Page 124 - Reading Nest - The Supportive Literacy Environment Handbook

The game “Feed the cobra” contained lots of word labels where words described edible

and non-edible items. The child read them and decided whether he would put them into
the cobra’s mouth on top of the box or not. Thus step by step and keeping up his
motivation, giving him feasible and interesting tasks, reading was achieved. What suited
him was a personal approach, working one-to-one, and keeping in mind the zone of

proximal development: he was given tasks which he would have accomplished with
difficulty on his own and managed well with some help from the specialist. The feeling of

success and accounting for his interests and learning method kept up his motivation to
learn.

Teachers and parents should know that sometimes the development of literacy may seem

to regress. For instance, young Eliisabet who learned to write her name correctly with the
help of a mnemotechnical song, gave up the song at the age of five and started writing her
name ELISAPET. The incorrect spelling was actually evidence of the evolving skill of

sound analysis.

Development of reading skills is very personal and relies on various factors: how often

children are exposed to written texts, at what age they learn to read, how interested the
child is in reading, how much they read per day and like or dislike reading etc. The teacher
can evaluate whether the goals for each pupil have been achieved, what else could be done

to support and which the next goals are. Assessment should guide and encourage.

In the kindergarten a tool used for assessing a child’s development is a development

portfolio, and a portfolio at school. The portfolio is for keeping samples of writing: first
attempts to write familiar letters or one’s name; worksheets, texts created in games, letter
writing practice sheets. Comparison of works from different periods enables the

identification of advances. While first letters may be quite skewed and hardly legible, the
hand becomes stronger and steadier over time, lines are straighter and letters/words
recognisable. At school the first texts may be rather disjunct and focus on less important

details. Over time children learn different features of texts and their writing becomes easier
to follow, more logical and enticing, orthography also develops. Children pick up on their
development too when looking at their earlier work (“Look I wrote here TEECHER with

two e-s”; “See, in the first class I wrote: This is my dad. He has a beard. He went fishing
with Urmas. I wrote so funnily and did not say at all what dad’s name was. And is this
most important that he has a beard? (Laughs.) And here you can’t understand who Urmas

is! Now I can write much better!”).