The Development of Written Language Awareness in Black Preschool Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the development of written language awareness in black preschool children enrolled in a day-care environment. Subjects were three-, four-, and five-year-olds from an urban community. Data were collected in three individual interviews using environmental print, printed stimuli, manipulative materials, and storybooks in a sequence of semistructured tasks. Additionally, samples of the subjects' attempts at writing were analyzed. The following concepts pertaining to written language were measured: knowledge about the purposes of print, awareness of the conventions of the writing system (e.g., linearity, horizontality, directionality), development of book orientation concepts, development of letter and word concepts, knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, evidence of beginning reading. The children's performance indicated both general and specific information about their written language competence, with five-year-olds performing significantly better than three-year-olds on some measures.

Aboriginal Student Empowerment through the Oorala Aboriginal Centre at the University of New England

“…Lankshear (1991:216) maintains that schooling is a ritual system in which children of disadvantaged groups, such as Aborigines, are most likely to be induced into failure. Low retention rates in primary, secondary and tertiary education, fewer educational qualifications and lower levels of literacy attainment than the general Australian population (Morgan, 1987), as well as frustration of group aspirations through system bias are evident in all Aboriginal populations in contemporary Australia, and accordizA to Eckermann et al (1992), may be illustrative ofstructural violence, violence inherent in the social order.…”

The influence of environmental print on preschoolers’ literacy development in a two-alphabets’ society

“…McGee, Lomax & Head, 1988). In addition, although preschoolers tend to identify the labels as either categories (toothpaste) or functions (to clean teeth) (Goodman & Altwerger, 1981;Morgan, 1987), they gradually move from gross approximations about print to conventional reading looking for individual words and letters.…”

Concepciones tempranas acerca del lenguaje escrito en prelectores

“…Asimismo, se han aportado algunas respuestas a otra cuestión: ¿qué saben los prelectores sobre el lenguaje escrito?. En la actualidad sabemos que antes de iniciar el aprendizaje formal de la lectura y la escritura, los niños tienen algunos conocimientos acerca de la direccionalidad, el manejo de libros, y la diferenciación entre lenguaje escrito y otras clases de configuraciones visuales (Clemente y Dominguez, 1993;Lomax y McGee, 1987;Morgan, 1987;Sulzby, 1985). El descubrimiento de algunas funciones del lenguaje escrito se manifiesta a partir de los 2 años, incluso a los 3 años en situaciones de juego espontáneo (Kastler, Roser y Hoffman, 1987;Neuman y Roskos, 1989).…”

“…Los términos más conocidos son letra, número, línea superior y escrito (Downing, Ayers y Schaefer, 1978). En general, los conocimientos del lenguaje escrito parecen ir aumentando entre los 3 y 5 años, al analizar su desarrollo durante este período se encuentra que a los 5 años el conocimiento del lenguaje escrito es significativamente superior al de los 3 años (Morgan, 1987). Este patrón de aumento progresivo de los conocimientos sobre lo escrito se da también entre los 5 y 6 años de edad.…”