From the play 'Hamlet' written by William Shakespeare between 1599 and 1602
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
My translation to modern English:
Good Hamlet, take your jacket off,
And let me see you be a friend to Denmark (the prince).
Do not spend your life with covered eyes
Seeking for your noble father in the ground.
You know it is normal; that everyone must die,
Passing through life to eternity.
It is clear that the syntax of language has changed a lot from written English around the year 1600 and modern English as it is now. An example of this from the play Hamlet is the line "all that lives must die", which I translated and changed the syntax to "that everyone must die". The syntax which slightly changed is "all that" now becoming "that all (everyone". This syntax may have changed diachronically to simplify language and make it easier to understand, seeing simplification was a major reason for language change.
The word 'lid' seems to have had a semantic shift, as the word "lids" in the original text has been translated to 'eyes'. This may potentially link to the original text meaning eyelids, but it could also have been a synonym for eyes in the 1600's and gone through a semantic shift, now having a very different meaning. Again, the potential semantic shift of meaning of the word 'lid' may have occurred diachronically to simplify language, making it easier for people to learn and easier for foreign countries to understand. This is an example of broadening as the word 'lid' is still refereed to as eyelids and the new meaning of lid has also been created.
Wednesday, 21 December 2016
Monday, 19 December 2016
Word that has changed its meaning
Husband
With Husband currently meaning a married man, it originally had a very different but now relatable meaning. The original meaning of husband was the head of a household. Husband is in fact not a native English word. It actually comes from the 'Old Norse' (which was a North Germanic language that was spoken by people living in Scandinavia) word hūsbōndi, which means the 'master of a house'. This was then borrowed into Old English as hūsbōnda. The old German words 'hus' and 'bunda' also meant 'house' and 'owner'. The slang 'hubby' was first used in the late 1600's and this is where the change in meaning started.
The meaning of the old and current husband do have a slight link, as the 'husband' home owners were desirable people to marry in the 13th century.
With Husband currently meaning a married man, it originally had a very different but now relatable meaning. The original meaning of husband was the head of a household. Husband is in fact not a native English word. It actually comes from the 'Old Norse' (which was a North Germanic language that was spoken by people living in Scandinavia) word hūsbōndi, which means the 'master of a house'. This was then borrowed into Old English as hūsbōnda. The old German words 'hus' and 'bunda' also meant 'house' and 'owner'. The slang 'hubby' was first used in the late 1600's and this is where the change in meaning started.
The meaning of the old and current husband do have a slight link, as the 'husband' home owners were desirable people to marry in the 13th century.
Friday, 16 December 2016
George Essay - Holiday homework
'Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake' essay
It could be argued that young readers shouldn't be corrected by their caregiver every time that they make a mistake as it is not allowing the young reader to see if they have made a mistake and then correct themselves. There are also better alternatives available to eventually help the reader correct their mistake and say the standard version of the word, such as by scaffolding, a concept developed by Jerome Bruner and then Wood and Middleton in 1975, developing on Vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development.
In the text, where George struggles, his mother helps him by giving him a strategy to overcome the problem he has with the reading, an example of scaffolding and Vygotsky as she knows the task is in his zone of proximal development, he just needs a strategy to complete the task (saying the word), as she says "sound it out". The school taught strategy of learning to read by phonics is used here by the mum, and once he completes half of the word, she helps him out midway through the compound word due to it being difficult to say for young learners due to the letter confusion of 'd' and 'b' so close together. By helping him in this way without making him struggle and then correct his mistake, she is helping him learn in a way - phonetic reading by sounding it out' that he can remember to use when trying to say other words. This help is critical as Lenneberg said that children need to learn early in their critical period, otherwise they will struggle to learn in later years. This is shown in the DeVilliers and DeVilliers investigation where a young boy called Jim found it very difficult to learn in later years as he had no lexical role models as both of his parents were deaf.
