Ch. 2 & 3 -Building a Knowledge Base

Ch. 2 & 3

• "children learn via interactions with people and their environment"
• "important to allow children many opportunities to talk"
• "opportunities to draw and write are crucial"
• "reading and writing develop together"
• "needs to be access to a wide variety of reading materials"

Reponse to Ch. 2 & 3

• Children do tend to mimck what they see around them and alot of that is social interactions and things they have or see in their environment. They learn through experiences and interactions.
• Whether or not it is exactly what you may want to hear, it is so important that kids are given the opportunity to talk. This coud be about a book you just read or a simple questions that is open to the whole class. Kids like to talk and get their ideas out and this is part of building their learning and imaginations.
• there are many ways to incorporate drawing and writing. For example, if they were reading Charlotte's Web, have them come up with a new ending to the story, write it down, and draw a picture to go with it. This lets their creativity flow and lets them get their voice out in writing by letting them choose the ending.
• Reading and writing definitely develop together. If you have a student read all of the time but he has never written anything he will never be able to form those letters. If you just have a student writing letters all of the time without reading then it becomes difficult for that student to develop the proper reading skills they need.
• There needs to be a wide variety of reading materials because not all books are interesting to everyone. Some kids might like books about fantasy while others like simple chapter books with pictures. If you just have one type of book available then they will never know the endless possibilities there are to reading and all of the different genres. There also needs to be some multicultural books available to the students as well.

Katy Matthews

02/05/2009