Sarah Hirsch

Ana Fierro
TLS 312 Spring 16
10 May 2016
Child and Family Language and Literacy Development Case Study
Section A
My case study child is a female in my PACE preschool classroom who is 4 years
old. This child enjoys singing and incorporates the vocabulary that she learns from these
songs into her language. She enjoys the dramatic play area of our classroom and engages
her classmates with her imaginative vocabulary. This family values keeping their
children active and they like to do this mainly through outdoor activities in their
community. My case study child was raised in an English household but her father
knows Spanish as well. A large part of this childs literacy is the numerous pictures that
are scattered all over this familys walls. This child associates a story with each of the
pictures and is able to tell you each story when questioned. This shows how she is able
to pull from an experience with her family and connect it with a literacy practice. My
case study family keeps their children active through team sports that impact their
language development, physical development, and social development. The family
decided to put my case study child in softball earlier this year. This has had a tremendous
impact on her development because she has typically shown shy behavior and does not
speak much to her peers or teachers. The mother has mentioned to me that she thinks her
participation in a team sport will help her break out of her shell a little more. I think that
this will have a positive impact on her development in all aspects. I think that her

participating in an activity that has such a strong team aspect with continue to strengthen
her language development. I have noticed that since she has started softball, her behavior
in the classroom has begun to change. She is much more outgoing and she is speaking
much more to her peers and teachers. I am also beginning to hear some softball
vocabulary and behaviors in her play in the classroom. Through activities that I have
done with this child throughout the year, I have learned that she has very good print
awareness. I have learned that she tends to associate the different places in her
community by the colors of their logos or the first letter they start with.
In their home, the two daughters play with barbies quite frequently. This is a
piece of pretend play, which is vital to young childrens development. I was worried that
this area might be lacking in my case study childs development since I never really see
her in our dramatic play area of the classroom for extended periods of time. Now that I
know that she participates in this aspect at home, I better see why she chooses the areas
of the classroom that she does. The mother will give this child homework to do when
she comes home so that her older sister can concentrate on her own homework. The
mother has told me that this consists of her writing her name, different words, and
numbers. Because of this, I have noticed that her writing skills have progressed
exceptionally throughout the year and that she has taken an even greater interest in the
written language through asking how to write other words and seeking those types of
activities out. She is also able to point out words she knows well and also different letters
in the print that she is able to see around her school community. At home, my case study
child always has exposure to books and literacy practices around books. The mother has
told me that this child loves to look through books and to have them read to her. I have

noticed that throughout this year she has begun to develop the ability to recall a storyline
to particular books and is actually able to read some books word for word based on what
the pictures in the books are telling her. This has also helped in her development of being
able to critique a work of literature. She is now able to tell me if she does not like
something about the literacy and is able to articulate why she does not like it. The childs
enjoyment of singing songs at home has taught her how to recognize rhyming words and
identify them when she hears them. She will frequently tell me now if she hears two
words that rhyme while I am speaking to her. This family frequents the library in their
community and the mother has told me how much the child enjoys just looking at the
different types of print available to her.
For the two Kidwatching activities, I decided to look for something that would
push my case study child while also showing me a side of her literacy that I have not seen
before. The first activity I did with her was a worksheet that focused on the concepts of
written and pictorial representation. This one mainly focused on her beliefs of writing
and her own practices of writing. The second activity I did with her had to do with
printed literacy, such as books. For this one, I gave my case study child two different
books and asked her questions about what she thought was trying to be told just based on
what she could understand from the books.
As an educator, I have learned the importance of the community on the
development of the child. I never truly thought of the community as being a second
educator, but that is exactly what it is. I feel that understanding the community is what
really helps cement those relationships between your students, families, and yourself. I
also now understand how to use the community and what the children are exposed to, to