When George gets a word wrong due to the virtuous error of a word guessing error, mistaking 'never' for 'need', the mother doesn't correct him but instead uses negative reinforcement by saying "nooo". The negative reinforcement is mitigated by extending the negative particle 'no' and extending the vowel sound, making it seem less abrupt and acts as a face-saving act, protecting his face needs using Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies. After she says this, he self corrects himself by saying 'no we need', this shows he realised he made a mistake and knew what the correct word was, and self correcting is ideal as it makes the young reader think about the virtuous error they made and correct it themselves. This is similar to when George makes another word guessing error later on, mistaking 'upstairs' for 'upset'. This could have been because of the first few letters being the same - the word guessing error - but also because of the image showing the mum walking upstairs. The mother responds to the mistake by interrupting with "no" and then shows positive reinforcement by stating that it "looks like upstairs" and then gives a strategy to "but look at the word" showing scaffolding as she knows saying that type of word is in his zone of proximal development. The coordinating conjunction 'but' also shows that she wnats him to realise it is wrong. He does then say the correct verb; after both corrections, the mother uses positive reinforcement by saying "that's it" to make sure that he knows when he gets something correct his is doing well and will get praise for it. This is vital as young readers make a lot of mistakes and may be put off reading without support and acknowledgement of successes. If they were to be put off and stop reading, this would impact them greatly due to needing to learn early in their critical period.
Correcting a young reader when they make a mistake is necessary however as they sometimes would need to know directly if they have made a mistake and what the correct way to say it is, but caregivers can correct young readers with mitigation or adding strategies in as well for future reference. When George says the word 'house' without adding the plural inflectional suffix 's', the mother does correct him but also gives a strategy for him to get it right, showing scaffolding again, by saying "ez" and "watch the endings" giving him the strategy of what he can do. Due to the two second pause, it is clear that she wanted him to imitate but he may have actually thought that he said it correctly, showing that he potentially didn't understand the correction. This here shows that a straight forward correction may not always be the best idea as the child may not understand what is being corrected and they haven't been clearly given a strategy to complete the word properly, therefore in the future they may keep on making the same mistakes and struggle to eventually learn when they are older, shown in Lenneberg's critical period theory.
When George makes another word guessing error, mistaking 'made' for 'may' this shows a real pattern of his weaknesses which is the endings of words. The mother seems also aware of this therefore she jumps in straight away with the correction by saying the correct word of 'may', which George does imitate after and carry on with the sentence, recognising which word was the mistake. Correcting George in this situation may have been the correct decision because he wad previously made a lot of virtuous errors, most of which were word guessing errors, and may have been tired and not wanted to have been given a strategy to correct himself again, therefore she made the correction for him. This is again critical as you don';t want young readers to get disheartened about the mistakes they make and get put off reading in their critical period to learn.
Despite correcting young readers some of the time, it may not be the best idea to correct them every time they make a mistake as this doesn't give them the opportunity to self-correct or correct the mistake by being given a strategy by the caregiver, which they can then use for other words they get wrong and use that strategy to self correct.
It could be argued that young readers shouldn't be corrected by their caregiver every time that they make a mistake as it is not allowing the young reader to see if they have made a mistake and then correct themselves. There are also better alternatives available to eventually help the reader correct their mistake and say the standard version of the word, such as by scaffolding, a concept developed by Jerome Bruner and then Wood and Middleton in 1975, developing on Vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development.
In the text, where George struggles, his mother helps him by giving him a strategy to overcome the problem he has with the reading, an example of scaffolding and Vygotsky as she knows the task is in his zone of proximal development, he just needs a strategy to complete the task (saying the word), as she says "sound it out". The school taught strategy of learning to read by phonics is used here by the mum, and once he completes half of the word, she helps him out midway through the compound word due to it being difficult to say for young learners due to the letter confusion of 'd' and 'b' so close together. By helping him in this way without making him struggle and then correct his mistake, she is helping him learn in a way - phonetic reading by sounding it out' that he can remember to use when trying to say other words. This help is critical as Lenneberg said that children need to learn early in their critical period, otherwise they will struggle to learn in later years. This is shown in the DeVilliers and DeVilliers investigation where a young boy called Jim found it very difficult to learn in later years as he had no lexical role models as both of his parents were deaf.
