Enagagement+with+an+early+years+literacy+learner

=Literacy background:= The child interviewed was a student that attended a state school, and was currently undergoing year 2. He comes from a low socio economic background, with only one parent being literate. He rarely gets stories read to him, and doesn’t witness any books being read by any of his family members. The child interviewed showed no real interest in reading. His responses in the reading interest survey as well as his reluctance to wanting to read a story that was new to him, demonstrates this. When asked the question “When do you like to read?” He replied with “Kind of never, I only read my reader because I have to” His knowledge of why people read was also absent: “Why do people read?” “I have no idea” When asked what he likes to read, he answered with “Pictures of Lego”



The Reading fluency rubric was used to assess his reading fluency Majority of the child’s reading level was at Level 2 on the Reading Fluency rubric. The child read mostly word-by-word but he also had some 2-word phrases included in his reading (Level 2) the child struggled with some of the words, and at the beginning of reading made no attempt to try and figure them out. When stuck on a word, he would often say “I don’t know” or “Can you just tell me?” But when told to sound the word out together, he understood what each word meant. There was some awareness of punctuation and layout of the print //Level 2//. He would pause at commas, but would often ignore question marks; consequently some of the emphasis and meaning of the text were lost. There was some expressive interpretation. He used volume where there Was repetition of the title “I HATE YOU” however there was no other expressive interpretation throughout the remainder of the text. There was some awareness of emphasis on appropriate words to reflect the meaning of the text (Level 2) The child had problems with his ‘D’ and ‘B’ often getting the two mixed up, he also pronounced his ‘T’ as ‘TH’.

His comprehension of the story was good. He answered the 3 types of questions accurately relating to the text. He didn’t need to use the book to gather his answers, which indicated good comprehension of the story. Literal Q-What couldn’t Leo’s mummy stop yelling? A- No!

Q-What did Leo draw on his wall? A- Leo drew a picture of his mummy. It was a bad picture and he wasn’t allowed to draw it. It made her angry

Interpretive Q-What made Leo the maddest? A- His mother saying No to everything he done. He didn’t like her saying it in his bedroom.

Q-What was it that made Leo’s mummy really upset? A- When Leo said that he hated her. It hurt her feelings. You can see she is upset because her head is down in the picture and her arms are out.

Inferential Q-If Leo drew another picture of his mummy like the 1st picture, what do you think would have happened? A- He would have been grounded and made to say sorry.

Q-Do you think Leo was wrong saying he hates his mummy? A- Yes! Because he actually loves his mummy, and you don’t say mean things to people you love.

When asked to retell the story by writing it down on a piece of paper, he didn’t write a great quantity, but of what he did write, it conveyed the main climax of the story. His drawing of the story was also similar to his retelling of the story, his main focus on Leo saying “I HATE YOU” and his mother’s reaction to this. From the sample of work taken and the questions answered, it seemed that the child did comprehend what had happened in the story. As described in Hill “young children make meaning from both the print and the illustration in texts they read” (Hill 2006, p 190.) This is clearly evident from his answer to the interpretive question Q- What was it that made Leo’s mummy really upset? A- When Leo said that he hated her. It hurt her feelings. You can see she is upset because her head is down in the picture and her arms are out.

He had based his interpretive answer on the text and the illustration accompanying it. Just how Hill had discussed.