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Student: Kindergarten, age 5, August Birthday
School: Amigos, Cambridge, MA
Teachers: Jim St. Clair and Maria Castro
Class Size: 36 students in two classes
“Thalia’s very interested in the idea of literacy and she’s interested in books. It’s the details she’s a little bit fuzzy on. That’s a big part of our job this year, to focus a little bit more on the details of the process of learning to read and write.”
Jim St. Clair, kindergarten teacher
In the beginning of the school year, Thalia Valdez is just beginning to get excited about letters. She attends kindergarten at the bilingual AMIGOS school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With the support and guidance of her teacher, Jim St. Clair, Thalia steadily learns the details of the basics of reading and writing such as one-to-one word correspondence, letter sounds, and left-to-right text. She uses her fine motor skills in adding text to her inventive drawings.
Factors that contribute to Thalia’s literacy development:
“[Thalia] has a very strong interest in learning to read. I think it’s really a goal for her.”
Jim St. Clair, kindergarten teacher.
Thalia is a kindergarten student in a bilingual program at the Amigos School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she spends half of the time in an English-language class and the other half in a Spanish-language class. Her classmates include native-Spanish speakers and native-English speakers. According to her teachers, Thalia is “almost completely bilingual.”
Mr. St. Clair, Thalia’s English-language teacher, describes Thalia as a playful and social child who is excited about school and learning. She enjoys drawing, writing about her family, and singing, and demonstrates important skills developed during pre-school. According to her mother, Thalia loves to listen to stories at home and wants to learn how to read.
When Mr. St. Clair assesses Thalia at the beginning of the year, he finds that Thalia has a strong interest in books and in writing. In particular, Thalia avidly writes long strings of letters to communicate her ideas. The fall assessment indicates that Thalia still chooses letters randomly, and does not demonstrate awareness of the sounds of most letters.
Mr. St. Clair’s kindergarten program emphasizes oral language as the foundation for communicating and understanding ideas. He designs his instruction to meet the needs of the “whole child,” including emergent/early literacy skills, interests, and personal experiences. To meet Thalia’s needs, he plans activities that emphasize meaning and comprehension while developing her skills in letters, sounds, and words in both reading and writing.
Print out a copy of the Literacy Development Chart (PDF) to record your observations, reactions, and questions throughout your viewing. Pay particular attention to the strengths and needs Thalia demonstrates and to the home/school experiences that influence her growth in reading and writing during the year.
Review the definitions of the Literacy Teaching Practices (see section in Lens on Literacy):
Review the definitions of the Essential Components of Literacy Development:
On your first viewing, observe how Mr. St. Clair creates a classroom environment that emphasizes language development, and reading and writing as a way of communicating ideas. Note how Thalia develops an understanding of print (i.e., concepts about print).
Review your notes on Thalia’s Literacy Development Chart (PDF). Then consider the following questions:
As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group.
Take a second look at Thalia’s language and literacy development to deepen your understanding of her changing strengths and needs over the course of the year. Use the video images below to locate where to begin viewing.
Find this segment 3 minutes and 41 seconds after the beginning of the video. Watch for 3 minutes and 22 seconds.
In the beginning of kindergarten, Thalia uses language, personal experiences, and knowledge of letters to express her ideas in writing. In this segment, Thalia writes in her journal with support from her teacher, Mr. St. Clair. Use Thalia’s Literacy Development Chart to record Thalia’s current strengths and needs in oral and written language.
Find this segment 7 minutes and 4 seconds after the beginning of the video. Watch for 2 minutes and 9 seconds.
In December, Mr. St. Clair and Ms. Castro, the Spanish-language teacher, meet with Thalia’s mother at a parent-teacher conference to discuss Thalia’s developing strengths as a learner.
Find the first segment 9 minutes and 14 seconds after the beginning of the video. Watch for 1 minute and 17 seconds. Find the second segment 14 minutes and 38 seconds after the beginning of the video. Watch for 1 minute and 2 seconds.
Thalia re-reads predictable books at home and school. In the first segment, it’s December, and Thalia is reading a book she took home the night before. In the second segment, Thalia is reading with Mr. St. Clair in a small guided-reading group three months later, in March.
Find this segment 15 minutes and 41 seconds after the beginning of the video. Watch for 2 minutes and 57 seconds.
Mr. St. Clair emphasizes oral language in daily activities to promote literacy development. In this segment, the whole class is engaged in an experiment with sand, followed by a writing activity. Thalia writes in her journal about a personal experience with her father.
Review your notes on Thalia’s progress throughout the year. Consider the following questions for discussion:
As you reflect on these questions, write down your responses or discuss them as a group.
Here are some opportunities to apply and extend what you’ve seen.
View the other kindergarten classroom videos in the Teaching Reading library, “Becoming Readers and Writers” and “Writer’s Journal.” How are these classrooms similar to Mr. St. Clair’s? How are they different? Which instructional practices in these two videos would support Thalia’s literacy development?
For more information, see Becoming Readers and Writers and Writer’s Journal
Resources Used By Ms. Owen
Clay, M. An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1993.
Valeri, Michele, and Michael Stein. “The Dinosaur Song” from the album Dinosaur Rock. Silver Spring, Md.: Dinorock Productions, Inc., 1983.
Developmental Reading Assessment
Christelow, Eileen. Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed. New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1989.
Cowley, Joy. Go, Go, Go. From the Story Box Series. New York, N.Y.: Wright Group/McGraw Hill, 1995.
Cutting, Jillian. Going To School. From the Sunshine Series. New York, N.Y.: Wright Group/McGraw Hill, 2000.
Additional Resources
Bromley, K. “Teaching Young Children To Be Writers”. In D. Strickland and L. Morrow. eds. Beginning Readers and Writers. New York, N.Y.: Teachers College Press, 2000.
“Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Young Children.” A joint position statement of the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), adopted 1998. The Reading Teacher 52 (1998): 193-216.
Rog, L. J. Early Literacy Instruction in Kindergarten. Newark, Del.: International Reading Association, 2001.