better teach them and help them make connections from the known to the unknown. I
have also learned the importance of knowing how home engagements can positively
affect your classroom and how you approach families. I think they also develop a sense
of understanding on the educators side as well as on the familys side.
Section B
For this lesson, I would like to create individual picture-vocabulary word puzzles
for each of the children using pictures that they bring from home. I would like to do this
to bring a piece of their community into the classroom and to implement the different
form of literacy that is pictures. This will support the childrens learning of letters, how
letters come together to form words, and of being able to connect a word to a bigger
meaning. The students would need to bring pictures from home which could allow
families to fit some school involvement into their busy schedules without having to
actually make time to help in the classroom (Otto, 388). I will send home a note in all the
childrens cubbies asking families to take some time to go through pictures with their
children and choose 5 to bring with them to school to share with their class. This gives
the families a chance to have conversations with their student, which has a strong impact
on their later emergent reading and writing (Otto, 393).
The goals I have for this activity are for the students to bring in their pictures and
be able to share the story or memory behind that picture. Another goal is for them to
learn new letters and be able to understand the concept of putting letters together to form
words. Another goal is to expand on their current vocabulary by adding more words that
they may have not known. For this activity I will need 5 pictures from each student,
scissors, a laminator, typed vocabulary words, and journals. Once the students bring in

their pictures, I will have them share what is happening in the pictures in a large group
setting with their peers. Once all students have shared, I will then ask each student to
describe their picture in one word. This word will become the vocabulary word that goes
with this picture. I will take the students pictures and words and cut each picture into
vertical strips that correspond with the number of letters in the vocabulary word. For
example, if the students word is surfing, then that picture would be cut into seven
strips for each letter of the word surfing. I will glue each letter onto the bottom of each
strip and then laminate them so they wont rip or tear from use. After all of the pictures
have been turned into this type of vocabulary picture puzzle, I will do a small group
activity with the students where they will put their picture puzzles together. After they
have assembled their puzzle, I will ask if they know what their vocabulary word is. If
they dont then I will remind them what it says. All the students will write their words
down in their journals to be able to take home to show their families what vocabulary
words they are learning. This is an activity that the students can revisit throughout the
year and we could even swap out pictures for new ones if they want to continue to extend
their learning.
Section C
For the family and community literacy event at Ochoa, my group decided to have
children explore literacy through art while using different types of materials to create
their art. We provided the children with small individual pieces of paper and also larger
pieces in the event that they wanted to make a collaborative piece with some of their
peers. The materials that the students had available to them to explore were sponges,
paintbrushes, leaves, feathers, yarn, and their hands. The children could use acrylic paint,

watercolors, finger paints, or tempera paint cakes. We explained to the children about
what they could paint and what materials they could use. We showed some of the
children how they could potentially utilize the materials, but ultimately left it up to them
on how they wanted to make their art. We would ask them questions to hypothesize what
they thought the different materials would look like on the paper and about potential
ways they could be used. While they created their works, we stood by observing and
asking questions about what they were creating. Some children would tell us a simple
answer such as lines or rainbow where as one girl was recreating the entire scene from
the movie Tangled where she is in the tower and her hair is flowing in the wind. By the
children being able to talk about their art and describe what they were doing with the
materials, they were engaging through their use of language of the spoken story. We also
asked them to write their names on their papers so that we would be able to return their
paintings to them once they had dried. We had one student who wanted to explore this
center for the entire time while others trickled in and out of the center. We chose to do
this literacy engagement because Ochoa is a very rich art environment and we felt that
this type of engagement would connect well to the students larger community. This
supports my teaching as an educator in the sense that I am able to see how many different
ways that literacy could be supported and shown in my classroom. Through this
experience, I will also be able to better support the presence of the community
environment in my classroom.
For my two Kidwatching activities with my case study child, I chose one that
focused on the writing aspect of language and one that focused on the printed aspect of
language. The first activity that I did with my case study child was on the worksheet that

is on page 117 of the Kidwatching book. I brought my case study child to our school
library and gave her the option of choosing whether she wanted to sit at a table, on the
carpet, or on the couch. She chose to sit at one of the tables. The first question on the
worksheet stated to have a variety of materials for the child to write with so I brought
three different types of paper of varying sizes and makes and a variety of pencils, pens,
and markers. I asked her to write something and she wrote a backwards C, and I and
a heart. I then asked her to read me what she wrote and she told me that it said, I love
you. She told me that she wrote this for her sister because she loves her. I then asked
her to write a letter. She looked at me a bit confused and I explained that she could write
a letter from the alphabet or a letter to a family member. She wrote down I, then A,
and then a Y. I asked her what she writes when she is at home and she told me that she
writes, I love you and draw pictures. I then asked her what she writes when she is at
school. She told me that she writes pictures of her family. I asked her why she thinks
that people write stuff and she told me they write for their mommies and their daddies. I
then asked her what kinds of things do they write and she told me they write I love you or
family or rainbow. I then asked her to write me those things. She drew a rainbow for the
word rainbow and she wrote the I, backwards C and drew a heart for I love you
again. This is when I made the connection that this child uses symbols in her writing for
words that she does not yet possess the skills to write with alphabetical letters. I then
asked her to draw me a picture and she drew two stick figures with long hair. One stick
figure was significantly larger than the other one. When I asked her what she drew, she
told me that she drew the two of us. I then asked her to look at the paper where she had
done all of this work so far. I asked her to show me where her writing was on the paper

