Davidson Films, Inc : Building Literacy Competencies

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BUILDING LITERACY COMPETENCIES IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

With Elena Bodrova, Ph.D. and Deborah Leong, Ph.D.

2000 (30 min) $250. ISBN: 1-891340-71-9 [Available with Spanish Subtitles]

Visit our Support Materials section to view or download the Learning Guide and Discussion Topics for this film.

Learning to read well is the essential academic task for children we can all agree. It entails mastering a host of skills according to recent in-depth research. What these skills are, how they fit together and how they are best taught is the focus of this film that was shot in urban preschools and primary classrooms. The specialized terminology of literacy studies (for instance “alphabetic principle”, “phonemic awareness”) are defined and illustrated with film sequences showing good teachers and appealing children engaged in innovative activities that don’t involve reams of duplicated worksheets.

Film content:

Underlying necessary socio-emotional and intellectual competencies

Oral language fluency

Fine motor coordination

Use of symbols

One-to-one correspondence

Self-regulation skills

Literacy-specific competencies

Understanding of the communicative aspects of literacy

Purpose of reading

Concept of print

Comprehension of text

Skills

Phonological awareness

Letter recognition

Sound-symbol correspondence

Alphabetic principle

Encoding

Decoding

Visuals:

On-going cartoon sequence of the building a house (of literacy) that serves as an organizational device for the content of the film

Older children reading and writing fluently in an inner-city classroom

Scenes from two child care centers in California showing language activities

Film from a district sponsored preschool in Denver showing ways to foster self-regulation skills

Film sequence from a kindergarten class in Denver with innovative large group, small group and individual literacy focused activities

Consultants:

Elena Bodrova, Ph.D. was born and educated in the Soviet Union, immigrating to the United States in the early l990’s. She studied under A.N. Leont’ev who had been a student of Vygotsky’s. In the United States, Dr. Bodrova has been a professor and has lead many teacher workshops for the Mid-Continent Research in Education and Learning Institute (MCREL).

Deborah Leong, Ph.D. received her doctorate in psychology from Stanford. She is a professor of psychology at Metropolitan College of Denver and the author of several books on constructivistic education.

Other films with Drs. Bodrova and Leong as consultants:

VYGOTSKY’S DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY: AN INTRODUCTION

PLAY: A VYGOTSKIAN APPROACH

SCAFFOLDING SELF-REGULATED LEARNING IN PRIMARY CLASSROOMS

Related film:

Part of the EARLY CHILDHOOD SERIES

Read a Professional Review of this Film:

From Peg Griffin, Ph.D., Professor of Reading, Alabama State University:

This film is a very good summary of the foundations for literacy, and it does a lot of work for college and university teachers of reading and literacy. The film shows persuasively that development of literacy in children can be enhanced without engaging them in activities that are either developmentally inappropriate or coercive. Without fanfare, it makes it obvious that students of diverse backgrounds and varying abilities can blossom when the conditions are right and the teaching is good. It gently warns us about what not to do, without dwelling on it.

I used the video midway through two courses on teaching reading -- one for undergrads and one for graduate students. I chose to use it because it reviews just about all the major concepts and practices that I cover concerning pre-school through Grade 1. In addition, though, I liked the non-literacy specific parts because those aspects of the child's growth and development are something I had only mentioned in passing, and this video let the students pull in those concepts and practices that (I hope) they dealt with in an early childhood development course. Both sets of students were active viewers, recognizing concepts, asking to to replay parts that included an example or a phrasing that was especially useful for projects they were doing.

It was diagnostic for me -- I could notice some ideas were not solidly understood by the undergrads and found out that some of the graduate students indeed did not have sufficient background on more general aspects of early childhood development. I look forward to using the film in the future; it can serve as a good introduction at the beginning of the semester, as well as a wrap-up of the concepts related to the youngest readers and writers to be.

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