Liana St. Amand

Iliana Reyes

LRC 312c

March 28, 2013

Final Benchmark Assignment

Section A: General Summary and Description

Transcription:Liana: “Julia, what color are your shoes?”Julia: “Blue.”

(A minute later, Julia has her shoes on.)

Katie: “You ready Julia?”Julia: “Yeah!”(Some other talking between the adults about another subject.)Katie: “Julia, should we go walk?”Julia: “Yeah.”(We make a slow transition to the door. Julia says a few things, but I cannot make out what she says and her brother mostly drowns her speech out. Katie, Rebecca and I finally make it out the door.)Liana: “Wow, you are all ready Julia.”(We start walking.)Liana: “Julia, where should we go?”Julia: “Eee tha aaa way.”Liana: “That way?”Julia: “Yeah.”(Rebecca and Katie start talking about Julia’s brother, and I continue talking to her.)Liana: “What do you see Julia?”(We run into a person with her dog. Julia becomes very quiet. We start walking again.)Liana: “Julia what is that?” “What is that? Do you know what that is?”Liana: “Do you see that yellow thing?”Julia: “Yeah.”Liana: “What is it? Do you know?”Julia: “I”Liana: “Which way should we go Julia?”Julia: “That way.”Liana: “That way?”Julia: “Yeah”Liana: “How about you lead the way.”Julia: “Wa that way.”

Julia: “We a ee. Wha” Liana: “What?”Julia: “Wha we a ee.”[What is this expression use for?] (Katie thought that this expression may be used to tell us that she walked in the rocks, but I was not really sure, and had never heard it before.)Katie: “You walked in the rocks?”(The next couple minutes of Julia’s speech is too difficult to make out. Julia starts to look at some of the rocks)Liana: “What?”Julia: “My rock.”Liana: “Your rock? Is it a big rock or a little rock?”Julia: “Big rock.”Liana: “Big rock? That looks like a little rock. Which one could be a big rock?”Julia: “No ee, that is big rock.”Liana: “What about this one Julia?”Julia: “That is big rock.”Katie: “Ok, if that’s a big one, what’s this one?”Julia: “Ello rock. Ee ello rock.”[Do you think she’s trying to say “yellow” rock?] (While it would make sense that she is using “ello” to mean yellow, she also uses “ello” to refer to her brother, and in this case when her mom asks below if she means little rock she says yeah. Julia is pretty good at responding with a yes or a no if the answer is incorrect or correct. Of course with that said she could be referring to it as a yellow rock, but I interpreted it as little due to the context.) Katie: “Little rock?”Julia: “Yeah.” “Big rock.”Liana: “Could that be a medium rock?”Julia: “me-di-um.”Liana: “Look, could we line these up?” “Here, come here.” “Come here Julia. Could you line, could you put them, I think you need a smaller rock.” “Which one is the biggest rock?”Julia: “Yeah ee.”Liana: “Can you point to the biggest?”Julia: “EE one ee big.”Liana: “Which one’s the littlest?”Julia: “That is ello.”End of transcription

Part A: Oral Language Development Assessment:

Julia is in my primary care group in the toddler class. She began in January and turned

two in February. Her mother, Katie, is one of the teachers in our classroom. Her father, Matt, just

recently got a temporary job, but when my first interaction occurred he stayed at home with the

children. Katie just had a baby on March 27th, and is now currently taking her maternity leave.

This means that Julia has just gained a baby sister, Alexa. Since this is a recent occurrence, and

happened the day before spring break, I have not noticed many differences in the behavior of

Julia. My first family interaction occurred before Alexa was born, while Katie was still in the

classroom. Julia is one of the youngest children in our class. She has short curly blonde hair, blue

eyes, and a beautiful smile. From looking at Julia or Katie you would not know that Katie is

actually half black. She looks very similar to her older brother, Mike, and from the pictures I

have seen of Alexa, also looks very similar to her. Not only is Julia on one of the youngest in our

class, she is also the smallest. When she first began in our class she did not speak very much, and

used multiple signs to communicate. After a few weeks we began to notice Julia speaking more

often and using a greater variety of words. Since then her vocabulary has continued to grow

every day. Even though Julia speaks more now, it can still be difficult to understand what she is

saying. Many times I must have her repeat words several times before I can comprehend it, and

sometimes I am never able to figure it out even with her repeating it. With all the time that I have

spent with her I am starting to pick up on words that she uses consistently and it is becoming

easier to understand her. Julia is also one of our more independent students in the classroom.