When George gets a word wrong due to the virtuous error of a word guessing error, mistaking 'never' for 'need', the mother doesn't correct him but instead uses negative reinforcement by saying "nooo". The negative reinforcement is mitigated by extending the negative particle 'no' and extending the vowel sound, making it seem less abrupt and acts as a face-saving act, protecting his face needs using Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies. After she says this, he self corrects himself by saying 'no we need', this shows he realised he made a mistake and knew what the correct word was, and self correcting is ideal as it makes the young reader think about the virtuous error they made and correct it themselves. This is similar to when George makes another word guessing error later on, mistaking 'upstairs' for 'upset'. This could have been because of the first few letters being the same - the word guessing error - but also because of the image showing the mum walking upstairs. The mother responds to the mistake by interrupting with "no" and then shows positive reinforcement by stating that it "looks like upstairs" and then gives a strategy to "but look at the word" showing scaffolding as she knows saying that type of word is in his zone of proximal development. The coordinating conjunction 'but' also shows that she wnats him to realise it is wrong. He does then say the correct verb; after both corrections, the mother uses positive reinforcement by saying "that's it" to make sure that he knows when he gets something correct his is doing well and will get praise for it. This is vital as young readers make a lot of mistakes and may be put off reading without support and acknowledgement of successes. If they were to be put off and stop reading, this would impact them greatly due to needing to learn early in their critical period.
Correcting a young reader when they make a mistake is necessary however as they sometimes would need to know directly if they have made a mistake and what the correct way to say it is, but caregivers can correct young readers with mitigation or adding strategies in as well for future reference. When George says the word 'house' without adding the plural inflectional suffix 's', the mother does correct him but also gives a strategy for him to get it right, showing scaffolding again, by saying "ez" and "watch the endings" giving him the strategy of what he can do. Due to the two second pause, it is clear that she wanted him to imitate but he may have actually thought that he said it correctly, showing that he potentially didn't understand the correction. This here shows that a straight forward correction may not always be the best idea as the child may not understand what is being corrected and they haven't been clearly given a strategy to complete the word properly, therefore in the future they may keep on making the same mistakes and struggle to eventually learn when they are older, shown in Lenneberg's critical period theory.
When George makes another word guessing error, mistaking 'made' for 'may' this shows a real pattern of his weaknesses which is the endings of words. The mother seems also aware of this therefore she jumps in straight away with the correction by saying the correct word of 'may', which George does imitate after and carry on with the sentence, recognising which word was the mistake. Correcting George in this situation may have been the correct decision because he wad previously made a lot of virtuous errors, most of which were word guessing errors, and may have been tired and not wanted to have been given a strategy to correct himself again, therefore she made the correction for him. This is again critical as you don';t want young readers to get disheartened about the mistakes they make and get put off reading in their critical period to learn.
Despite correcting young readers some of the time, it may not be the best idea to correct them every time they make a mistake as this doesn't give them the opportunity to self-correct or correct the mistake by being given a strategy by the caregiver, which they can then use for other words they get wrong and use that strategy to self correct.
Monday, 12 December 2016
Tom essay
Imitation and reinforcement are the most crucial tools for Child Language Acquisition - Evaluate
There are many theories based on Child Language Acquisition that are believed to establish the best ways for a child's language to develop, such as Skinner believing operant conditioning with positive and negative reinforcement coupled with imitation of the caregiver's standard use of language is key. Skinner contradicts the most influential linguists theory, Chomsky, who believes in his theory of Universal Grammar that children have an innate ability to understand the rules of syntax and they therefore say things they've never heard by overgeneralisation, and these virtuous errors show their understanding of language and syntax. This in turn supports Chomsky's idea and contradicts Skinner's idea as children can't learn non standard uses such as 'runned', adding the inflectional suffix 'ed', from adults as they have never heard it from adults, contradicting the viewpoint that children learn most from imitation. Chomsky is supported by Jean Berko Gleason and his 'wugs' theory, where children were shown a 'wug' something they have never seen or heard before, and when asked what 2 wugs were they replied 'wugs', showing their knowledge of the rules of grammar.
It could be argued that imitation is one of the mos crucial tools for a child's language acquisition. An example of imitation having a positive effect on a child's language acquisition is shown n the transcript, where Tom says the non standard noun phrase "The dad bike", and the mother simply replies "dad's bike" adding the possessive inflectional suffix "'s". After saying this and reducing her length of utterance to just 3 morphemes, Tom replies with "the dad (.) dad's bike (.) dad's bike...." eventually imitating the standard use noun phrase "dad's bike". After hearing his mother repeat the standard use of what he said, he internalises the standard use, but firstly starts to say the non standard phrase 'the dad'. He then self corrects himself and uses the standard form for the rest of the transcript, showing how effective imitation can be to improve a child's language and improve their acquisition of the language. This may have been helped by the mother using a smaller length of utterance than normal. Theorist Deb Roy said that the caregiver uses less complex language at the birth of a word, here being 'dad's bike'. Theorist Jerome Bruner also suggested that adults adopt their language in order to talk to children in an easier way and help their language develop, known as child directed speech; this is shown here as the mother imitates what Tom says but in a simplistic way, and consequently he gets the noun phrase correct. This links to what Skinner also said that it is easier for children to develop their language if another young child is speaking due to that other child's language already being more broken down.
