Samantha Starcher

CIRG 653 Spring 2016

Module 4 Discussion Post
Clay defines awareness as being able to attend to something, act upon it, or
work with it (pg. 38). The concept of awareness opens a door to interactions with
children that promote literacy learning while avoiding an emphasis on one chosen
way into literacy (pg. 38). Children demonstrate awareness as they attend to new
aspects of their world, and their comments from time to time on the printed
language around them provide us with good examples of what they are attending
to (pg. 39). Children are always attending to something whether it is a book,
educational show, scribbling, computer program, etc. They learn from everything
they do.
One example of an observation of when a child was gaining awareness was
with my five year old son, Alex. He has never been interested in learning anything
up until a few months ago. He could count up to ten and say some of his alphabet. I
could not get him interested in learning anything further like writing his name,
saying more of the alphabet, recognizing the alphabet via flashcards, etc. It was
very frustrating for me as a teacher to have a child who just did not want to learn.
However, one day we were coloring in his book and he looks up at me and says,
Mom, how do you write my name? I reply, Do you want me to write it out letter
by letter for you or are you wanting to hear the letters? He said, I want you to
write them out using an orange crayon (his favorite color). So, I wrote his name out
in orange letters. After writing them, I said now repeat the letters after me. I said,
A. He said, A.

I said, L. He said, L. We continued with E and X the same way. He looks at me

and says, ok and goes back to coloring. Then, he said, Mom (pointing to the
letter A that was written), this is an.an..A, right? I said ecstatically, Yes, son
that is an A. Great Job! Mom is super proud of you. He then said (pointing to the L),
This is an.an..um I am not sure. I said, Son, its alright if you dont know, but
think real hard about it and see if you can come up with it. Quickly he said, An L
mom! An L! I was so super happy at this point and replied, YES! You got it. He
then pointed out the E and X as well. This is a perfect example of a child gaining
awareness. He was never interested in learning anything what so ever about the
alphabet or numbers. When we broke through the barrier, I was so happy. After
realizing that he was learning this letters, he then applied that to other things.
Every time I read him a book, he would point out all the capital letters A,L,E, and X.
It was great!
Quality teacher interactions for the aforementioned example would be for a
teacher to continue to build upon the letter recognition skills, good quality
questioning and move to other letters as well. Introduction of a couple letters a
week, working at slow pace, would be greatly beneficial for him to gain more
knowledge and make him more inquisitive about learning. He could move on to
learning the letters in his last name, then moving on to the letters in his middle
name. Just keep adding words that mean something to him. Keeping Alex feeling
successful in his learning will help him want to learn more. There are some great
awareness activities that can be found on the FCRR website (Florida Center for
Reading Research). There is a good activity called Letter Recognition, Letter Cards.
This would be great for Alex to begin doing. Personally, I pull from this website all

the time to incorporate different activities with the students I work with in my
classroom. Great resource for teachers.
My second observation of a child gaining awareness was of my three year old
niece learning how to hold a book the correct way, which is a precursor, while
reading it. Every time I was able to spend time with my niece, I would sit on the
floor and play with her as much as possible. I would always notice her holding the
book upside down, looking at the back first, or not even opening it. One day, she
said, Auntie (which is what she calls me), ead tis (read this)? I said, Sure, I will
read it to you. She said, Me, old. (which she meant, me hold) I replied with,
Alright. You can hold the book if you want. She, while shaking her head and
holding it upside down with the back as the front, opened the book. I said, Auntie
cannot read that book. She asked, Why? I explained to her that the book is
upside down and backwards. I showed her that the front has a pretty picture and
the back just has words on it. She looked shocked and shook her head yes as if she
was answering me. Then, I showed her how to hold it right side up by looking at the
picture on the front. This time she said, Ok. After demonstrating that, I read the
book to her. She quickly then put that book away and immediately grabbed another
one for me to read. She at first had it upside down, then she looked at me and said,
Not ike dat. (Not like that) Ike dis. (Like this) This time she automatically turned
the book the right way up. Then she turned the pages as I read. This went on for a
few books, but I could see the look of awareness in her eyes and her actions. She at
that point had realized that the book actually looks right. She knew what to look for
with the other books as well. It was a good feeling to know that she can now hold a
book correctly and turn through the pages from left to right.

With the latter example, quality teacher interactions would be mostly

questioning and moving the child further into learning the phonological awareness
part when she begins to learn about letters and identifying them. There are also
activities on the FCRR website that could aide in the success of the learner. At the
beginning stages of learning, teacher questioning, role playing, using one on one
interactions, talking calmly, and praising them for accomplishments. All of these
interactions are quality especially for preschool aged children who are just
beginning to learn. This makes the child/student feel more comfortable and trusting
of you as the teacher and will respond more effectively.
After reading Chapter 3, I didnt really pay attention to the importance of the
gaining awareness in order for students to be successful or have higher
achievement. I knew it had to happen, but I didnt take into considerations the
extreme importance of it. Teacher questioning happens to play a huge role in quality
interactions. Hopefully by paying attention to whether my students are gaining
awareness or not will help me increase my student connections being made to aide
in higher student achievement.

References

Clay, M. M. (2014). By different paths to common outcomes: Literacy learning and teaching.
Auckland, New Zealand: Global Education Systems, Ltd.