LITERACY DEVELOPMENT

Literacy Development in the Early Years

Literacy Development in the Early Years

Introduction

Literacy - the degree of ownership of human skills to writing and reading in their native language. Traditionally, the word "literacy" meant a man who could read and write or just read on any language. In modern terms, this means the ability to write according to established standards of grammar and spelling. People, who can only read, also called "semi-literate." The statistics for literacy is the ability of people to read, understand and write a short simple text relating to everyday life. Literacy index (sometimes called just literacy) of the people is the ratio between the number of literate and the size of the population (Morrow, 2009). The ratio is usually expressed as a percentage. Index of literacy, if not measured, but in any case, characterizes the level of primary education. Literacy - the foundation on which to build further human development. Providing access to the book, it makes it possible to use the treasury of thought and knowledge, created by mankind. However, literacy may also serve as an instrument of propaganda of any ideology in society. The child-centered approach to early childhood literacy education has been the most widely accepted. Within this approach preschool and kindergarten are viewed as places for social, emotional, physical growth and natural intellectual development. Those who adhere to the child centered approach think that learning is best prompted by exploring and experimenting in playful environments. Children also learn to self-regulation to prepare for more formal school. The proponents of the child-centered approach refer to their instruction as “developmentally appropriate practice (Whitehurst, 2008).” The second approach, which we refer to as skills based model, involves systematic explicit teaching of literacy. This approach views preschool and kindergarten as a time when children are ready to learn early reading and writing skills that will improve literacy achievement in the future. Those who follow the child centered model find it difficult to embrace a skills-based approach with young children.

They view explicit teaching of skills in early literacy as a push down curriculum where kindergarten becomes first grade and preschool like kindergarten. Those who embrace the skills-based model view the child centered approach as wasting precious time for learning. Despite its importance for daily functioning and life adjustment, literacy may be impaired by circumstances involving poverty or low-income. In many countries, the socioeconomic gradients of reading achievement consistently yield results which show that youths of lower socioeconomic status (SES) trail their more affluent peers (Neuman, & Cunningham, 2009). It has been further reported that children from low-income homes function below the normally expected in their reading skills by the end of their first grade and that low-income British children, aged 4 to 8 years, had lower foundational literacy skills than those from higher SES.

Discussion

Developmental Trend of Literacy

As indicated in the earlier review, children from disadvantaged homes may lag behind more affluent peers as early as the time of kindergarten, as demonstrated by the study of American ...