Literacy is Social!

Who knew that there are so many modes and ways of learning through literacy! To expand, movement and sound allow children to express themselves and ideas more thoroughly than they are able to do with talking, drawing or text alone! This was a really fascinating concept to me. I pondered this for some time, and wondered why that is. It made me think of some observations I had made last semester during field experience. During music circle time, we were all singing along with a song about a caterpillar. Then, instantly one little boy lit up and darted over pointing to a picture of a caterpillar on the wall. It was such a bright observation for him to make, that he could barely speak, yet was clearly able to grasp the meaning and connection of the word caterpillar with the picture of one. According to the article, this is a process, or transmediation that the child is accomplishing. Through music, movement, sound, and noise, a child is then able to "walk around in story settings...look at objects from the vantage points of book characters." This is truly fascinating, because not only does the imagination play such a huge role in learning and literacy, but the author then goes on to explain that before writing any language, children can "express their previous knowledge, construct new knowledge, and communicate regardless of their facility with English." Thus, this is a natural process for children, and more importantly has a tremendous affect on how children develop their literacy skills.