Julia’s family really values literacy. Their house is covered in books, and they are constantly

reading as a family. Not only do they own many books, but they also visit the library often. In

class, Julia is able to sit through an entire read aloud, and on many occasions either looks at

books by herself, or asks her mom, or another teacher to read her a book during free choice time.

During one on one read alouds, she points at pictures and names objects that she recognizes. She

also answers questions that she is asked. From my home visit and literacy walk, I have observed

that Julia has a greater knowledge of literacy that she obtains from books, than she has obtained

from the environment around her. For example, while she was not able to recognize any

environmental print during our literacy walk, she was able to point of numerous characters and

things occurring in the books that we read together. When I asked her mom if she had noticed

Julia recognizing environmental print, she mentioned that the only thing she had seen at home

was Julia pointing to her preschool t-shirt and calling the logo, “school”.

During the interactions that we have had, I was able to learn a lot about Julia. Katie and I

talk a lot in the classroom, and I know a lot about how Julia and her interact in the school

environment, but it was really interesting to be invited into their home. I noticed while I was

there, that Katie does not act very different with Julia than she does in school. From the moment

I got to their home, Julia was very excited to show me all her books and toys in her room. She

picked out a book and asked me to read it to her. We starting reading the book and then her

brother showed us the book that he was reading. Julia then started to read with her mom.

Eventually Mike, Julia’s brother, began to read to both Julia and I. We all sat and read different

books for about a half hour and then decided to go on the literacy walk. This gave me more of an

opportunity to focus my attention on Julia. The family lives in an apartment complex, in the

foothills, so we decided to walk around it, instead of venturing outside of it, since there is not

much environmental print around where they live, and it was familiar to Julia. Julia did not point

out any environmental print on her own, and did not have a response when I pointed it out to her.

After we finished the literacy walk we returned back to the house. Mike and his father were still

reading the same book that they had been when we left them. We said our goodbyes and right

before I was about to leave Julia asked me to read her another book. I decided to stay a few

minutes longer, so that I could read it to her. After we finished the book I returned home. During

my family interactions I was able to a book handling assessment but it was difficult, because of

Julia’s age and language skills. Even though I was not able to complete the entire assessment,

because it was not entirely developmentally appropriate, I was able to use the handling portion of

the assessment. Due to the amount that the family spends reading books together, Julia treats

books with great respect, and handles them well. She is able to hold a book in an upright

position, and flips through the pages, one by one from left to right. When she is looking at books

by herself, she looks at the pictures slowly and starts on the left page and then turns her head

slightly to look at the right page. She holds the basics of book handling, but really has not begun

to understand the meaning of the print.

Julia is currently in the telegraphic speech stage. Examples of this can be seen in the

transcription, when she says, “that way”, “That is big rock”, and “my rock”. These examples

show Julia’s syntactic language development. Although Julia has not learned what a noun, or an

adjective is, she still uses them in the proper order. While Julia is developing her syntactic

patterns very well, she still does have trouble with her phonetic knowledge. She has trouble

pronouncing some phonemes, which can sometimes make her speech a little difficult to

understand. For example, in the transcription, when Julia says little, it sounds like ello. I know

from my assessment of her that she also refers to the color yellow and her brother as ello. This

makes listening to the context in which Julia is speaking and asking her questions very important

in being able to understand her speech. There are also times when her phonemes are very clear.

For example, in the transcription when she says, “yeah”, or “That is big rock.” I did not have

trouble understanding her at all. Throughout the few months that I have known her, I have

noticed her phonemes growing as her vocabulary grows larger. In general, she does not have any

trouble pronouncing a word that she frequently uses.

Julia’s literacy environment at home is very rich. She has already developed a love of

books and has the patience to sit through longer read alouds. The amount that the family spends

reading with Julia is helping her language develop. This is apparent due to the fact that a lot of

her vocabulary has been picked up from her favorite books. Since Julia’s language has developed

so much since she first began school, I believe that the environment of school has also benefited

her. She always has someone to listen to her speak at preschool, and has many new things to

explore. I look forward to watching Julia’s language development continue to grow.

