the statement.