Compare And Contrast Whitehurst And Lonigan

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While reading Whitehurst and Lonigan’s work (1998), I had lots of thoughts and feelings appear and across in my mind. I could reflect lots of my own experiences, including what I heard and what I saw, to their findings. Reciprocally, their findings make me understand more and better about my own development of literacy as well as the differences between others’ literacy development processes and mine. I remember how my grandfather used to read stories for me before I was able to read the stories by myself. The interesting stories that my grandfather told me, evoked my desire of being able to read and motivated me to learn about reading and other literacy skills. Growing up, I often feel that my understanding ability is, relatively, better than other kids around the same age. For example, when we watch movies together, I can understand scenes or plots that other kids cannot. However, …show more content…

It is not an innate ability like eating or breathing that everyone has to live upon. Therefore, the learning of reading needs additional assistance such as motivation, encouragement, advocacy and family support. In my opinion, emergent literacy environment and emergent literacy movement influence emergent literacy (Whitehurst and Lonigan, 1998, p. 849), because pre-readers’ characteristics would be affected or altered by social interactions and his or her experiences. Among all the factors, I believe that home literacy environment is the most influential factor; children's family backgrounds and their experiences are crucial to their learning processes and literacy development. First of all, pre-readers spent most of their time stay at home with their parents or caregivers. Furthermore, I have witnessed how family’s socioeconomic status can have a huge impact on children's learning experiences and their literacy