Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 11 Children as Writers

How do we learn to write? When do we learn to write? Who taught us to write? How do we making sense of our own writing in childhood? In my own writing experience, surely, “writing” began in my grade one because “arts” did not count as writing in my culture. I started the writing practice with “character copying of Chinese characters” (Wong, 2008, p. 117). I find Wong’s (2008) comment about “when literacy is valued as a measure of achievement in a culture, adults will work hard to ensure the success of their child” really relevant with my writing learning experiences (p. 117). Parents will make sure that their children are able to write proper character in age of seven when they move to grade one. Writing Chinese characters is really the central in children’s writing practice because “[t]he Chinese view of learning places heavy emphasis on orthographic literacy [and t]he Chinese term for ‘learning’ is composed of two characters: ‘to study’ and to ‘practise repeatedly’ (Dahlgaard- Park 2006, as cited in Wong, 2008, p. 118). I will not say this way of learning is a negative way of practicing writing because “within a social construction of literacy there cannot be a ‘right’ or ‘best’ way to learn and teach writing”( Barratt-Pugh, 2007, p. 137). Because writing Chinese character is really complex and it require repetitive practice. However, Barratt-Pugh (2007) also adds “[i]t is more helpful to identify the understandings, knowledge and skills needed to become literate, enabling children to master these in ways that acknowledge and extend what they already know and can do” (p. 137).

                                                                     笑

                                   哭

Take a guess which character means “smile” and which one means “cry”.

When children are practicing writing it should not be just memorizing the way of writing the characters. There must be some understanding of the characters for children to make sense of how to write it and it relates to Dewey’s (as cited in Wong, 2008) comment, he states that “learning begins with an inquiry regarding a problem in the environment, followed by the process of experimentation and reflection until and answer is found” (p.124). We should focus on children’s learning process of learning to write instead of their final product of writing that character.

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 10 Multiliteracies

Since computer technology is commonly used in people’s daily lives, integration of computer technology and literacy in children’s learning has become an important issue for children, parents and early child educators to explore further. Multiliteracies is one type of literacy practices used today. It “refers to multimodal ways of communicating through linguistic, visual, auditory, gestural and spatial forms. To be multiliterate requires the knowledge and skills needed to read, write, use spoken and written languages, sounds and images” (Hill, 2007, p.56).

Makin and Whiteman (2007) focuses on how children make connections between art such as music, body movement, facial expressions, mark making, symbol systems and drawings. With our verbal speaking and written words, children can communicate through music; they express their immediate feelings through sounds and movements and by also the use of computer software programs to create art. “As the influence of multiliteracies in society becomes stronger, it becomes more important for teachers to study relationships between words, pictures and meanings (Anstey& Bull 2000) and to support children’s interests in expressing themselves in a range of mark making that extends their membership into many of the different cultures existing in their communities” (Makin & Whiteman, 2007, p.178).

When exploring multiliteracies with children’s learning experiences, literacy learning experiences in both home and school settings has become the focus research for much. According to Smith (2002), children from 2.3 to 3.5 years old can manage to use electronic storybooks at home. How often do we practice multiliteracies with children in class? Why aren’t teachers putting more attentions and consideration into children’s encounters with computer technology? When involve in multiliteracy practice, are computer and software programs then necessary in child care centres?

According to Hill (2007), teachers find computer programs do have the potential to support children with learning difficulties and provide them with different ways of literacy learning; however, if computer technology is fully integrated in childcare settings, what would happen to the children that do not have computer access at home or to children who have difficulties with computers? Hill (2007) also mentions that “[j]ust having the hardware and software available does not make new technology useful and accessible, as it is the way technology is used in meaningful purposeful contexts that is important” (p. 67). When children are exposed to those hardware and software, how do we know what information is appropriate for them and what is not? Who gets to decide for the children? Do we expect that all the teachers know how the new technologies work? Would it be the teachers’ responsibility to understand the new computer softwear/ hardwear before making accessible for children?

When teachers are supporting children’s language and literacy learning, they often focus on creative arts (Hill, 2007). How can we fully respect and acknowledge each child’s body movement, mark makings and facial expressions and how can we establish a learning environment for children that practices multiliteracies in an early childhood setting? How can we as educators go about keeping multiliteracies and art connections within the school systems if this is the case? Or does the system only work well for a preschool, or kindergarten environment?

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 9 Globalization and literacy

According to Raley (2000 as cited in Kennedy, 2006), The term ‘Global English’, as it is used in the globalisation literature, identifies the powerfulness and status of a language that becomes dominant in global or local contexts with a capacity to cross borders and societies” (p.300).