and she pointed to where she wrote rainbow and I love you. When asked to show me
where her drawing was, she pointing to the two stick figures of us. I asked her if the
drawing was the same as the writing and she told me that they look different. I asked her
why they looked different and she pointed to her writing and said this one is normal and
then points to her drawing and says this is of you and me. The next part of the worksheet
had me cut out different words and symbols and ask my case study child which was
writing. I presented it to her as a game. She seemed to just guess and her answers for
what was writing was a mixture of the symbols and the words. I then asked her to write
her name, which she wrote on her paper. I asked if she knew how to write anybody elses
names and she told me that she didnt know how to write anybodys name. I then wrote
three names on the back of a paper, one of which was her name and asked her to point to
her name. She looked at the paper for a short amount of time and then pointed to her
name. I told her that we were done with this activity and then asked if I could keep her
paper that she did her writing on and she said yes.
For the second activity, I chose one that focused on the printed language. I used
the supplemental questions for extending book-handling knowledge found on page 47 in
the Kidwatching book. I brought two different books to this activity. I brought a nonfiction book about baby animals and I brought the fictional book Five Little Monkeys
Jumping on the Bed. I placed both books in front of her and asked her what they were
called. She told me that they were books. I then asked her what is inside books. She
told me that there are pictures inside books. I asked why people read books and she said
it was because they wanted to. I then took the five little monkeys book away and gave
her the book about the baby animals. I then asked her why she thought that they author

wrote this book. I opened the book up so she could see what was inside the book. She
told me that they wrote it because they wanted them to learn about animals. I then closed
the book and asked her to show me what she does when she reads books. She opened the
book and began turning the pages one by one. I asked her how she decided to start at the
beginning of the book and she showed me how she physically started at the beginning by
closing the book and starting over. I then asked her to read some of this book to me. I
asked her to look at the pictures to help her read it. She would narrate what each of the
baby animals was doing on the pages, such as the bunnies are eating and hopping. She
read a few pages to me and then I asked her what she could do if she didnt want to read
all the words in the book. She told me that she just looks at the book when she doesnt
want to read all of the words. I asked her how she finds out what is happening in the
book and she told me that it shows it in the pictures. I then took the baby animals book
away and gave her the five little monkeys book. I asked her if she knew what book it was
and she told me it was the four little monkeys jumping on the bed. I asked why she
thought the author wrote this book and she told me it was so the people could learn about
funny books. I then asked her to read me this book. She started the book saying four
instead of five but quickly realized her miscue and started saying five. She was able to
read the book correctly page by page. After each monkey fell off the bed she would
count the number of monkeys pictured in order to find out the next number to start the
chant with. I thanked her for reading me the book when she was finished and told her we
were all done with our activities and that we could go back to class now.
This experience supports my teaching as an educator through learning about
different ways to see how kids might interpret forms of literacy. It also showed me the

different ways children might see forms of literacy. For example, my case study child
wrote words in the form of a symbol if she wasnt sure how to write it alphabetically. I
think that I will always keep this in mind when working with small children around the
topic of language and literacy. This experience has also showed me how much children
are able to perceive from what they see around their home and the practices that reflect
their home life. My case study child is frequently read to and this showed in her ability
to read me Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed with very minimal miscues and no
help from me. I feel that this perfectly reflected how her home life has bridged over to
her school life and vice versa. I will keep this experience in mind to use with my future
students in my teaching practices to make my classroom as literacy rich as possible to
support their language development.

Pictures from Ochoa Community Event

Pictures From Kidwatching Activities

Works Cited
Otto, Beverly. Language Development in Early Childhood Education. 4th ed. Upper
Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2014. Print.
Owocki, Gretchen, and Yetta M. Goodman. Kidwatching: Documenting Childrens
Literacy Development. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002. Print.