Another example of imitation being a crucial tool for a child's language acquisition is shown in the transcript is where Tom says he 'killed the sheep', showing a lexical misunderstanding and overextension of what he actually did which is squashing the sheep. The mother replies "did you? what you squashed it". Tom then imitates the standard use by saying "yeah (.) I squashed it". Here, Tom accepts the alternative verb choice of 'squashed' which may be a euphemism to encourage Tom to use milder language. Again, this supports Skinner's idea that children learn through imitating speech of a caregiver.
Skinner believes that positive and negative reinforcement is very influential for a child to increase their vocabulary, and the development of a child's language is mostly due to positive reinforcement. In the transcript is an example of the mother using positive reinforcement to praise Tom's understanding and communication - after Tom says "is (.) dat your talker", where 'talker' is the non standard usage of the concrete noun tape recorder which conveys the use effectively, the mother replies "my talker? yeah (.) that's a tape recorder" with the positive particle 'yeah' showing the positive reinforcement to praise his knowledge and helps the modelled adult concrete noun 'tape recorder' can help him learnt he adult version instead of the coinage 'talker' what he said which supports chomsky.
The mother also uses negative reinforcement after he asks "is these drawing Cartoon Network cup of tea mum" where he over extends Cartoon Network for looking like something else. She replies "um (.) no (.) its a moving shadow mug...". The negative particle 'no' shows the use of negative reinforcement but Tom actually gets the response he wanted after using the language function labelling of the local topic the mug.
There are many theories based on Child Language Acquisition that are believed to establish the best ways for a child's language to develop, such as Skinner believing operant conditioning with positive and negative reinforcement coupled with imitation of the caregiver's standard use of language is key. Skinner contradicts the most influential linguists theory, Chomsky, who believes in his theory of Universal Grammar that children have an innate ability to understand the rules of syntax and they therefore say things they've never heard by overgeneralisation, and these virtuous errors show their understanding of language and syntax. This in turn supports Chomsky's idea and contradicts Skinner's idea as children can't learn non standard uses such as 'runned', adding the inflectional suffix 'ed', from adults as they have never heard it from adults, contradicting the viewpoint that children learn most from imitation. Chomsky is supported by Jean Berko Gleason and his 'wugs' theory, where children were shown a 'wug' something they have never seen or heard before, and when asked what 2 wugs were they replied 'wugs', showing their knowledge of the rules of grammar.
It could be argued that imitation is one of the mos crucial tools for a child's language acquisition. An example of imitation having a positive effect on a child's language acquisition is shown n the transcript, where Tom says the non standard noun phrase "The dad bike", and the mother simply replies "dad's bike" adding the possessive inflectional suffix "'s". After saying this and reducing her length of utterance to just 3 morphemes, Tom replies with "the dad (.) dad's bike (.) dad's bike...." eventually imitating the standard use noun phrase "dad's bike". After hearing his mother repeat the standard use of what he said, he internalises the standard use, but firstly starts to say the non standard phrase 'the dad'. He then self corrects himself and uses the standard form for the rest of the transcript, showing how effective imitation can be to improve a child's language and improve their acquisition of the language. This may have been helped by the mother using a smaller length of utterance than normal. Theorist Deb Roy said that the caregiver uses less complex language at the birth of a word, here being 'dad's bike'. Theorist Jerome Bruner also suggested that adults adopt their language in order to talk to children in an easier way and help their language develop, known as child directed speech; this is shown here as the mother imitates what Tom says but in a simplistic way, and consequently he gets the noun phrase correct. This links to what Skinner also said that it is easier for children to develop their language if another young child is speaking due to that other child's language already being more broken down.
