Transcript Scaffolding
Early Literacy
The Role of Scaffolding
Becoming Literate Today
More complex than before
It is not just “learning to read”
Children must develop reading and writing skills sophisticated enough for the workplace
Oral language skills must also be effective to articulate to others
Visual skills must be developed to draw meaning from illustrations
Literacy must extend to growing technology
Literacy can be defined as a tool, a way to learn about the world and become fully engaged in life. (Tompkins, 2001)
Emerging Literacy Keeps Emerging
(Strickland & Morrow, 2000)
From birth, children are language users
They move from listening and speaking to literacy skills in reading/writing
Language processes develop together with oral language:
Children engage in conversation
Have contact with books
Are exposed to a variety of print
Attempt to recreate print for themselves
Developing Literacy
(Strickland & Morrow, 1989)
Complex socio psycholinguistic activity
Children begin learning in the home
Continue into the community
Then, the classroom
Accumulated set of experiences that lead to formal literacy
A Theoretical Perspective
(How do children construct knowledge?)
Lev Vygotsky Russian psychologist (1920-30) Connections between children’s relationships and their cognitive development Social Constructivist Theory
Children attend to what is going on around them Motivated to learn what they need Guidance/Practice help them apply these skills in their behavior Social context is all important in human intellectual growth
Language is a critical bridge between the world and the child’s mental functioning:
acquisition of language was the most significant milestone in a child’s cognitive development
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Learning continuum
Distance between a child’s ability to solve a problem on their own
The child’s “maximally assisted” problem solving with adult/peer guidance
Do not work outside the child’s ZPD
Do not spend time on mastered tasks
Nudge the child along the path to more complex learning
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
Scaffolding
(Wood & Middleton, 1975)
Involving the child in joint problem-solving with a peer or adult
The child stretches to understand the new information
Helped by the adult who connects what the child knows with the new concept
Scaffolding and ZPD
Highly interdependent
Practical application:
Establish rapport between adult and learner
Adult is sensitive to the child’s responses
Task is not “too tough or too easy”
Adult knows when to let the child take the next step
Adult lets the child control the activity as much as possible
Imaginative Play – an important component
Advances cognitive development by requiring abstract thought and memory skills
Allows children to develop sophisticated language and social skills by reasoning with others
Expressing different points of view
Handling disputes and persuading others
Fantasy and reality become clearer children with poorly developed imaginations have trouble with later comprehension skills: summarizing, paraphrasing, imaging, and creating stories
Goes hand-in-hand with a constructivist theory “Teachers have to learn to guide, not tell…to create environments in which students can make their own meanings rather than be handed them by the teacher…to not have children search for one ‘right’ answer.” (Airasian and Walsh, 1997)
Webbing Activity
Think of an activity for a 3 or 4 year-old that might be within her ZPD
How would an adult scaffold the new learning?
Write specific questions the adult could ask