Acquisition Of Literacy Skills In Children

The way in which young children acquire literacy skills has been a topic of fascination for linguists for decades. Although many people view learning to write as a natural and inherent process like learning to talk, studies have also shown the important role that society plays on the process. As David Crystal states " Writing is seen as an integral part of the process of learning, and not simply as an ancillary function.." (D.Crystal (1987) p.264). Children are actively making sense of the world around them from a very young age and this means also discovering the way in which their community and family functions. By observing their environment in this way they then start to develop an awareness of literacy, from seeing the everyday street signs in their neighborhood, to the family shopping lists or birthday cards, "from an early age, they are seen as actively involved in working out the literacy practices around them" (P.Czerniewska (2007) p.79). Studies have shown that even if children have no awareness of what words or symbols mean, they are still absorbing the information. For example, Cambourne and Turbill 1987 presented a case study of a four year old girl who had written letters from her own name but had no recognition of them being as such, therefore demonstrating she had absorbed the information at some point, without being "literate" in the same sense as older children. (P.Czerniewska (2007) p.80). As another example, figure 2 from Isaac aged 3;6 again shows that although the child cannot yet clearly write in a structured style, he was able once prompted by his mother to create patterns with his pen that resemble the letters in his name. This quality whereby children become "literate almost from birth in a world of environmental print" (P. Czerniewska (2007) p.81) has been named emergent literacy and it shows how closely related the role of society and children's' acquisition of literacy skills really are. So important is the role of society and the community for the acquisition of literacy that psychologist Jerome Bruner stated "..most learning in most settings is a communal activity, a sharing of the culture." (Bruner, 1986 cited by P.Czerniewska (2007) p.83). Bruner believed that the learning of these skills is therefore a "collaborative venture" between the child and its community. The researcher Shirley Brice Heath also did some research into the role of the child's social environment on the child's literacy acquisition. She studied three different communities in the US and discovered that all children may end up "taking different paths to literacy" (Heath cited by Czerniewska (2007) p.84). Heath noted from her research that the communities all showed slightly different variations in the way that they used language. For example, in the black working class community she studied it was unusual to hear adults asking a child a question that they already knew the answer to, nor use the very common "baby talk" which many communities adopt when talking to a younger child. (Heath as part of U211 DVD 2 19.3). The texts in this community were not simplified for the children and so in a sense the children were left to their own devices in terms of literacy at home, however, they were able to recognize the literacy in environmental print, such as shop signs and posters. Although the community in which the child lives plays a big part in the development of literacy, it cannot be denied that there are always individual differences between each child and their concept of literacy. Each child has to learn about writing systems through trial and error and by creating their own hypotheses about what writing practices are. Whilst undertaking this task children may mix in logograms and pictograms - the symbols and pictures which occur in everyday life but which adults learn to "filter out" (Czerniewska (2007) p.87). Figure 3, the piece of writing by Alexandra aged 3;10 shows this mixed use of recognizable letters as well as common symbols such as that of a balloon shape at the top of the page. The piece of writing is in the genre of an invitation to a party and it is quite possible that the child had seen the balloon shape in another form of environmental print relating to a party at some point. Pieces of writing from young children often show a combination of semiotic systems where by they use numbers, letters and pictures as a form of emergent literacy. Figure 3 again is a good example of this as you can clearly see evidence of numbers, letters and of course the balloon shaped images as well as straight and curved lines. Figure 3.5 on page 89 of Learning English by Czerniewska is another example of a child's creative use of semiotic systems. The child has used pictures of pumpkins, letters and musical notes as a representation of a ghost song. (Czerniewska (2007) p.89 figure 3.5). Gradually through the influence of the education system and the classroom, children start to move away from emergent literacy. They start to learn the different contexts and purposes of writing. David Crystal states "writing is used for an indefinitely large number of purposes..Children have to learn about these purposes and how the functional differences affect the nature of the language that is used." (Crystal (1987) p.264). Where as previously children have been writing purely for pleasure, they now need to develop different forms of genre and develop their lexical density. For example, figure 1 titled "Not writing just scribbling" is just that, it is a 3;6 year old child writing purely for pleasure and for perhaps the physical practice. There is no real strong purpose to the writing other than for the child's enjoyment. Figure 2 goes a little further however. The child here is starting to develop a sense of genre as his mother reminds him of when he wrote his name on a card in the past. The writing has the patterns of letters in it and is therefore going slightly beyond simply writing for pleasure. However, after reading the contextual information given, it must also be added that the child did have some significant prompting in this case and so perhaps it is not so much a valid example of the child's literacy development. Figure 3 shows a clear sense of genre. The child has specifically sat down to write an invitation to a party and although the child is only 4 months older, you can see they clearly have progressed on to having a more contextual idea of writing practices. The examples I have described are clear examples of the transition between emergent literacy and writing with a clear sense of genre. However, the particular cultures in which children are growing up in does have a big effect on the way in which they not only acquire literacy but also the knowledge they hold about literacy in general. Not all children grow up with only one language for example, many children are billiterate and therefore grow up learning different skills about language structures. Kenner, 2004 has been one of the most influential researchers into this area, and carried out a study on billiterate children in London. Kenner aimed to discover more about the way in which billiterate children acquire writing skills. By studying three different children from different language communities she was able to notice that billiterate children do acquire different skills. Not only do billiterate children acquire their languages but they are also able to explore any connections between different writing systems and therefore have these "embodied knowledges" and a great metalinguistic awareness. Kenner also discovered that billiterate children find it easier to "adapt to different contexts, drawing on their multisemiotic resources in ways they found appropriate." (Kenner 2004 cited by Czerniewska (2007) p.107). Kenner most importantly put forth the idea of billiterate children having a "literacy ecosystem", a term that she coined to describe the way in which "different members of the family would contribute to the children's learning with the knowledge and skills that they had available.." therefore providing a support network for the child. (Kenner as part of an interview for the U211 DVD 2 19.6). The development of literacy skills is a topic which seems to generate a public debate on a regular basis. Even the government changes its mind as to how literacy is best taught in schools. Research by those such as Goodman et al and Smith 1978 has lead to schools now not only relying on pronunciation lessons and repetition as a technique of teaching literacy but a new method of involving more books and story time so that the child develops the pronunciation as well as the context that they are reading. Perhaps English is a much harder language to learn in comparison to those which are logographic such as Chinese? Or maybe, just like speaking, literacy is a difficult skill to acquire and one that's made even more difficult without the aid of the community and education system.