Literacy: Cross-Cultural Literacy Practices

These activities are more suited for those in the early years, and in preschool as well as for beginner readers. These are among the tasks besides just doing article summaries that students have to undertake ias part of the assessment tasks for a literacy unit for 2nd Year studies.As said before, the more elaborate & detailed the explanation for a task, the higher a student can score.

Task 1: Comparison of the beliefs of two different sets of parents and their literacy practices at home.

Parent: Mei Ling
Ethnicity: Chinese.
Background: She comes from mainland China and has an elder son, who is 15 years old. Mei Ling has been in Australia for almost 5 years now, and is currently undertaking a two year undergraduate teaching training programme.
Age of child: 2.10 years.

Parent: Steven
Ethnicity: Chinese.
Background: He spent his childhood and growing up years in Brunei, but did his tertiary studies in Australia. He has been in Australia for almost 12 years. His wife comes from Taiwan. He has two children.
Age of child: 4.10 years.

Summary:
Understanding of own children’s personalities: Both parents show much knowledge and understanding of children’s personalities. Steven says that his son has a strong will, and therefore has to cater to his son’s interest and tries to individualize his responses accordingly.
Mei-Ling states that her son is still in the midst of developing his personality, and his speaking skills.

Foundation in own cultural language: In particular, the striking aspect of both parents interviewed is that they come from chinese backgrounds. As what has been communicated, both families show the intention that they would like their children to master the speaking of the mandarin language.
They said that they spent much time in trying to teach their children speak mandarin at home. Mei Ling’s son is at preschool, and has exposure to English language. She is attempting to develop her son’s foundation in the Mandarin language as she states that she knows her son would no longer use much of that language once he is older, as there will be limited and less opportunities for him to practice his language at school or socially
Steven shares the same sentiments as Mei Ling in that he wants his children to develop his foundation in Mandarin. He states that is would be beneficial for his children to know two languages, and easier to develop it from young. He also stated that he regrets not knowing much of his Chinese dialects as his parents did not speak to him in Chinese, and he is now struggling to pick up the mandarin language as an adult.

Range of different literature: Both Steven and Mei-Ling also share similar understandings that providing different and a range of literature at home will help develop their children’s literacy skills and understanding. Steven states that much of his knowledge of literacy practices that he practices at home is derived from his son’s teachers at schools and the advice that they had given him.

Multi-Media: Steven and Mei-Ling are also very open to their own children working with multi-media. They are also aware of the influence of that the mass media (television in particular) has on the language development skills of their children, and both monitor the kind of television programmes and duration of the shows the children watch.

Task 3: Evaluation of a Television Program.
Title of television program: Sesame Street Visits the Hospital.
Language quality: Very Good

• Speakers speak very clearly and pronounce their words clearly.

Different mode of language: Very Good

• Puppet show and song. So children understand concept of “patients are to be patient
• A “play room” – song “Busy getting better” song,

Pace of the program: Very Good

• The program is paced appropriately where the conversation can be heard and the acting is very clear. It does not rush through the plot.

Foundations for social skills: Very Good

• Multi-cultural: Introduces children to people from other ethnicity.
• Relates more to children in the big city. The video can be used to introduce children who have not been exposed to hospitals. It also prepares children to the concept of hospitals.

• Introduce rules & regulations, routines at hospitals and post hospital check-ups.
• Procedures- health insurance, what adults have to do before registering a patient into the hospital.

• Routines- identification patients tag, blood pressure, looking at tongue (tongue depressors), looking at ears, breathe in and out, appetite, sleeping well, blood tests and x-rays, lunch menu, paging machine.

• Social- people visit their friends who are sick and bring toys and fruits during visiting hours only.

• How the x-ray is to be taken. Children will learn that it is a painless and fast procedure.
• Uses of paging machine which is demonstrated by Big Bird.

Children’s interests: Very Good

• Real life situations- children can relate to their experiences.
• Common cold- a sickness that children have experienced before.
• Children can relate to Big Birds’ fears of going to the hospitals.
• Prepare children emotionally and mentally before going to the hospital.

Dramatic play: Very Good

• Characters introduce themes of “playing hospital” in the Sesame Street with other Sesame Street puppet characters.

Gross motor skills: Very Good

• Use of puppets with the song “Patients are to be patient” song is catchy andencourages movement.

Structured well: Very Good

• The script flow starts from where Big Bird catches a flu and he goes to the hospital then after. It flows smoothly and in a coherent manner so children will understand that it starts with the child having symptoms of being sick before he goes to see a doctor.
  

Literacy: Literacy Partnerships Home & School (Article Summary)

These are some article summaries from my 2nd year Studies. It should be longer (although course requirements state a short summary is only required) but normally if the student wants to score higher, lecturers would prefer a longer summary. At least that is what my lecturers at university did.

Article:
Morrow, L (1997) “Family Literacy Partnerships home and school working together”, Literacy development in the early years, Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA, pp.52-85

Summary:
The article first describes a grandmother demonstrating and taking advantage of the print in the grandchildren’s life that is familiar and extending and using it as a pleasurable experience to enrich the grand children’s literacy knowledge.

* Family literacy encompasses all members of the family, as well as extended family members to make use of the different literacy activities that could be the outcome of spontaneous activities, parent or child initiated, out or routines, using drawings or writings to communicate ideas.

* It is important because:

1) Findings reveal home practices that play a major role to literacy success in school settings and the crucial role a family plays in the development of children’s literacy & on how they as members of the family can help.

