Emergent+Literacy

=**Emergent Literacy**= Emergent literacy or the benefit from early awareness of literacy (Clay, as cited Krause, Bochner, Duchesne & McMaugh, 2010 p.30) is linked to activities such as reading books and nursery rhymes, but also to indirect activities such as seeing street signs and shop names, being involved in writing shopping lists, birthday cards or drawing or telling stories. (Krause et al., 2010 p.30). Emergent literacy is key to language and literacy development. As you can imagine children with disabilities often aren't exposed to these early experiences, "parents of toddlers with disabilities are often confronted with issues such as poor health and maladaptive behaviour that preclude efforts of to provide opportunities for emergent language and literacy experiences." Browder & Spooner 2006 (as cited in Laz, 2009). One of the benefits of early intervention is that children with disabilities are in a position to gain exposure to a variety of literacy and language experiences.

My concern is how do students that may have missed out on these early experiences, and are struggling to read and write, but are older gain these skills in an inclusive way? Although the student may in year 5, 6 or beyond, they may still be at a language development stage where they are unable to identify individual phonemes. At this age using nursery rhymes, songs and poems to increase phonemic awareness may be extremely inappropriate and cause increased resentment or distress for the student. [|What's to Read?] is a great resource providing a variety of strategies to target these emergent language and literacy experiences to older students. It is a document designed to help with " Locating, Analyzing, and Adapting Literacy Materials for Older Students Who are Emergent Readers" (AAC & All that Jazz). It discusses how students may benefit from a more rap style than nursery rhyme, they are still able to increase their phonemic awareness but in a way that may be more engaging and interesting. Also using song lyrics, or including a motivating theme, such as a surprising or funny element. The site gives links to other sites with a variety of useful resources and also gives tips on how to create your own resources for particular students.

This site would be a fantastic resource to target the very unique needs of older students whom may have missed the crucital early emergent literacy phase. It is a very practical tool that could potentially save time and help to improve students literacy and hopefully by providing an interesting and engaging program you are also developing a love or even like of reading.

References AAC & All that Jazz - //What's to read?// (2008) New Orleans, LA Retreived from: [] 24/7/2011

Krause, K., Bochner, S., Duchesne & McMaugh, A (2010) //Education Psychology for learning and teaching//. (3rd ed.) Cengage Learning, Victoria, Australia

Laz, L. (2009) //Teaching emergent literacy skills to students with autism// Department of special Education, Boise state university. Retreived from: [] 24/7/2011