Draft of Genre Analysis

Language Arts and Literacy in Early Childhood Education

Jennifer McComas

Intermediate Composition

Professor  Oberlin

October 25, 2011

                                              Language Arts and Literacy in Early Childhood Education

     Language Arts and Literacy are very popular subjects both with early childhood professionals and with the public.  Language Arts and Literacy are very important to young children. They need to develop these skills in order to be successful with formal reading and writing in school and later in life. For this reason, it is important for children to start learning language arts and literacy skills at an early age, but you don’t want to push them too hard. If you do, then they may become frustrated or fearful and begin to associate those negative feelings with books, which will no doubt impact their future confidence, interest and joy in books and language.

     When it comes to this issue, both non-professionals and professionals have similar views on the topic. On the side of popular view, information was collected by Lynda Richardson of the New York Times titled Read to Your Baby. Another is by Katlyn Joy, eHow Contributor, titled Parent information on Language and Literacy Development.  The last on the popular side of views is by Amy Cherwin, eHow Contributor, titled Early Childhood Language and Literacy Development. When it comes to the professional views, I found an article titled One-Way Traffic? Connections Between Literacy Practices at Home and in the Nursery. It is written by Jackie Marsh University of Sheffield, and I found it on JSTOR.org. I also found another article on JSTOR.org written by Yange Xue and Samuel J. Meisels called Early Literacy Instruction and Learning in Kindergarten: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999.

     In general, the popular audience all tends to agree on the fact that children need to start learning these skills at a very early age in life due to the fact that this is when they will pick up the quickest on the skills. When it comes to the views of the professional audience, they agree that Language Arts and Literacy need to begin right at birth and that in  children’s early years is  when these skills will develop at a fast rate. You have to start reading to the children, singing with them or playing simple games. These will all help them with learning.

     The professional articles are intended for teachers, other early childhood educators and parents if they really want a better understanding of what Language Arts and Literacy are and what they might see going on in their child’s classroom. These articles inform you of what Language Arts and Literacy are, how you can change things to help children in your classroom, and what other professionals have tried to do in their rooms that have helped. To find these types of articles, you can Google them by typing in “professional articles by early childhood educators.” When it comes to the popular audience, the articles are intended for parents or guardians of young children, whom are concerned about their child’s Language Arts and Literacy skills. These are to inform you of what others that do not work in the field have found out about the topic and what they have done at home to help their children. These articles can be found by Googling “Language Arts and Literacy”. There will be tons for you to look at. The popular audience is likely to know why this issue is so important to the child’s development later in life. The popular audience may want to know how they can help their child’s teacher with the issue at home. The popular audience will want to spend at least several days with the information because it is a lot to take in when you don’t work in the field. The professional audience will likely know how to teach young children Language Arts and Literacy skills, but they may have found other ways to teach them by reading these articles. They may want to find other activities/ways that they can make it more interesting for children to explore. The professional audience will want to spend a couple of hours with the information considering they work with the topic all the time.

     The professional articles are credible because these articles give you real results from studies and researches that have been conducted over the past decade, and because the professional articles are written by people that are in the early childhood education field.  The professional articles give you actual ideas and hints that people have used in their own classroom that have helped their children. The professional articles help evoke concern from the professional audience because everyone in the early childhood field should be doing their best to help make sure that their children are learning the skills. The evidence that is used to support the claims of the information in the professional audience is actual research and studies conducted by people in the field of education. The information is very appropriate coming from fellow professionals, so you know you can believe it. The popular articles, I feel, are not credible at all. The information is coming from people that have no clue about the education field. There is no information collected though research or studies, and the information comes from what they have heard or seen. The popular audience articles evoke the emotion of being upset because the information would not be logical. The evidence used in these claims is information given by what was seen on television or what other people have told them. The information is not appropriate because it is misleading.  

     The information for the popular audience is shaped so that it is easily understood by anyone who  reads it. There are no limitations to the information that the articles have on the topic. The popular articles information is organized in sections that are broken down with language that can be understood by people that are not in early childhood education. The structure makes it easy for people to find exactly what they are looking for without having to read the whole article in one sitting. The information for the professional audience has no limitations to what you can find, and the information is there in a simple format that makes it easy for you to read and understand. The professional information is also broken down into sections that make it easy to find the information and, it makes it easy to follow.

     The language and style of the professional articles are written in words that every educator can understand and be able to work with. When it comes to Language Arts and Literacy, there is no need for them to have to look up the definition of the words. It is written in terms that all educators already know and use on a daily basis. The language is very formal for these articles. The language and style of the popular articles are written in terms that are very simple and easy for anyone who reads them to understand. These articles will have a space on the side or on the bottom that will have the specialized vocabulary listed with the meaning so that you will know what the word means, but it would be helpful if you already knew the meaning of what Language Arts and Literacy are.

     The most significant difference between these two viewpoints is the main issue at hand, which is why Language Arts and Literacy are so important.  The popular articles discuss how important Language Arts and Literacy are for children to know at a young age. The professional articles discuss how important it is for children to learn these skills at a young age and how they will learn them in the classroom. They overlap when it comes to how important these skills are to children later in life. Both the popular and professionals understand that children will need these skills to be successful in school and later in life. The professional articles were very effective in getting their points across that Language Arts and Literacy are important both in the classroom and at home. The popular articles were effective in giving ideas on things they have done with their children that may help others. I found that neither the popular or professional articles have a problem with its opposed audience. The professional articles have more research and credibility to them, where as the popular articles are not that credible and do not have research and studies to back them up in their point of view.

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