Week 4: A Language and Literacy Development Journey Part 1: Conceptualizing Your Child

Week 4: A Language and Literacy Development Journey Part 1: Conceptualizing Your Child
For Part 1 of your Assignment, you will use the document titled A Language and Literacy Development Journey Outline to conceptualize a child you would like to write about. Is the child a girl or a boy? Based on what you know about child development as well as language and literacy development, how could you meld your interests related to language development and literacy to create a realistic story that explains your child’s language development journey from the prenatal stage through third grade? What will your child’s strengths be? What will his or her challenges be related to language and literacy development?
Before you begin, consider your child’s context—that is, who your child is from conception onward, including details about your child’s life in the womb and early childhood years, and his or her home life, family, community life/culture(s), and home language(s). Your child’s language development journey should include not only his or her context and the way that context has influenced, and will continue to influence, language acquisition, language development, and literacy, but also how your child’s language and literacy developed over time. You will need to include information and examples related to your child’s language/literacy milestones, developmental stages, and overlap of developmental domains, including specific factors that supported and, as applicable, inhibited your child’s language acquisition, language development, and literacy. In addition, you will want to detail familial and cultural influences on your child’s language and literacy development. Remember, you are creating a story with details, examples, and situations that make your child who he or she is as a unique individual. At the same time, the language development journey you create must be grounded in research-based information.
Just as this module is split into four distinct developmental stages (prenatal and infancy, toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergarteners), so too is Part 1 of your Assignment. As you study the material in each week, consider how you will build each developmental stage of your child’s language development journey. You will complete the sections as follows:
Section 3: Toddlers (about 1 to 3 years old) (4 pages)
To prepare
• Review the document titled A Language and Literacy Development Journey Outline.
• Review the Kaltura instructions presented in the course navigation menu. Take time to view the tutorials and consider which might work best for your story and technical expertise.
• Think of a child you may know or a type of child to whom you may feel drawn.
• Review the resource from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (n.d.). Take your time reviewing the milestones and suggested activities for each stage.