When talking about English as the globalization literature, according to my own experience, Chinese are passionate about learning English because they assume that if you are able to fluently speak English, you will have a more successful future and “give them a competitive advantage, both at school and later on in their working lives” (Martin Hope, Deputy Director as cited in Kenny, 2006, p. 300). I wonder who make English the globalization literature. Why do English become so important for children’s “future”?  According to Dahlberg and Moss (2005, as cited in Kennedy, 2006), “the significant driver for early education from these movements is a desire to ensure that institutions, like kindergartens and schools help to produce global citizens or workers through the sanctioning of universalised norms and best practices” (p.299).

Society construct the ‘norms’ and ‘best practice’ to be able to evaluate children’s achievements at schools. Institutions try to make children become the “same” citizens who are able to ‘fit in’ the ‘norms’ because it makes it easier for them to who is better than the others.  

In the youtube video, we can see how children are learning English in a English learning camp. They are supposed to learn to speak English in eight days.

“You have to be crazy, you have to forget about your Chinese, you have to be physically, mentally, you have to really one hundred percent been involved. And that’s call the craziness. You have to be very crazy”.

With this statement, I doubt about what dose he mean a hundred percent involved because I can only see children repeat after what the teachers are speaking to them instead of provoking children’s meaning making processes. I have the same question as Kennedy (2006)rises in his article:

“Will promoting Global English and the new technologies associated with globalization mean that we transform children into active global citizens, or will these processes act to reproduce a passive global citizen whose identity is universalized and increasingly less connected to local values and traditions?” (p.305)

What are the values of learning another language? Dose it mean you learn about the cultural and historical aspects of the English-speaking countries while you are learning to speak English? Is literacy simply for people to be able to communicate with others who do not speak the same language as you?

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 8 Oral traditions of the First Nations

“You can’t know who you are until you know the past. You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been” (Corey Harris, as cited in Seale & Slapin, p.4).

When First Nations children were taken away from their parents and their home by the government, they were placed in residential schools. At the residential schools, children did not have any opportunities to practice their culture, language and the literacy practices of their families and communities. Moreover, children were “faced with physical, emotional, and sexual abuse” (Moayeri & Smith, 2010, p. 409). These First Nations children never felt that they were at “home” when they were at residential schools. As they were separated from their families they also did not experience their own culture or language; therefore, they did not know where they belonged to. These children did not know who they were and where they were at until they might one day finally pick up what they have lost. The question is who is providing them those opportunities to practice their family cultures? How many of those children are willing to come back to their original cultures when they can no longer speak their mother tongue?

Unfortunately, First Nations children who have been put in the residential schools did not just lose the opportunity to practice their culture, but were "fixed" by the Canadian government to fit into Western culture. According to Smith (2004),

“While First Nations children are small, their family members talk to them. Grandfathers advise the children on how to live so that their life will be long. However, upon colonization of Canada and the writing of the Native Act, the federal government took over the responsibility of education Aboriginal children. The voices of the grandfathers were silenced. The agenda of the colonizers was to assimilate these children into Western culture by separating them from their families and communities and stripping them of their languages, values, and beliefs” (as cited in Moayeri & Smith, 2010, p.412).

Experiences from childhood significantly influence people’s future learning and lives. I felt the same way when I was at high school. Being an immigrant without the official language, I did not feel like I belonged to the school environment. When I was in the ESL classes, students were only allowed to speak English with each other. Students were learning Canada's history, reading English literature, writing in English because by only using English, students were able to adapt to the Canadian culture quicker and easier. I am here to experience learning a new language, a new culture and a different life style but not to lose my own language, my own culture and my own way of living.

I wonder, is learning a new language actually means to lose the one I already have? When learning a new culture, do we need to give up practicing our original culture? Is that the choice that we must make? 

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 6 Cultural Authenticity in Children's Literature

According to this week's readings, the authors discuss the complexity of cultural authenticity within children's literacy. There are debates regarding the perspectives on who should or should not, can or cannot write from one culture and questions an "outsider" writing about other culture's children's books. Will writers' understanding and experiences of other cultures affect their writing of the stories? How accurate is the message that the writers try to bring to readers? Should an "outsider" gain in depth experiences of other cultures before they begin writing stories of other cultures? If they do not, could they risk writing only stereotypes of other cultures?

According to Short and Fox, "[r]ecognizing the complexity of both insider and outsider perspectives adds another layer to all the issues that have been previously raised, including cultural facts and values and what is considered "truth" about a particular culural experience" (p.20)

There are different perspectives that different people understand about one culture. For instance, even in country like China, we find different culture practices in dfferent cities in China. There will not be only one image or one understanding of Chinese culture. The culture that we practice today will not be the same as the culture that was practiced twenty years ago or even the culture we will practice twenty years from now.