Another example of imitation being a crucial tool for a child's language acquisition is shown in the transcript is where Tom says he 'killed the sheep', showing a lexical misunderstanding and overextension of what he actually did which is squashing the sheep. The mother replies "did you? what you squashed it". Tom then imitates the standard use by saying "yeah (.) I squashed it". Here, Tom accepts the alternative verb choice of 'squashed' which may be a euphemism to encourage Tom to use milder language. Again, this supports Skinner's idea that children learn through imitating speech of a caregiver.
Skinner believes that positive and negative reinforcement is very influential for a child to increase their vocabulary, and the development of a child's language is mostly due to positive reinforcement. In the transcript is an example of the mother using positive reinforcement to praise Tom's understanding and communication - after Tom says "is (.) dat your talker", where 'talker' is the non standard usage of the concrete noun tape recorder which conveys the use effectively, the mother replies "my talker? yeah (.) that's a tape recorder" with the positive particle 'yeah' showing the positive reinforcement to praise his knowledge and helps the modelled adult concrete noun 'tape recorder' can help him learnt he adult version instead of the coinage 'talker' what he said which supports chomsky.
The mother also uses negative reinforcement after he asks "is these drawing Cartoon Network cup of tea mum" where he over extends Cartoon Network for looking like something else. She replies "um (.) no (.) its a moving shadow mug...". The negative particle 'no' shows the use of negative reinforcement but Tom actually gets the response he wanted after using the language function labelling of the local topic the mug.
children's writng
Robbie Ogden
Year 4
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/lever/PROJECTS/41/xc41/xc4106x.jpg
In this piece of writing, the child overgeneralises the grammatical function of apostrophes, using them frequently when not needed after a word contains the inflectional suffix 's', such as "boy's". This shows this child understands the rules of needing to use apostrophes for certain words but has over applied the rule in this text. These types of virtuous errors link to Chomsky that children have a sense of grammar as they haven't exactly been taught to use apostrophes at the end of every word with the inflectional suffix 's' but they are using it here.
Capital letters are also used in the middle of sentences on numerous occasions, such as "hundred's of men played in the same game At the same time." The child may have made this mistake here as the word 'at' can be frequently used at the start of sentences in children's writing.
The child also spelt words only with their salient sounds, such as "becos" and wer".
Year 5
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/lever/PROJECTS/53/RO53/ro5305x.jpg
In this piece of work in year 5, the virtuous error of applying apostrophes to most, if not all, words ending in the inflectional suffix 's' doesn't occur anymore showing the progress they have made in a year. This may have been corrected independently, but more than likely a teacher helped him with his overgeneralisation and helped him understand where and when not to use them.
However, the grammatical error of using a capital letter in the middle of sentences still occurs, such as "hunt by Day".
Year 4
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/lever/PROJECTS/41/xc41/xc4106x.jpg
In this piece of writing, the child overgeneralises the grammatical function of apostrophes, using them frequently when not needed after a word contains the inflectional suffix 's', such as "boy's". This shows this child understands the rules of needing to use apostrophes for certain words but has over applied the rule in this text. These types of virtuous errors link to Chomsky that children have a sense of grammar as they haven't exactly been taught to use apostrophes at the end of every word with the inflectional suffix 's' but they are using it here.
Capital letters are also used in the middle of sentences on numerous occasions, such as "hundred's of men played in the same game At the same time." The child may have made this mistake here as the word 'at' can be frequently used at the start of sentences in children's writing.
The child also spelt words only with their salient sounds, such as "becos" and wer".
Year 5
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/lever/PROJECTS/53/RO53/ro5305x.jpg
In this piece of work in year 5, the virtuous error of applying apostrophes to most, if not all, words ending in the inflectional suffix 's' doesn't occur anymore showing the progress they have made in a year. This may have been corrected independently, but more than likely a teacher helped him with his overgeneralisation and helped him understand where and when not to use them.
However, the grammatical error of using a capital letter in the middle of sentences still occurs, such as "hunt by Day".
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Why reading is so difficult research
Learning to read is incredibly difficult due to all of the irregularities and complexities of our language, such as letters alone and groups of letters having completely different phonetics. For example, the video uses 'comparison' as an example - each word in 'comparison' can be sounded differently at least twice, most three or four times. This is the case with most, if not all words. The inflectional suffix of 'ough' is especially difficult due to it being pronounced in over 8 different ways, and one researcher talks about how confusing the English language can be to young learners and learners with difficulty, such as the letter 'f' being pronounced as an f in most words, but uses the fricative sound for the word 'of' - the f being pronounced as a 'v'.