Part B: Socio-cultural Knowledge and Family Interview/Dialogue:

Since I know Katie, and her family pretty well I felt a little bit awkward about just

interviewing her on questions that we had discussed many times. So instead I just incorporated

these questions casually into all of our interactions and conversations so that I could have a better

understanding of Julia and her family. I really liked the set up that I chose, because it felt very

natural and I was able to learn a lot that I may not have learned had the questions not been on my

mind. Through these questions I was also able to confirm things that I had already known.

Julia and her family are very active in the community. They love taking trips to the zoo or

to the library. They are such frequent visitors at their favorite library, that Julia knows the layout

and will just start walking to the bathroom whenever she needs to go. Katie and Mike are big

fans of non-fiction books, while Matt enjoys reading fiction. They all speak English, although

Julia is still learning to speak, since she is still very young. Mike on the other hand, who is only

four, reads at higher than a first grade level, and retains all of the knowledge. I have experienced

this first hand, and am always delighted by the new information that I learn whenever I talk to

him. Katie, Matt and Mike all take turns reading to Julia on a daily basis. One of Julia’s favorite

book/TV characters is Minnie Mouse, and she even had a Minnie Mouse birthday party when she

turned two. Matt recently graduated college back in December, and Katie is only one class away

from graduating as well. Katie also explained to me that her father is a great lover of books, and

will not allow her to throw any books away. Her parents have even more books that they have in

their house. Finally I learned from Katie that she enjoys baking with Julia, which is yet another

form of literacy that the family engages in.

Overall Julia lives in an environment that will allow her to always find the value of

literacy. Whether they are taking trips to the zoo or library, baking together, or simply reading

together as a family they always seemed to be engaged in some form of literacy or language

event.

Conclusions About Language and Literacy:

The conclusions that I have about language and literacy have come from the students that

I have worked with this year. Since I work with toddlers, many of them are just in the beginning

stages of discovering language and literacy. For example, Julia has not fully developed her

ability to communicate using her words, and can sometimes be difficult to understand. Although

not all of my toddlers are to fully able express themselves yet, they are still full of ideas and

capabilities. As an educator, I just need to find ways to figure out what these ideas are, which can

be done through various other ways. I have also learned that although my students cannot read

yet, they still enjoy listening to a story and looking at the pictures. Many of my students are able

to figure out the basic premise of a story by just looking at the illustrations, or enjoy creating

their own stories. Overall I have concluded that no matter the age of a person, books are valuable

resources as long as they are given a chance.

Self-Reflection:

Overall this experience has taught me a great deal as an educator. There have been times

when I forget how much a person’s family can influence their overall education. This influence

is one of the reasons why it is so important for educators to make an effort to get to know not

only their students, but their families as well. Students do not stop learning when they leave

school everyday. Every moment in their lives can be used as an opportunity for them to gain

more knowledge. In Julia’s case, her parents use every moment that they have to continue to

teach their child. Katie is an educator, so she knows the importance of this. But even parents who

are not aware of how much influence they have over their child’s education are still teaching

them in one way or another. By getting to know families, we can help scaffold their home

experiences in the classroom, to further their knowledge. I am very thankful that I had the

opportunity to get to know Julia’s family. They are wonderful people, and they have helped me

to have a better understanding of children as a whole. Although I still have a lot to learn before I

fully become an educator, I will always use the experiences that I gained this year to remind

myself of the value of getting to know the people that surround my students.

Section B: Using Data to Inform Instruction

Rationale:

During my first family interaction, it quickly became apparent that Julia loves to listen to

stories. Since she is already very familiar with hearing stories from books, I wanted to allow her

to explore other forms of storytelling. I also wanted this experience to be fun, so that she would

be interested in it. By putting both of these expectations together, I came up with the idea of

creating a puppet theater center. My idea stemmed from a couple interactions with Julia. The

first occurred a few months back at St. Thomas. A puppet theater came to the school and put on a

production of The Gingerbread Man. That afternoon, when I took Julia and two other non-

nappers outside, all they wanted to do was reenact the puppet show. The second interaction that

helped develop this idea of mine occurred during my first family interaction with Julia and her

family. At one point while we are all reading books, Matt went into Julia’s room and grabbed

two stuffed animals that were characters in the book that we were currently reading. Watching

her play with stuffed animals while we were reading the corresponding book reminded me of

putting on a puppet show.

