Wk 12 Reading Blog

What? 

·       For this week the reading I chose to read that was related to literacy in Early childhood was Talk to me, baby! Supporting language development in the first 3 years (Bardige & Bardige, 2008). I chose to look at this reading as I wanted to see how early language development can be supported for infants and toddlers. I haven’t worked with infants and toddlers yet and so I thought this reading would be interesting to read about younger children’s learning development.

·       The reading I chose to look at that was related to numeracy was Measurement of Kindergartners' Understanding of Early Mathematical Concepts (VanDerHeyden, Broussard, Snyder, George, Lafleur & Williams, 2011). I chose this reading as I wanted to look at how children in kindergarten understand early mathematical concepts and the types of concepts that they understand. I am very interested in how children this age do learn so I wanted to get some ideas for myself on how I can teach numeracy at this age level as well.

 

So What?

The main arguments I found to be important from Talk to me, baby! Supporting language development in the first 3 years (Bardige & Bardige, 2008) are:

·       Language plays a significant role starting from when a baby is born as language is what we use to think, communicate and use to have a sense of self (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.4).

·       Babies are able to listen to human voices, understand non-verbal communications and they are able to have relationships with people such as their parents through interactions, making babble sounds, making meaning to words and speaking basis single words to label things (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.4).

·       An unborn child is able to have the familiarity of words and sound patterns as they are able to hear their mother’s voice (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.4).So this means that the support of language development begins while the child is inside the mother’s womb.

·       Infants can also communicate through crying, body movements, eye contact and using facial expressions while interacting with family member and other people who look after them (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.4).

·       At just 4 months old, babies start to babble and imitate the sounds of languages that they hear from people talking to them and they are also able to babble sounds of languages that they don’t hear often (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.4).

·       According to research 3 year old children who were brought up in families who would communicate verbally a lot, would have heard at least 33 million words while children who were brought up in families who didn’t verbally communicate often would only have heard 10 millions words (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.5). This means that if we want to be able to really support the development of young children’s language, it is better to verbally communicate with them whenever it’s possible so they can continue to build their vocabularies.

·       It is an advantage for young children who know how to use words well as they are then able to create interesting stores and have ongoing conversations (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.6). These children are also able to problem solve better and explain their feelings better (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.6).

·       Book sharing is an excellent way to support and enrich verbal communication with babies as you are able to focus on the pictures with them or focus on the words (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.6).

·       Infants also like to see pictures of other babies and objects that are familiar to them and activities that they know (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.6).

·       When supporting the language development of babies and infants, parents and teachers should sing lullabies, interact with babies in short periods of time, have conversations with babies using baby talk, let babies listen to lots of different sounds, play babble games and make sure to talk a lot to the babies so that language can be a part of their everyday activities (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, pp. 6-7).

·       When helping toddlers to learn to talk, it is good for adults to be able to label words of objects that the child is learning to say and also share songs and rhymes with the toddlers (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.7). Parents and teachers can also respond to toddler’s when they are trying to keep a conversation going, use language that will help toddlers to make meaning with their world, talk about events that are special to the toddlers, sing favourite songs and give children time to practice words through reading books over and over or labelling pictures (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.7).

·       Language becomes a child’s first mode of communication and they like to use language to be able to express themselves, create their identities, make comments, ask questions, and tell stories (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.8).

·       It is good to be able to help toddlers to learn words that help them to gain knowledge and make meaning with how the world works (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.8).

·       It is also good to use words that are unusual and interesting and that are fun for toddlers to repeat as young children do like to learn big words (Bardige & Bardige, 2008, p.8).

The main arguments I found to be important from Measurement of Kindergartners' Understanding of Early Mathematical Concepts (VanDerHeyden, Broussard, Snyder, George, Lafleur & Williams, 2011) are:

·       Early numeracy skills that children can gain during kindergarten and preschool are skills such as counting, number identification, naming, knowing that numbers represent quantity, knowing how numbers are bigger or smaller than others and sequences of numbers (VanDerHeyden, Broussard, Snyder, George, Lafleur & Williams, 2011, p.296).

·       Young children can develop concepts such as cardinal numbers and equivalence of numbers through being able to count forward and backward, to make meaning with number symbols and words and to understand how to make simple calculations (VanDerHeyden et al., p.297).

·       Young children are also able to learn about patterns, shapes, measurement, knowing how to sort objects into data, time and space (VanDerHeyden et al., p.297).

·       Pattern completion activities can be created for children where a pattern is created and the child needs to be able to know what goes next after the last object (VanDerHeyden et al., p.299).

·       Children can also take part in experiences where they are given problems for addition and subtraction such as having a group of pictures then subtracting from or adding them to another group of the pictures and then getting the child to draw the number of pictures that would be the answer (VanDerHeyden et al., p.299).

·       Teachers could also create activities where children have to fill in the missing number (VanDerHeyden et al., p. 300). So you could count from 1 - 10 with the child and miss a number and then they would have to figure out which number was missing and you could make it harder by missing a couple or few numbers after a while.

·       It is better to help children to be able to understand and development the key numeracy skills while they are in kindergarten so that then as they become older they will have a greater chance at succeeding in mathematics and understanding how to use these concepts in everyday life (VanDerHeyden et al., p.304).

Now What

The implications I have been able to make from Talk to me, baby! Supporting language development in the first 3 years (Bardige & Bardige, 2008) are:

·       As an early childhood teacher, if I am working with babies, infants and toddlers, I will make sure that I communicate with them as much as possible to help support their language development.

·       While working with toddlers I can give them big and unusual words to learn each day so that they can deepen their vocabularies and this will help them to understand the sounds and patterns of words.

·       With babies I can communicate with them through baby talk and babble.

·       I will need to know how much they are being communicated to at home so I know how much I will need to support their language development.

·       I will need to read lots of story books and create lots of experiences where children are able to develop their vocabularies.

·       I can also sing to babies and sing along with toddlers to help support their vocabularies.

·       I could even speak words to both babies and toddlers that are from different languages so that then they can learn to broaden their vocabularies and learn to speak different languages which will also help them with making sound patterns.

·       I can help toddlers to learn words that they are able to make meaning in their everyday lives.

·       I can also encourage parents to be able to support their child’s language development in the best way possible.

The implications I have been able to make from Measurement of Kindergartners' Understanding of Early Mathematical Concepts (VanDerHeyden, Broussard, Snyder, George, Lafleur & Williams, 2011) are:

·       Understand and know the types of mathematical concepts that I can teach children in a kindergarten or preschool so that I will know how to incorporate these concepts into different learning experiences.

·       I can create different and fun experiences for the children to learn different mathematical concepts. These experiences can also help children to learn how to use mathematical concepts in their everyday lives.

·       I can help children to make connections with numbers and symbols of numbers so they know what each number looks like and sounds like.

·       I can help children to learn how to write numbers.

·       Provide many opportunities for children to develop their numeracy skills so that they will be able to use and build onto these skills as they continue through primary school and high school.

·       Encourage parents of the children to help support their children’s numeracy development at home through different experiences.

 

References

Bardige, B. & Bardige, M. (2008). Talk to me, baby! Supporting language development in the first 3 years. Zero to Three, September, 4-10.

 
VanDerHeyden, A. M., Broussard, C., Snyder, P., George, J., Lafleur, S. M., & Williams, C. (2011). Measurement of Kindergartners' Understanding of Early Mathematical Concepts. School Psychology Review, 40(2), 296-306. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/878153407?accountid=10910