This difficulty and complexity to learn to read the same spellings in different ways can easily lead to problems in written communication and then with social interaction.
Dr. Louisa Moats - "Learning to read an alphabetic orthography is a very artificial and unnatural act".
Dr. Paula Tallal - "Reading is one of the more complicated higher cognitive functions to learn - need to use attention, sequencing, memory, linguistic system, visual systems - they all need to coordinate. The more complicated the translation is from the orthography to the phonology is in a language, the more complicated it is to understand.
This difficulty and complexity to learn to read the same spellings in different ways can easily lead to problems in written communication and then with social interaction.
Dr. Louisa Moats - "Learning to read an alphabetic orthography is a very artificial and unnatural act".
Dr. Paula Tallal - "Reading is one of the more complicated higher cognitive functions to learn - need to use attention, sequencing, memory, linguistic system, visual systems - they all need to coordinate. The more complicated the translation is from the orthography to the phonology is in a language, the more complicated it is to understand.
Friday, 25 November 2016
Children's reading development research
Who are the most popular children's authors for early years, infants and juniors? What are the elements of these books that are successful?
Eric Carle (The very hungry caterpillar), Marion Billet (Noodles love to eat) and Raymond Briggs (The snowman) are a handful of popular authors and their respective books for children in the early years of reading. These books are successful due to how they include simple aspects of reading but are still incredibly entertaining to young readers - they engage young readers by keeping the story line simple and include engaging factors such as colourful images involving animals which children really enjoy, and areas where children can use more of their senses such as to touch different sensitive areas like the fur of an animal.
Allan Ahlberg, Judith Kerr and Rod Campbell are popular authors for infants, and
Roald Dahl, Julie Donaldson and Michael Bond are popular authors for juniors.
As children get older and their reading capabilities and vocabulary increase in complexity, stories become more engaging by including a meaning to the story - a bit like a moral to the story - while books stay engaging this helps children in their wider learning as well as just reading.
How are children taught to read in schools (there are different approaches so read more than one source)? What are the arguments for and against current approaches? Make sure you cover synthetic phonics and reading schemes.
In school, children are taught to read in numerous ways, one of which is by the words phonemes - 'phonics'. This is the most widely known method to teach reading, where the children must first be taught the alphabet and learn the letters and sounds that the letters make. Once having learnt the single letter sounds they are taught to blend letters together, making simple words and then adding another letter and so forth, e.g. a-t, i-t, c-a-t, f-l-a-t.
Another method is the 'language experience approach'. This involves where a child may draw an imagine, and the caregiver will write a sentence about that image, such as 'the cat sat on the hat'. The child can then trace over these words to understand the meaning of them - this is a way to enhance a child's vocabulary in a meaningful way. Some people use this method as a first approach to reading to help their student understand what they've drawn and what you have written is a form of communication.
Another method is the 'context support method'. This is where a book will contain a long sentence read by the caregiver, and a much simpler, shorter sentence available to read by the child, often just 1 or 2 words. The books help the child stay engaged by using images such as cars or animals.
'Look and say' is a 4th method used to help children read. Using this method children learn to understand whole words or short sentences instead of just sounds - children will look at a word which the caregiver says and try to repeat the sound. Flashcards with pictures are usually used here. It is recommended that short sentences rather than individual words are used for this method. The caregiver should write a short sentence representing a picture displayed. They will then say the sentence and ask the child to repeat it while pointing at each individual word as the child repeats it.
What sorts of 'miscues' (virtuous errors based on misapplication of reading skills) do young readers make and how are caregivers encouraged to deal with them (again, numerous ways)?
Examples of errors that readers make(especially struggling readers) are 'whole word' errors when trying to visually recognise entire words as a whole unit, instead of simplifying it and just processing the printed word by sound. These errors indicate that children are not processing the prints phonetically - they generally mistake words for 'sight words' words which they have already learnt that look similar to the word they are trying to say, a few examples are:
mistaking every for very, scrape for escape, and agree for argue.
