Learning to to read...the internet

During my graduate school education, I took a course about bilingual education and learners.  This is a topic that is a bit close to my heart for two reasons:

1.      At the child center I work at, we do have a lot of children whose families speak English as a second language.  I can tell the parents would like to communicate more with the teachers, especially when their children are being in a school setting for the first time at an age as early as two and a half.

2.      As a preschooler, my teacher had encouraged my parents to enroll me into speech therapy because I did not talk, and they felt that speaking a different language at home was detrimental to my abilities in school.  Since I had such a large concentration of English at an early age, I was not able to pick up on the language spoken among my family.

These two reasons seem to work hand in hand as I talk to parents who have been concerned about their child’s ability to communicate and function in the daycare.  Some have also been concerned about their reading readiness.  Besides the fact that there is a process of learning concepts of literacy and phonics that need to happen before reading comes together (I saw in my first grade student teaching the beginnings of teaching children how to read).

With these reasons loaded behind me, I feel like I’ve been such an advocate for encouraging bilingualism for the students at my center.  I have decided to look into a Thinkfinity group called “Teach With Me,” where members share developmentally appropriate practices for Preschool education.  I also joined “Reaching English Language Learners,” which includes discussions about bilingual education for children as early as preschool and up.  Hopefully, I can combine information from these two groups in order to:

1.      Discover developmentally appropriate ways to integrate elements of technology and multimedia tools in an early education setting…

2.      find ideas on how other educators have created a more second language friendly environment in early childhood classes…

3.      and ultimately apply developmentally appropriate uses of technology in a way that can allow all children to learn and better their experience in the classroom (whether if they are fluent in English, or are still learning English as a second language).

I was reminded of this kind of need while reading Rune Petterson’s (2009) article “Visual Literacy and Message Design.”  Where I am explaining to my classroom parents that literacy and the process of “learning how to read” comes in many stages and includes many concepts, Petterson is also explaining the different elements that goes into the literacy of multimedia; what factors go into the presentation of how information is presented and how we are able to process the information.  Since children at this age are gathering the different elements to literacy as we traditionally know it, why not use the same concept towards literacy of technology and navigating information in media?  Perhaps in exposing my preschool students to more experiences in technology, I can reach something different in all of them, as well as being able to connect with and engage my ELL students who may feel distant because of their language barrier.