Literacy Development

After reading chapter two of Robert Slavin's Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, I better understand human development and how to promote literacy development in elementary and middle school children. The chapter begins by discussing how development is defined. Development, as Slavin defines it, is how people grow, adapt, and change over the course of their lifetimes, through personality development, socioeconomical development, cognitive development, and language development (Slavin, 2020). There is a lot that goes into how a person develops. Still, throughout this chapter and history, the argument is whether the degree of development is affected by experience and whether development proceeds in stages. 

I see how researchers and psychologists believed in stages of development when they began research years ago. However, I think a child's development is determined more by experience and other environmental factors, but their genes are still significant. I also agree that nature and nurture combine to influence development because although nothing can be done about a child's genes, the environment can change (Slavin, 2020). This also coincides with the continuous and discontinuous theories that Slavin discusses in chapter two. The continuous theory focuses more on the environment rather than heredity in determining development, while the discontinuous theory focuses on inborn factors. I can understand how people can believe these theories and back them up with proof of how children have developed. Still, I think there has been a shift in children's development based on the people they are around and their environment throughout their childhood. Both theories can be supported based on how children develop, but I also believe that Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories are more accurate for the time when they were created. Still, over time, these theories have evolved with children as they are developing differently than years ago. I agree with both psychologists that these stages of development can be identified and described, but I do think that some children can develop more slowly or faster based on other factors such as their genes, how much exposure they have had to the environment, how much they are hearing conversations, and learning physical and verbal connections. However, I feel more strongly and passionately about Piaget’s research, a lot of what occurs in each of his four stages of child development you can observe in a childs life, however I do think that as of now and the world children are being born into that their skills develop in different ways and their experiences influence development. As for Vygotsky’s theory, I support his belief that “higher mental functioning exists in conversation, before it exists within the individual (Slavin, 2020). I also support and execute his use of scaffolding every day I am teaching to break down learning for students. 

This leads me to language and literacy development, which I am passionate about as a third-grade reading and writing teacher. Oral language development is heavily influenced by the amount and quality of talking parents do with their children (Slavin, 2020). As a third-grade teacher, I am seeing delays in oral language development, and I assume that parents did not talk to their child a lot because they were preoccupied, most likely by technology, or that the child was spending more time on technology when they should have been developing their oral language. This coincided with a child's reading ability. If they slowly develop oral language skills, it will take longer for that child to develop reading skills. Children who do not learn to read well by the third grade are at risk for long-term problems (Lesnick, 2010). This concept is significantly concerning in the context of my classroom. 

I have observed many students experiencing oral language delays in my third-grade classroom. These delays seem to be caused by multiple factors, such as limited parental conversations, excessive technology exposure, and reduced interpersonal communication skills. To scaffold for these children, I have incorporated daily opportunities for peer dialogue in small groups and partners so that students can converse and expand their vocabulary. Also, to fill some of these reading gaps my students have I reduced technology and increased interactive conversation-driven lessons and created individualized interventions for where my students were based on their phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. I collected data on these components of reading to track their progress throughout the year. 

Based on what I have learned about literacy development and what I have seen in my classroom this year, I will continue educating myself on emerging intervention techniques. Everyone knows that third grade is where you have to “catch the struggling readers,” or they will continue to struggle. I am going to continue to learn about developmental psychology so that I can better meet my students where they are and try to connect with how they are developing. To conclude this post, I want to ask what we need to do as educators to stop the rumor of “catching” students in third grade. If how students develop is based on their age, per Piaget, why do we have so many students who are struggling readers at nine? What are we not doing in the first eight years of their life that we can do to increase their literacy? I have established that it doesn’t matter how they develop; what matters is that, as teachers, all we can do is meet them where they are when they enter our room on day one. 

Resources:

Slavin, R. E. (2020). Educational psychology: Theory and practice (13th ed.).  Pearson Education.