Last week was our first week together, and we worked on "Concept of Print." We did an assessment where she had to show me the correct way to hold a book, show the different components of the book (front, back, author, illustrator, etc.), show in which direction to read print (left to right) and the concept of return sweep (when we get to the end of a line, we start back at the left side), show knowledge of words, letters, lower-case letters, upper-case letters, punctuation (periods, commas, question marks, exclamation marks), and so on. I am so proud and amazed to say that my cousin got every single one of these concepts right.
After this assessment, we read the picture book "I See the Moon and the Moon Sees Me," written by Jonathan London and illustrated by Peter Fiore. We started off discussing the illustrations on the front cover and how the pictures throughout the book help to understand the meaning of the text. So on the first page of the book, I read the text and then prompted how the illustration on that page helped the reader understand what was going on. My cousin was able to do this, and she continued to do this for every page without me even having to prompt her.
It is really important for readers to use the pictures given to them to fully understand what the author is saying, so for every time I meet with my cousin and we read a picture book, we are going to analyze all the pictures in relation to the text. I believe that if we continue to do this the entire semester, she will learn to do this on her own every time she reads a story that includes illustrations.
i also am in Te 301. In the course I am working with a first grader. During our first session together we did the assessment on concepts of print. This is something that kindergartners should have an understanding of. My first grader was able to understand which way to read, return sweep, he knew the difference in letters and words and punctuation. Even though he had all of the concepts down he had a difficult time reading the text. He was unable to read words that were longer and he could not sound out certain words and words that he did attempt to sound out he could not. He is not at the first grade level when it comes to reading. He does enjoy being read to and wants to know how to read but he gets frustrated when he does not know how to do something and he often times gives up on a task that seems too difficult.
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