Reading for Week 11 - Literacy and Second Language Teaching and Learning

This week's reading focuses on literacy skills in early childhood and then shifts toward literacy development in second language teaching and learning.

The first part of Chapter 5 in P&B book reminds me very much of my own experience in learning how to read and write in my native language. I remember at the age of 5 i often held a newspaper upside down, made up things and read it to my father, having no idea why my mom was trying to resist herself from laughing. I also took all of my mother's notebooks (she is a teacher) and traced her handwriting after having been bored with drawing a whole lot of meaningless and disorganized lines. This perfectly matches what is described in the book about young learners' great desires to grasp and develop literacy skills. It also brings into attention that adults or teachers can take advantage of this feature to "plant" the love for reading writing in children.

Literacy development in second language learning, however, oftentimes does not seem to work in such a motivational way. In fact, apart from very young children who learn a foreign language roughly at the same time as they learn to read and write in their native language, many second language learners find it challenging to practice and master literacy skills in their target language. A wide range of literacy development activities mentioned in the book are therefore very helpful as language teachers work with students to help them develop their reading and writing abilities.