Lang. Arts Development

In language arts development six areas are important to advancing abilities in early and middle child hood. The areas are as follows-Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening, Viewing and Visually Representing. It is important to remember that all of these areas play off of eachother and important for each other's development. Some areas though, like listening and viewing develop before speaking and reading. Reading, beginning with recognition of letters, progressing to words and finally putting words together in sentences that make coherent statements that correspond with spoken language is a progression for primary aged children. The speed of this progression and the climax stage of this progression is a major factor in a child's future academic success. Many inter city and other low income students are reading far below age level, which has implications that reach across the scholastic spectrum. If a student cannot read they are at a disadvantage in every scholastic area, not just language arts. Reading in the area of language arts is a critical skill upon which the first years of elementary school are mainly focused upon. Reading begins generally around first grade and progresses and improves through high school. There are many aspects of reading that are developed and they build off of initial letter recognition. Children learn to read slowly starting before school aged years, the amount a parent spends being read to and other variables influence the level of reading a child will possess when entering school. Most children can recognize product names and words like “stop” that they have been exposed to on a regular basis. Reading builds from letter recognition to phonics where students can sound out words even though they may not know what the word means. Students first learn to read one word at a time while increasing to sentences and connecting the written word to spoken word. The elementary years are the biggest years of advancement in a student's reading...