2) Leichter (1984) states that families influence literacy development in 3 ways: interpersonal interaction, physical environments, emotional and motivational climate.

* It is important that parents provide a lot of materials for writing in the home as the author believes that learning to read is enhanced by concurrent experiences with writing is facilitated by experiences with reading.
* I agree with the author as I believe literacy should also be a family affair and not just left to the school. When family members engage in a family literacy process, it creates a win-win situation, whereby parents learn more about their children and develop a closer relationship as a result. I believe that the author’s perspective is in line with the current practice in education trends, where educators are advocating for families to once again learn to take responsibility and share for their children’s success in developing literacy skills.

2008: Happy Teachers' Day!

I have been so busy at work and all that I didn't realise it was already 16th May, Teachers' Day till James, an uncle of one of my students in KL (at least 5 years ago!) sent me a comment on my Friendster profile greeting me as such.

Thanks James, for reminding & encouraging me on how important our work as both caretakers, & teachers of children are in their lives. ^^

So to all kindergarten, primary & high school teachers, caregivers, professors, lecturers, cikgu dan guru-guru di tadika, sekolah rendah, sekolah menengah, as well as to everyone else in the world,

HAPPY TEACHERS' DAY! SELAMAT HARI GURU!

Winter: A nursery/preschool room's parent-teacher dynamics.

Actually, the dynamics is almost similar across the board for even older preschoolers, but these are some of the things that staff should take more notice of in the nursery room, as babies are unable to communicate & talk much yet.

It's my 4th day working at this childcare centre at the shopping mall this week. So far, the work has been good. Actually, there's quite a number of casuals working there. There was also another ECT in the pre-school room, and I was talking to her.

Jessica is the name of the other ECT, and she told me that she had worked in two other Montessori centres before (surprise, surprise!). She is also contracted to Agent E, so I could probably ask her more about her experience with them so far with Montessori (now, isn't that a good idea?). She said she had worked as an ECT in another Montessori centre for about 7 months, so I guess that means the Montessori school follows the same accreditation process as other private childcare centres. It's really difficult for me to say for as yet, I have not actually stepped in to another Montessori school in Australia.

For the past 3 days, I have been based in the nursery room. As said before, although university ECT graduates do have a degree in the early years, the university course units do not & have not necessarily focused on studies for children in the nursery age group. Sad, but true. Most graduates are not aware of this till they have finished, but yes, most directors of childcare centres as well as childcare recruitment agents are aware of it (although they may not tell the candidate that).

Whatever I have written here is not something that candidates can pick up from reading, but mostly from work experience or maybe at practicum. Whatever one reads cannot actually "make sense" or translate to understanding till the person experiences it personally.

My research has led me to know that most centres prefer catering to the pre-school ages as the adult child ratio is higher, and it is more cost effective in sourcing for staff. As a nursery room relief staff, it is of utmost that the casual relief staff university graduate (even if they have not learnt before!) is able to quickly pick up the skills of nappy changing as well as learning how to handle babies.

As my learned readers can guess, Australia is coming up to the season of winter in the month of May now. I have not actually had to really speak to parents in my stint as an ECT up till this week.. (which is good, since I have only since been absorbing everything in). I have realised that when irate parents have grievances, it is irrelevant whether the personnel they speak to is a permanent or casual

(they are in the state where "emotions" over ride the "rational". Same goes for any IRATE customer!)

To make the story short, it was difficult & really unfair for me in my place as a casual when parents have grievances or make complaints especially to a casual, when their instructions were given to permanent staff of the place. However even as a casual, one knows that it is not wise to say anything on our defence to an "irate parent" who feels that they deserve the best just because they are the paying customer.

For those unaware, there will always be parents who are pretty easy going, and then there will be parents who are fussy. As a precaution, whenever you have babies (crawling ones that is), losing their socks, staff should always pick them up and put it back on especially around 4.45pm (ish) when the nursery children have their nappy change. This applies to any other "belongings" of the children that may dropped off, so that parents won't make a fuss when they come to pick their children up.

The reality of the situation is that it is difficult for staff to keep track of everything that a baby/toddler drops, but the "irrationality" of the situation is that parents do not look at it this way. Unfortunatley, some parents are known to have removed their children from a centre for such things.

Among some of the other complaints that parents make of their (crawling) babies include their babies losing socks (especially with winter coming, babies get colds & sick more easily than usual. Not so much the case in summer), and losing their dummies/comforters (the "sucking" thing that they put in their mouths), and their winter coats. Older children are able to search for their own "lost" belongings & will demand for it back, so this is not so much of a concern for the staff.

Parents on arrival to pick their children up from school would also like to see their children occupied in an activity with the class teacher or adult (whether it be reading a book, playing with a toy or just busy, having their meals, and NEVER NEVER by themselves). I realized that the same scenario goes whether it is in Malaysia, or Australia, and the same even goes for older preschoolers.

To take note, as staff (whether casual or permanent), the queries that parents will always ask the staff (even though there already is a parent-communication book on the shelf !) are:

* "what did the child have to eat today?" (so you as the staff need to know what they had for lunch, & afternoon tea, and how much they ate, & how they enjoyed their meals. Tell this to parents to make conversation).

* "how many hours did the child sleep today?" (so they will know if the child can sleep well that night...)

* "how much milk did the child drink today?" (in comparison to the bottles the child has in their bags).

* "where did that bruise come from?" (that will be referred back to the permanent staff).

* "how was the child in class today?"