Cultural practices is not fixed, instead, I assume it is actually continually moving. Cultural practices move and change from centuries depending on the historical and social effects on it. When one's understanding encounter another's understanding of the same culture, it influences both of their overall understanding of a particular culture. This process creates a deeper layer of understanding of this culture. Whereas, when one is expressing his perspectives of his own culture, the language he speaks, the words he uses at that moment will not be the same as other people, therefore, I think he is actually making his explanation that only belongs to him. I believe that even when different people are telling the same story to others, it actually creates different effects on others' lives. However, I do agree with Mingshui Cai that "authors who successfully write outside their own culture have had significant in-depth experiences over many years within the culture they portray and have engaged in careful and thorough research". It is not easy and actually complex for writers to write stories outside their cultures. I wonder why do they still want to include people from other cultures in their stories? Are they trying to present the concept of multiculturalism to children through their stories?

What is multiculturalism? Why is it so important to our children? Are multiculturalism simply pictures of children from different countries, wearing dfferent clothes, eating different food, speaking different languages, living different life styles? Are we simplifying the complex of the practice of multiculturalism? Is multiculturalism being romanticized in children's literacy?

Why are adults the one to decide which books should be banned from children's reading? Children's books are banned because books contain contexts such as sexism, offensive language; however, children are experiencing, seeing and hearing us use language that may express these ideas in our daily lives.  Why are we eliminating such connection between children's daily experience with their literacy learning? If authors have the freedom to write, why can't children make their own choices to read?

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 5 Literacy as multimodal meaning making

According to Julie Martello, educators' definition of children literacy need to be rearranged because literacy for children should no longer be limited in spoken and written forms. Literacy takes in many different forms in children's learning. Martello mentions that:

 "Within social practices there are many different ways of making meaning, and one useful way of considering children's literacies is to identify these as different modes of communicatetion. Kress (1997, p.7) describes modes as ways of making signs, (a combination of meaning and form) using different materials such as linguistic system, sound, our bodies (to speak, or gesture) or graphics" (p.91).

Are these different modes of literacies separated in children's learning experiences? How do we know what mode children are using in different moments and different activities? How can we make children's meaning making processes visible to other people?

Children start to practice their multimodal meaning making from birth because even when infants are not able to speak, read and write, they can make different sounds and are able to communicate with others. As toddlers, they are able to use body language, gestures, and signs to communicate. As children grow older, they are making their own choices of communication forms such as speaking, writing, signing, drawing and acting. Some forms of literacy (reading and writing) are more valued than other forms (dancing and drawing) of literacty in children's learning. Educators limit children's learning possibilities. However, how do we know when a child is making meaning of what they have experienced in their plays? When we see a particular moment that we think that child is experiencing multimodal meaning making during play, is that only our interpretations?

Multimodal of meaning making cannot be separated into small pieces. They should all be put together to make the whole story of children's literacy learning experience. For example, if a child is drawing a picture, we can see this as only a visual mode of learning literacy. However, if we do not ask the story of the drawing, what that child is trying to express is going to be missed. Educators should encourage children to express the meaning of their drawing in other modes to make his/her story more complete and accurate.

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 4 Oral Storytelling

According to the articles that we have this week, I realize that oral storytelling in different cultures play different roles in children's literacy learning experiences.

According to Nina Sabnani (2009), oral storytelling in Rajasthan is representing as "memories or mediations between reality and aspirations that reflect what a society wishes to express itself" (p.28). Oral storytelling is a traditional way of communication between people. According to Mushengyezi, oral storytelling is the main form of public communication in some cities of Uganda. In most Western countries, according to Cline and Necochea, people believe that bedtime storytelling can enrich children's reading ability and "parents are often reminded that if they read to [their children] every night their children will grow up to be readers, love literature, and experience academic success in school" (p.122).

What is oral storytelling? Is oral storytelling only limited in bedtime storytelling? Is oral storytelling used as a tool to make children gain interests in literacy in their early years? Does oral storytelling have the purpose to prepare children to be successful readers at school?

What is the purpose of oral storytelling? What happen to those children who do not have the chance to experience oral storytelling in their culture or in their families? Will they be less successful in their future literacy learning? Is oral storytelling a skill that we need to practice as educators or parents? Do we as educators or parents have the responsibility of doing oral storytelling with children? What is children's role when doing oral storytelling? Are they only the listener or the receiver?

Educators and parents do not recongize that oral storytelling is one of the ways to communicate and to share their own  experiences with children. Rather, they see oral storytelling as the method to enrich and prepare children for further literacy learning.  Oral storytelling can happen any time and anywhere and it should not be limited as only happening during bedtime storytelling. For example, family history, family stories, ans stories of parents as children can be shared with their own children. Also, children can be the storyteller. Parents can encourage children to tell stories of their days with their friends and children can also share stories that they create with others. This is a way to enrich children's oral storytelling experiences.

