LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 17:11 November 2017
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
         Renuga Devi, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.
         Dr. S. Chelliah, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

Language in India www.languageinindia.com is included in the UGC Approved List of Journals. Serial Number 49042.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2016
M. S. Thirumalai

Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
11249 Oregon Circle
Bloomington, MN 55438
USA
Custom Search

Environmental Print Awareness in English and Tamil
in Indian Children

Bhuvaneswari. B., M.Phil., Ph.D. Candidate
Prakash Padakannaya, Ph.D.

Abstract

Environmental print awareness refers to the stage of literacy development when children recognize familiar symbols and words, and display understanding and knowledge that print carries meaning. It has been well documented in literature that environmental print awareness influences the development of early literacy skills. This study was conducted to understand the development of environmental print awareness in kindergarten children. Thirty-eight typically developing Tamil speaking children enrolled in a English medium school and belonging to middle socioeconomic status, were followed from LKG to first grade. They were presented with 15 logos in English and 15 logos in Tamil as they appear in the environment. The 15 logos in each language belonged to three categories: child related, home related and community related. The children were presented with these stimuli every six months and their responses were recorded. Correct responses were given a score of 1 and wrong responses/ no responses were given a score of 0. The scores were analysed to look for a developmental trend in the awareness of environmental print. Results revealed that, across all the readings, children recognized child related logos best, followed by home related and then community related logos. In LKG, fewer logos were recognized and there were no differences in the recognition of English as compared to Tamil. In UKG and grade 1, more numbers of logos were recognized and English logos were recognized better than Tamil. The findings of this study have implications in creating literacy rich environments for children at home and school.

Keywords:

Children’s experiences with print start as early as they start actively engaging themselves with the print in their world. Children have ample exposure to environmental print such as sign boards, road signs, logos of products, etc., even if they are not exposed to books or other literacy materials. Young children come to experience print through shared interactions with environmental print (Enz, Prior, Gerard, & Han, 2008; Neumann, Hood, Ford, & Neumann, 2012; Vera, 2011). Children are generally able to recognize environmental print before they are able to read print in books and thus enter school with an understanding that print conveys some meaning (Kuby & Aldridge, 2004). The appearance of symbolic function corresponds to the understanding of environmental print in children (Ginsburg & Opper, 1988).

Environmental print refers to the surrounding non-continuous print that fulfils real-life functions. Environmental print is typically large, bold and uses varying colors and fonts not typically seen in books (Neumann, Hood, & Ford, 2013). Environmental print appears in a variety of fonts, shapes, sizes and generally in capital letters (Horner, 2005; Vukelich, Christie, & Enz, 2008). It includes the forms of print available in the child’s environment, like the writing present on toys, commercialized print on grocery products, popular restaurant signs, or large billboards along a highway and street signs (Pelatti, et al., 2014; Stewart & Lovelace, 2006; Adams, 1990). Thus, there are various categories of environmental print including child related, household related and community related (Horner, 2005). Researchers have shown that children tend to enjoy reading environmental print before they engage in reading print in books (Goodman, 1980; Hiebert, 1983, 1986; Hall, 1985; Wepner, 1985; Kontos, 1986; McGee, 1986; Aldrige & Rust, 1987; Clay, 1991). Environmental print awareness refers to the stage of literacy development when children recognize familiar symbols and words, and display understanding and knowledge that print carries meaning (American Speech-Language Hearing Association, 2001). According to Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998), environmental print is a sample measure of pretending to read, and pretending to read is a component of emergent reading.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Bhuvaneswari. B., Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Studies in Psychology
University of Mysore
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India
bhuvana.nrb@gmail.com

Dr. Prakash Padakannaya, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Studies in Psychology
University of Mysore
Mysore 570006
Karnataka
India
prakashp99@gmail.com

Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.