Samantha Guest Blog Post #1 Article: Children's Success as Readers and Writers

For my first August blog post I read the article Children’s Success as Readers and Writers: It’s the Teacher’s Beliefs That Make the Difference. This article focused on a case study of a student named Matt. The case study was about differing belief systems. Matt was a young student who seemed to have difficulty learning due to immaturity, and his short attention span, but the teachers quickly realized that he was in fact bright, happy, and helpful. They found themselves actually learning from Matt. Matt was taking advantage of every opportunity given to him in the classroom. He was participating fully in the daily experiences that the teachers planned for the class. Matt began planning strategies selected from his very own collection of letter writing skills to adapt to the present purpose.

The teacher that worked with Matt thought that he was definitely ready to move up to first grade but his former teacher disagreed. She said that he still demonstrated immature behavior. His teacher was not satisfied with that response so she went to a psychologist and they determined that he could read some third grade material therefore he could advance to first grade. From this study the staff learned that children learn to read and write in the same way that they learn to talk and listen. This is an interesting concept that I had not thought of before. Children naturally interact with print, just as they naturally interact through listening and talking at a young age. It is our job as teachers to provide appropriate reading and writing activities that build upon each child’s prior experience with print. Children can do this by taking risks, taking opportunities to interact independently, or socially with teachers and peers and by being provided projects where children can learn through language.