Journal 1 Emergent Literacy and Technology Cynthia Czerwonka

Refine                 Cynthia Czerwonka, Journal 1 Methods

            In reflecting on how these chapters on emergent literacy and technology affect me as a classroom teacher, I am reminded again that personal connection, active participation, and scaffolding of student learning for ELL and all students is critical. Zainuddin, Morales-Jones, Yahya, and Ariza (2011) share the importance of scaffolding learning for emergent readers and writers.  I was reminded to use books to which children can personally relate.  Today in class, I read Llama Llama, Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney to my students; it provided for personal connection, active participation in acting out vocabulary words, and scaffolding their telling of their own personal story with a beginning and end.  I realize the need to be more purposeful in my selection of read-aloud books based on the information in the chapter.  The personal connection provided by carefully selected read-alouds, shared reading experiences such as language experience charts and poems do much to provide the ELL students the common background and experience through which the skills and processes of reading and writing can be taught. 

From a technological standpoint, I was very excited to see all the websites and resources listed in the Fundamentals of ESOL text.  Personally, I feel the need to integrate technology in my kindergarten classroom on an ongoing basis.  I have used the Starfall website with students who have had difficulty with visually discriminating letters for recognition and for learning the letter sounds.  This year, I have also enjoyed using Bookflix and PebbleGo with my students to aid in learning content while building reading ability. From the information presented in the Reading, Writing, and Learning in ESL text, I realize that I may need to go back to familiar text, whether written or technologically presented to help my students make connections.  Learning of sight words and letter sounds was mentioned as best done for ELL students by use of often repeated text, highlighting letters and sounds in context of familiar words.  I

Emergent Literacy and Technology for ELL Students                                                                           4

am excited to try these strategies mentioned to further all of my students’ progress in reading by use of personally meaningful, often loved texts to scaffold their emergent literacy abilities.