Tracking errors are similar to whole word errors - in this case, children are not looking at the words from left to right to sound it out properly, they look at the word as a whole and mix up the letters in the word - in these errors, the words they say are often contain the same letters but are in the wrong order. Examples of these are was for saw and slip for spill. There are many other mistakes children can make, including word guessing errors and letter confusion.
To deal with these mistakes, adults and caregivers are encouraged to firstly praise the successes of the child's reading abilities, if they have correctly read other parts of the text. When dealing with the mistakes, they are advised to allow the child to speak even slower, making sure they aren't rushing over the words and reading them as a whole, ensuring they read properly from left to right, and are also advised to read aloud to the child to help them understand what they are reading and imitate how they say a word - linking to Skinner's idea that children learn language from imitation.
Eric Carle (The very hungry caterpillar), Marion Billet (Noodles love to eat) and Raymond Briggs (The snowman) are a handful of popular authors and their respective books for children in the early years of reading. These books are successful due to how they include simple aspects of reading but are still incredibly entertaining to young readers - they engage young readers by keeping the story line simple and include engaging factors such as colourful images involving animals which children really enjoy, and areas where children can use more of their senses such as to touch different sensitive areas like the fur of an animal.
Allan Ahlberg, Judith Kerr and Rod Campbell are popular authors for infants, and
Roald Dahl, Julie Donaldson and Michael Bond are popular authors for juniors.
As children get older and their reading capabilities and vocabulary increase in complexity, stories become more engaging by including a meaning to the story - a bit like a moral to the story - while books stay engaging this helps children in their wider learning as well as just reading.
How are children taught to read in schools (there are different approaches so read more than one source)? What are the arguments for and against current approaches? Make sure you cover synthetic phonics and reading schemes.
In school, children are taught to read in numerous ways, one of which is by the words phonemes - 'phonics'. This is the most widely known method to teach reading, where the children must first be taught the alphabet and learn the letters and sounds that the letters make. Once having learnt the single letter sounds they are taught to blend letters together, making simple words and then adding another letter and so forth, e.g. a-t, i-t, c-a-t, f-l-a-t.
Another method is the 'language experience approach'. This involves where a child may draw an imagine, and the caregiver will write a sentence about that image, such as 'the cat sat on the hat'. The child can then trace over these words to understand the meaning of them - this is a way to enhance a child's vocabulary in a meaningful way. Some people use this method as a first approach to reading to help their student understand what they've drawn and what you have written is a form of communication.
Another method is the 'context support method'. This is where a book will contain a long sentence read by the caregiver, and a much simpler, shorter sentence available to read by the child, often just 1 or 2 words. The books help the child stay engaged by using images such as cars or animals.
'Look and say' is a 4th method used to help children read. Using this method children learn to understand whole words or short sentences instead of just sounds - children will look at a word which the caregiver says and try to repeat the sound. Flashcards with pictures are usually used here. It is recommended that short sentences rather than individual words are used for this method. The caregiver should write a short sentence representing a picture displayed. They will then say the sentence and ask the child to repeat it while pointing at each individual word as the child repeats it.
What sorts of 'miscues' (virtuous errors based on misapplication of reading skills) do young readers make and how are caregivers encouraged to deal with them (again, numerous ways)?
Examples of errors that readers make(especially struggling readers) are 'whole word' errors when trying to visually recognise entire words as a whole unit, instead of simplifying it and just processing the printed word by sound. These errors indicate that children are not processing the prints phonetically - they generally mistake words for 'sight words' words which they have already learnt that look similar to the word they are trying to say, a few examples are:
mistaking every for very, scrape for escape, and agree for argue.
Tracking errors are similar to whole word errors - in this case, children are not looking at the words from left to right to sound it out properly, they look at the word as a whole and mix up the letters in the word - in these errors, the words they say are often contain the same letters but are in the wrong order. Examples of these are was for saw and slip for spill. There are many other mistakes children can make, including word guessing errors and letter confusion.
To deal with these mistakes, adults and caregivers are encouraged to firstly praise the successes of the child's reading abilities, if they have correctly read other parts of the text. When dealing with the mistakes, they are advised to allow the child to speak even slower, making sure they aren't rushing over the words and reading them as a whole, ensuring they read properly from left to right, and are also advised to read aloud to the child to help them understand what they are reading and imitate how they say a word - linking to Skinner's idea that children learn language from imitation.
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