When responding to your peers in such a way that is directed to their initial posting, make it personal to them, not generic. Refer to a point they made in their post, ask deeper questions about a statement they made, relate an experience that you had that correlates to their post.

Be sure to address all of the Guided Response criteria for each peer response. Feel free to ask questions of them for clarification if needed or agree/disagree with their position (in a non-accusatory way) and back it up.

(Above is what the teacher expects when responding to peers. Below is the Guided Response criteria in which is very important an has to be addressed)

Guided Response Criteria

Imagine you are a school principal or center director who has just observed an instructor teaching a lesson using one of the ideas your classmates mentioned for developing phonological awareness.

As you observed the lesson, you noticed that some students appeared to easily master the concept while others were struggling. Share an idea for how teachers can help a student who is struggling with phonological awareness. Also, share an idea as to how teachers can enrich phonological awareness for a student who already has the concept mastered.

PEER 1

A song I chose to help encourage literacy development is Down By The Bay. This song has a lot of different verses to it. It has been redone repeatedly by people who change the lyrics in the song. This will be a good way for kids to learn phonological awareness and literacy skills because they can come up with their own rhyme words to  put into the song.

Chorus:

Down by the bay

Where the watermelons grow

Back to my home

I dare not go

For if I do

My mother will say

Did you ever see a baboon

Holding a balloon

Repeat Chorus

Did you ever see a whale

With a polka-dot tail

Repeat Chorus

Did you ever see a llama

Wearing pajamas

Activity #1

I will have the children come up with their own rhyming words, that can be inserted into the song. This will help kids learn literacy development because it is having them learn what words will rhyme together.

Activity #2

I will have the children dress up and act out the song. This will let children learn more and have fun with dressing up from the song, both the one I bring and the one that the kids made with their rhyming words.

Activity #3

I will have the kids pair up and come up with their own Down by the Bay song. Each pair of kids will then be able to present their song to the class and have them all sing.

These activities will build phonological awareness skills that will help promote literacy development. The children are having to figure out what words will rhyme by testing them out. This will also allow the children to sound out and spell words.

Peer 2

Describe three different ways you would use this piece to help build phonological awareness.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are

1. Teachers can read and recite the nursery rhyme to the students and then have the student to recite and sing Twinkle, twinkle, little star a number of times.

2. Teachers can tell the student the when rhyming words they sound the same at the end.

3.Teachers can encourage the student to listen for the initial sounds in the words. Teachers can leave off the rhyming word to encourage students to fill it in. Example a game or challenge Twinkle, Twinkle Little_____.

Teachers can build these phonological awareness skills to promote literacy development. By creating a word play environment encourage students to rhyme, sing and explore with words and sounds. Placement of nursery rhymes on charts in the classroom encourages recognition and reinforcement of beginning and ending sound. Teachers can also lead the children in singing songs, saying rhymes and finger plays.

RESPONDING TO THE TEACHER

"Children learn language by constructing for themselves the grammar of the language they hear. To develop mature syntax and vocabulary, they need to be exposed to rich, varied, and abundant samples of language, for this is the database from which they generalize" (Giorgins & Glazer, 2008, p.128).

How will you expose your children to daily activities in which to develop a mature and rich vocabulary yet keeping it within a developmentally appropriate curriculum?