Using puppets allows a child to bring literacy to life. They can recreate stories that they

have already heard, or make up their own stories. This puppet center is meant to be very open to

allow the children to explore the endless possibilities of their imagination. Along with allowing

the children act out their stories, I also wanted to give them the opportunity to make their own

puppets. This would allow them to create their own characters, and practice their pre-emergent

writing in decorating these puppets. This center is meant to be an example of how play can lead

to large amounts of learning.

Plan of Action:

My goal of this center is to give my students the opportunity to explore literacy in a new

and exciting way. By giving children different opportunities to learn, they will be able to gain

different experiences from each new opportunity. I believe that this play center will give Julia an

interesting way to express herself through literacy. In order to create this center I will use a

homemade cardboard puppet theater, with curtains that they will be able to open and close. I will

also provide them with brown paper lunch bags, and various arts and craft materials to decorate

their puppets. In addition to their homemade puppets, I will provide animal puppets, and various

other props, such as, play food, dishware and stuffed animals. I will set the puppet theater up in

the dramatic play on the choosing shelf, to allow the children to duck behind it so that they have

enough room to put on their puppet show. The positioning of the puppet theater will also allow

for children to sit in front and watch their classmates put on the shows.

Before I actually set out the center I plan to introduce the topic of puppets. I will begin by

introducing the children to a puppet book, Marc the Shark, during a morning circle. On this same

day we will create our own puppets, and I will teach them how to use them. We will come up

with personalities for our puppets. The next day I plan on implementing the puppet theater in the

dramatic play center. I will allow this center to be free play, and set it out during their free choice

time. In the beginning I plan to sit back and watch to see how the children choose to interact with

the puppet theater. If there is opportunity, I will ask the children questions so that I can gain a

better understanding of the story that they are trying to portray.

Artifacts:

Section C: Reflection of Literacy Event

For my family literacy event, Julia, Katie, her older brother, Mike, and her baby sister,

Alexa, and I all went to the family story time at the Himmel Park Library, on April 27, 2013.

This story time involved reading books, singing songs and the children even got a chance to

plant their own seeds. The books that the librarian read to us were Nibbles: A Green Tale, and

The Seed and the Giant Saguaro. Both of these books were about how plants grow from little

seeds. This was actually a topic that we had recently covered in class, so I was excited that Julia

would have another opportunity to review this in a different environment. In between the read

alouds, the children were asked to stand up, and sing and dance along with a few songs. At the

very end the children were invited to plant their own seed in newspaper pots.

I thought that the experience of the family story time was really fun. I really enjoyed how

they kept it very interactive so that the children did not just have to sit and listen the whole time.

Many of the children appeared to be the same age as Julia, and Mike was by far the oldest child

in the story time. Julia sat quietly while the books were being read, and interacted with the

dancing and the singing that they did as a whole group. Many of the other children were roaming

around the room a little bit, but Julia did not appear to be distracted by this. This was also a nice

experience for me, because I was introduced to new songs and books that I could incorporate

into lesson plans in the future.

After the story time ended, we all made our way outside. Julia and Mike played on the

playground while Katie and I were able to talk for a while. We talked about the family’s plans

for the summer, which had changed, because Matt had just gotten a job for six months in another

state. We also talked about the baby, and our plans for when Katie comes back to teach in a few

weeks. While we talked and watched Matt and Julia play, I noticed that the play structure had

literacy elements on it, such as the alphabet. I thought that this was a really nice touch, because it

incorporates literacy into a place that many children play.

Overall I really enjoyed my experience at this community literacy event. Julia is very

fortunate to already be in preschool at such a young age, but many children do not have this

opportunity. The family story time, gives parents and children a free opportunity to socialize and

engage in literacy on a Saturday morning. This would definitely be something I would be

interested in when I have my own children. The event was fun and engaging for both the parents

and children, and also since it was only a half hour, it was easier to fit into a busy schedule. My

only critique of the event is that it could be difficult to find out about if a person does not have

access to a computer, because that is the only way that I knew about it. I am not really sure if

they have any other form of advertising. This would be something good for a school to post in a

newsletter to inform the families.