Children's Concepts About Print
Concepts about print can be divided into three distinct aspects: (a) the functional aspects of print, (b) the mapping aspects of print, and (c) the technical aspects of print.
Concepts about print can be divided into three distinct aspects: (a) the functional aspects of print, (b) the mapping aspects of print, and (c) the technical aspects of print.
Functions of Print
There are 10 purposes of functions of language.
There are 10 purposes of functions of language.
- Instrumental "I want" - is used as a means of getting things and satisfying
material needs. Examples - classified ads, notes, sign-up sheets,
applications, bills, invoices, etc. - Regulatory "Do as I tell you" - used to control the attitudes, behaviors, and feelings of others. Examples - traffic signs, procedures, policies, traffic tickets, prompts, etc.
- Interactional "Me and you" - used as a means of getting along with others and establishing relative status. Examples - Love notes, invitations, dialogue journals, friendly letters, etc.
- Personal "Here I come" - used to express individuality, awareness of self, and pride. Examples - Opinion papers, letters to the editor, etc.
- Heuristic "Tell me why" - used to seek and test world knowledge. Examples - Letters of Inquiry, requests, registration forms, etc.
- Imaginative "Let's pretend" - used as a means of creating new worlds and making up stories and poems. Examples - Stories, tall tales and yarns.
- Representational "I have something to tell you" - used for communicating information, providing discriptions and expressing propositions. Examples - Arguments, lists, problem-solving, etc.
- Divertive "Enjoy this" - used for humor and fun. Example - Puns, jokes, and riddles.
- Authoritative/Contractual "This is how it must be" - used to communicate rules. Examples - Statutes, laws and regulations.
- Perpetuating "How it was" - (Records) - Examples - Personal histories, diaries, journals, scrapbooks, etc.
Mapping Speech onto Print
The ability to match or map speech sounds onto printed symbols (letters) develops slowly. Mapping involves several important skills that the student learns. *Understanding that speech can be written down and read and that what is written down can be spoken. *Awareness of print in the environment and ability to read at least some signs and logos. *Understanding that the message of the text is constructed more from the print than the pictures. *Knowledge that written language uses different structures from spoken language. *Comprehension that the length of a spoken word is usually related to the length of the written word. *Insight that one written word equals one spoken word. *Identification of correspondences between spoken sounds and written symbols. *Ability to use context and other language-related clues to construct meaning and identity words. |
Technical Aspects of Print
"Technical aspects of print" refers to the rules that govern written language. Levels of Language Concepts Ordinal *First, second, third and so on *Beginning *Last *Book *Paragraph *Sentence *Word *Letter Visual Clues embedded in Books and Print *Cover, spine, pages *Margin, indentations *Spacing *Print size *Punctuation Location Concepts *Top *Bottom *Left *Right *Beginning (front, start, initial) *Middle (center, medial, in between) *End (back, final) |
Assessing Children's Concepts About Print
*Concepts about Print Test - The concepts about Print Test was developed to assess children's mapping and technical aspects of print knowledge, such as letter, word, sentence, story directionality, text versus picture and punctuation.
*Reading Environmental Print - this task is designed to assess students' ability to read commonplace or "highly frequent" print assessable in their local and daily environment, such as signs in the school like STOP, EXIT, or NO SMOKING.
*Mow Motorcycle Task taps students' awareness of the basic mapping relationship between speech and print.
*Metalinguistic Interview is a set of questions designed to assess children's understanding of academic or instructional language, that is, language teachers use in instruction as they talk about printed language in books and displayed everywhere.
*The Burke Reading Interview is designed to help you discover what students understood about the reading process and the strategies students use to unlock unknown words and construct meaning.
*Concepts about Print Test - The concepts about Print Test was developed to assess children's mapping and technical aspects of print knowledge, such as letter, word, sentence, story directionality, text versus picture and punctuation.
*Reading Environmental Print - this task is designed to assess students' ability to read commonplace or "highly frequent" print assessable in their local and daily environment, such as signs in the school like STOP, EXIT, or NO SMOKING.
*Mow Motorcycle Task taps students' awareness of the basic mapping relationship between speech and print.
*Metalinguistic Interview is a set of questions designed to assess children's understanding of academic or instructional language, that is, language teachers use in instruction as they talk about printed language in books and displayed everywhere.
*The Burke Reading Interview is designed to help you discover what students understood about the reading process and the strategies students use to unlock unknown words and construct meaning.