Kaylen is a first grade student who attends a school, located in an economically disadvantaged and culturally diverse area. Kaylen’s teacher is known for her ability to provide effective instruction that helps students succeed in school. Using the four categories of written language (meaning, forms, functions and meaning-form links) we can analyze Kaylen’s letter.
First, through the meaning in written language, children realize that each symbol/ letter represents an idea and conveys a message (McGee & Richgels, 2012). Young children relate written language meanings to their experiences (McGee & Richgels, 2012, p. 14). We know that Kaylen’s teacher exposed children to thank-you letters, something that helped Kaylen understand the structure of a letter. As she felt confident she wrote a letter to her parents. During practicum, I have seen that children at the same age enjoy expressing their ideas through letters especially when this is something that has been used in…show more content… As Courtney said Kaylen, wants to communicate a message to her parents and while it is not very clear she manages to express her thoughts.
Regarding forms, “the order of words within sentences, spatial directional principles, upper- and lowercase alphabet letters, spaces between words, and text formats” (McGee & Richgels, 2012, p.13) as previously mentioned, Kaylen knew the letter format as she uses both salutation and closing. Also, she understands how sentences are structured, the directionality of writing as well as the existence of spaces between words.
Meaning-form links refer to the connection of meaning with the written forms (McGee & Richgels, 2012). Kaylen has a good understanding of the alphabetic principle as she expresses her thoughts using words. She still works on this as there are words that some letters are missing (hav, fom, der) ,letter reversals (have and bab) and misspelled words( rumn instead of
