Connecting With My Community

This quarter has been somewhat of a challenge with me trying to get back in the swing of school and balancing everything else in my life. For me this is a busy time because it is the end of the school year.  I am grateful for everything that I have learned thus far. I am now able to look at my daughter and look for milestones. My family looks at me as a resource for family members with younger children.

My passion is ensuring that pre-k is mandatory in my home state of North Carolina. This passion grew from me watching many children come into my class behind because they did not attend a preschool program through our county schools. This children struggle to catch up throughout the year often times not meeting the end of year goal.

I would love to connect with colleagues, however I share a similar experience like Stacie. Fear often holds me back from connecting with others.  I would like to change things around by overcoming fear. I would like to thank everyone for sharing during these past weeks, your insights have been very helpful to me. I look forward to working with everyone in future classes and wish you all the best of luck! Keep pressing towards your goals and dreams!

Your Personal Language and Literacy Development Journey

One memory that I have is with my own child. At seven months she begin trying to repeat words and sounds that she heard. You could make out her saying “dada”. She also tried to say her uncle’s name Samuel and John. She would match up the syllables to their name. I wanted to make sure she that she has a love for reading so I not only read to her but I encourage everyone around her to read to her as well. She has also found a love for the letter a song I let her listen to on YouTube. Through this class I have a better understanding of language milestones for my child. According to research I have found it is good that I allow her to listen to letter sound songs. Before infants are ready to speak their first word, they listen attentively to the sounds around them (Pence Turnbull, K. L., & Justice, L. M., 2012).  The articles and information from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association was very helpful in helping me know what my child should be doing at each age category.  

One topic I would like to know more about and advocate for is effects of the lack of preschool programs. According to “The State of Preschool Yearbook”, North Carolina lacks access to preschool, however, the programs that they do have received a perfect score of 10 in quality. North Carolina only serves 23 percent of its 4- year- old. NEA, which is the National Education Association, has the same belief as me, which is that public schools have a duty to be the main provider of preschool programs, and supplementary funding should be allocated to fund them in the same way as K-12 schools. It is my desire that all students will have a successful educational journey. Achievement in school influences success in life.

 

References

Pence Turnbull, K. L., & Justice, L. M. (2012). Language development from theory to practice (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, Inc.

Pre-K Access Lacking in Many Rural States, Report Says ... (n.d.). Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rural_education/2014/05/pre-k_access_lacking