Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Observing and Interacting With Families of the Children in Your Settings

During my observation I sat down and interacted with a Spanish speaking family.  The mother spoke a little English and the child didn't have any language at all.  The teacher told me that the child has a speech therapist that comes in and work with him.  Just so happen while I was there the speech therapist came in the classroom.  The teacher told me that I could sit off in a quiet area and watch the child and the therapist interact. The therapist sat down with the child and did one on one activities with the child on language.  After the therapist left I sat down with the parent and talked to her about language told the parent that I was doing my research paper for my class on literacy.  I asked the parent how often do she read at home and she told me that she read every ay only in Spanish.  I spoke with the teacher and asked her if I could give the parent some activities to do at home with the child dealing with language.  The teacher told me that it was okay so I gave the parents the activities to do with the child at home.  The teacher started the children with their writing and reading activities.  One insight that I gained from my observation was seeing how the child language really develop while working with the speech therapist.  The child was able to pronounce the words that were the cards that was shown to him.  Another insight was that the parent did read to the child but only in Spanish at home.  I asked the teacher was the child beng confused with the language and she told me no because she pair the child up with a English and Spanish child to do reading with.

3 comments:

  1. What a timely post, you just happened to be in the right place at the right time, how wonderful. Literacy is a good topic to do a research paper on. I was wondering what type of activities did you give the parent and did you ask her why she was reading to the child in Spanish only at home since they could both benefit from her reading in English? What type of setting was your observation in.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even if the parent is reading to the child in Spanish at least the child is seeing the words and making connections to the words in print to what she hears. Spanish is her native tongue and even though she may be a student that is an English Language Learner she has an understanding of literacy in her native language. Transitioning to English will go much smoother.

      Delete
  2. I also work with parents that have families that speak prodomitily spanish,I care for the child and can't communicate with the parent that is very frusteratring to me. I bought the parent a spanish-english dictionary so that we can try to attemp to communicate with each other. It didnt work, I feel the parent is having a hard time with understanding the language.

    ReplyDelete