Colleen Whittingham for Goodheart-Willcox Author Testimonials

Speaker: Colleen Whittingham, Loyola University Chicago

Colleen Whittingham: All of the information that students learn in a course about emergent literacy is information that needs to be applied to the classroom when they are teachers or childcare providers. So it's essential that you are easily able to recall information that you discussed and learned maybe in a more hypothetical context when you were a student, and we're able to translate that information into the context in which you are the teacher. Um And so we have organized this text, not by content area, but instead by age group because many times childcare settings are organized by children's ages. So if you find yourself in an infant and toddler classroom, or if you are teaching three and four year olds who are of preschool age, you will easily be able to use this book as a resource to reference when you are in the classroom in that role of teacher, to be able to refresh your memory of the material that you covered in class. Another challenge of the course design typically involves addressing each of those components of early literacy, such as phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, vocabulary development in isolation. So we talk about what they are and approaches to teaching them as if they exist separately. And this text really integrates all of the components of emergent literacy that you're going to experience within an early childhood setting and discusses them in developmentally appropriate ways for each of those age groups.

Colleen Whittingham: There are a couple of features of this textbook that I am really, really excited about. I love the way that we were able to incorporate so many vignettes that share very diverse lived experiences of young Children, their families and their caretakers. Um The book is just chock full of um really rich and vibrant examples of Children interacting with adults um who are responsible for their care. And I'm so excited readers to be able to see um so many different approaches to children's lives present in this textbook. Um I'm also really excited that we have done a nice job of um providing an equal balance between how to teach and foster what we call constrained skills or what are often referred to as the foundational skills of emergent literacy um which are very text based. So thinking about the alphabet, thinking about um letter sounds. Um and we have provided the same amount of attention to skills that are maybe being underrepresented right now in the field of emergent literacy, which we would consider unconstrained skills or skills that don't get mastered. Um Instead there are skills that continue to develop throughout your lifetime. So, listening comprehension, which then contributes to later reading comprehension or early composing, which takes the of scribbling and drawing that ultimately leads to later writing development. I appreciate the equal balance for both of those um approaches or both of those skill sets in our text. And I'm really excited for readers to be able to see how to approach both of those in their classroom spaces um for all learners at all ages. Um And one of the features that I'm really excited about is at the end of the chapters that talk about, what do we know about a child and where do we go? Um And those are ways for us to introduce some case studies that will allow readers to apply what they've learned in the chapter to formative assess what does the child know um in this vignette or in this case study and what do I need to do next as a teacher in order to elaborate on their um learning experiences. So I think all of those are things that I'm excited to hear how readers engage. Um And um

Colleen Whittingham: I think what really makes this text unique is its accessibility. It's not a book that requires an advanced degree to understand. It doesn't include a lot of jargon or a lot of heavy language. It's very accessible and written with an audience in mind so that anyone who is looking to work with young Children and advance and support their early and emerging literacy skills is going to be able to do so. Um we have provided lots of practical suggestions and things that are going to be able to be implemented in classrooms right away that are grounded in research and solid theory um which is also explained in the text, but it's done so in a way that really highlights the most important components without getting lost in a lot of um heavy kind of academic um language or details. Um A second piece of this text that we find to be really unique is the connection to third grade outcomes um in an age of accountability for early child care workers, early childhood professionals, um and early childhood educators who are constantly being asked, why are you doing what you are doing in your classroom space? Or in your learning environment. We have given um the readers of this text, a leg to stand down. We've anchored all of our suggestions and connecting them to the literacy outcomes that are expected in third grade. So if someone were to say, why is it that you are engaging in this activity um in your learning space, the reader of this book would very easily be able to point to how the work that they are doing in classrooms with young Children really points to um examples of later success when that accountability starts to really be measured in schools.