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 3 Literacy as social practice

According to Diaz (2007), literacy as social practice is defined as "a tool with which our values, attitudes, aspirations, opinions, dreams, goals and ideas about the world are constructed, shared, represented, reconstructed and deconstructed" (p.32). For instance, when I talk to different people, I tend to use a different language or choose to use different words. Does it also mean that as we speak, write or read dfferent texts, we are not simply reading, writing and speaking of the words itself, but actually speaking the historical and social aspects of the words? Does it mean that all the meanings of the words, symbols, images, texts we are using today are all socially constructed by people?

Literacy should not be limited in reading or writing. Barton (2001) indicates that "everyday activity in the contemporary world is mediated by literacy and people act within a textually mediated social world" (as cited in Diaz, 2007, p. 32). We are experiencing literacy in our daily life activities and children should be included in those activities. For example, when reading newspapers, parents tend to read alone because they do not find that children are interested in what they are doing. However, I believe that if parents spend more time reading with their child, it will encourage children share their own thinking with others. It may also motivate children to take the initiative to communicate with others at home or school environment.

In addition, Graff explains that "literacy [does] not function as an independent causal factor in the achievement of social benefits, rather it [functions] as an integrated and highly socially constructed component within a very complex process of schooling" (p.35). Can children ever learn literacy independently? If children are learning with books, computers, DVDs, are they being alone or are they still being with "others"? Do they communicate with books, computers or DVDs? What dose it mean to learn independently?

When talking about different forms of literacies, technoliteracies is also discussed in this chapter. Children today are exposed to different types of technologies, such as computers, internets, DVDs, video games, and so on. Since children are getting more familiar with using technologies in their daily lives, Comber and Reid (2007) comment that teachers should also be aware that "young children can develop a snse of their identity as competent, creative and accomplished users of text, technology and ideas through the ways of when children are using digital technologies" (p.50).

The following video discusses how children benefit in the development of their literacy ability when  technologies in literacy learning are integrated within school curriculum.

Digital technologies can positively make communication "better" and "easier" when children have chances to interact with other people who are overseas. They are able to access websites and be able to read different information in the internet. If children who are not able to learn literacy in "traditional ways", technologies provide another possibility for their learning (Pinkard, 2009). When children get to communicate with technologies, does it actually distance human relationship? I question this because I see mere examples of seeing friends sitting at the same table having dinner together but they are texting each other with their cellphones instead of talking to each other. When we talk about technoliteracies, can we simply focus on the advantages or disadvantages of this form of literacies? How can we integrate technologies into literacy learning in early childhood settings?

Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 2 Emergent Literacy

What is "emergent literacy"? The various definitions of "emergent literacy" from this week's readings clearly identify the image of educators and children from different cultures fitting in the Western style of how to involve children in learning literacy in their early years. For instance, storybook reading and language are more valued when they are in print-based form. Children are able to gain concepts and phonemic awareness when reading those texts. Is this understanding of literacy undervalue other forms and possibilities of literacy practice?

According to Stanovich (1986), "children who have good vocabulary and are reading well learn more words and read better[; conversely], children who have smaller vocabularies read slowly and without enjoyment, and have a slower development of vocabulary, which further inhibits reading ability" (as cited in Makin, Jones Diaz & Mc Lachlan, 2007, p.21). Emergent literacy can be better practice when children are reading the words from the books because they are able to make meaning of the images present in the books if they understand the words. On the other hand, children who do not have the vocabulary will be at risk in literacy learning. I question this assumption because what about chidlren who come from other countries and just start to learn English as a second language? If children are not able to understand the meaning of the words, can they, by reading the images or the pictures in the storybooks, make sense of what they are reading about without knowing the words?

Evans (2001), highlights the importance of defining the "emergent literacy" with culture sensibility by asking a significant question, "who owns the learning process" (p.8)? When children are making meaning of what they are reading, are teachers or parents the one who decides what childen should read and what words are appropriate for them to learn? Do they only learn literacy in schools? What about the language that children or others use everyday, is this literacy learning? What about drawings, images, are these literacy as well?

When reading Yu's (2006) article, it reminds me of my literacy learning experience when I was in Kindergarten in China. Students were asked to repeat exactly what the teacher was reading. This is the method that Chinese teachers often use in childen's literacy practice which is totally different from the concept of "emergent literacy". When Yu (2006) indicates that applying "emergent literacy" to children's learning make better results of children's early literacy ability, I question it because children are all different and they have their own ways of learning. How can we making all the children to fit into one particular learning style? Are we forcing children to fit in what we think is "best" practice for their learning?