Every parent wants everything best for their children.Every parent has a hope that their children will be successful in every stepthey take. It is now a trend in parenting discussion to put the children to aplaygroup in order to make their children to be well literate and master someskills in their life such as reading and writing. However to gain the knowledge, most of theparent will like to provide some equipment to support their children’ need.Book is one of the tool to support children achievement and knowledge mastery.As we are all know that every child has their own ability and talent.
Some ofthe children are easily grasp the new knowledge at school, some are not. Inthis research the researcher would like to investigate the home literacy environmentand practice habit as well as the environmental support of the high achievementyoung learner in Tapas Al-Amanah especially the one who always get the bestscore. Tapasstands for “taman pendidikan anak sholeh”. It is in the same level of “PendidikanAnak Usia Dini” but it is mostly based on Islamic context.
In Tapas, the young learnersare taught to spell, read and write the alphabet, numbers, English orIndonesian letter, song and later on they will be taught to read some simpleword. The lesson done in Tapas lasts for 120 minutes. In Tapas Al amanah, theyoung learners consist of 40 learners guided with 4 teachers in 2017/2018.
Itseems too difficult to manage all those learners, but in fact most of thelearners there are able to read and write some simple word in their early age.With the limited time at school, the learners must be well prepared also bytheir parent at home. They must be engaged with some letters, books and anysupporting Medias to help them to be a well learners in reading and writing. Orin other word, the learners must be engaged and guided with their home literacypractice and environment. In addition, a previousstudy was done by Estrabrook (2013) under the title the Relationship betweenHome Literacy Experience and Preschool Emergent Writing Skills. The result ofthe study was the correlational analysis indicated that there was a significantpositive correlation between independent home literacy activities and allemergent writing tasks. Shared and casual HLE were significantly correlatedwith letter writing and spelling scores (Estabrook, 2013).
Furthermore, thisstudy will discuss about one of the best learner’s home literacy habit and theenvironmental support of Aastha, a student in Tapas Al-Amanah Mojokerto.HomeLiteracy PracticesHome literacy practices haveaffected children’s literacy at school, and the ways in which home and schoolcan be joined up, through family literacy programmes or other specific ways ofsupporting parents help their children. (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005). Having literacyactivity at home is not just a simple one if the parent do not give the exampleand build up the habit of the literacy. Like it was stated in ORIM frameworkwritten by Peter Hannon, Cathy Nutbrown and Weinberger in Pahl (2005) at theUniversity of Sheffield that parent should be a model of literacy, and theparent can be the model of literacy by reading books daily for instance. TheORIM framework was described below stands for opportunities, it is where theparents give the children experience to be more critical like a public placethat can be discuss such as mall, museum.
The next is recognition of theirliteracy practices (explicitly valuing what children do, and listening to themtalking, playing and writing). Then the Interaction with children to developtheir literacy (such as spelling out words children want to write) and modeltheir own literacy practices (reading signs, directions, instructions,packaging ), (Hannon and Nutbrown, 1997).As discussed the importanthome literacy that affected children’s literacy at school so these two placesshould be connected in supporting the literacy for children. Researchers haveused words such as domain and site to look at home and school literacy. Adomain is the sphere where a literacy practice originally was created and used.A site is the place where the literacy practice is actually engaged with. Forexample, homework is an activity where the domain is school, but the site ishome (Pahl & Rowsell, 2005). In addition, parents’attitudes to reading activities have a good impact on the home literacyenvironment, as they determine the extent to which parents themselves getinvolved in activities and encourage their children to do so.
Parents whoengage in many literacy activities with their children foster the developmentof positive attitudes to reading (Sonnenschein & Munsterman, 2002). Home isthe first place where children get exposed to language and have opportunitiesto observe, discover and engage in literacy-related activities (Lonigan, 2010). Exposure to books,magazine, newspapers, and environmental prints influence children’s literacydevelopment and children with better Home Literacy Environments show higherlevels of reading knowledge and skills at kindergarten (J. G Whitehurst, 1998).ParentalRole in Home Literacy EnvironmentParent as the closest personand role play for the children takes great influence on children literacymastery. Research by Hemphill (1996) has shown that simple activities in thefamily environment, such as daily conversations, reading books with childrenand watching appropriate TV programs (Sesame streets) are stimulating factorsin children’s listening development and enhancing their linguisticinteractions, narratives, and explanations which are linked to spoken language.In addition, Umek, Podlesek and Fekonja (2005) explain that the literacyactivities that are planned and are more time consuming such as visiting alibrary, cinema or puppet theatre, teaching the letters, being involved inverbal interaction with the child while looking at a picture book are linked togreater measures of child’s literacy competency. As the mother supports child’slanguage development in verbal interactions during different activities, thechild’s interest and verbal responses also influence mother’s choice ofdifferent literacy activities (Hoff & Naigles, 2002, as cited in Umek,Podlesek, & Fekonja, 2005).
3.Method In this study, theresearcher used the descriptive method in a qualitative research. Qualitative research focus on understandingsocial phenomenon in their natural setting (P.D Leedy, 2005).
The participant ofthis study was a high achievement young learner in Tapas Al Amanah, Mojokerto,Aastha, a 4, 5 years old. The participant of this study was told by his teachersas a young learner who always get the best score in his class and he can writeand read faster than his other classmates, from simple word to an advance levelon his age, even he can respond to any questions delivered to himfluently. Furthermore, this study wascomposed to investigate him as the subject as well as the parent andenvironment.
In a deeper analysis, thisstudy elaborated to answer how the high achievement young learner literacyhabits and how the supportive environments are. In addition, to answer thosequestion, the researcher used home literacy environment checklist and anobservation toward them at home for several times.4.FindingFrom the checklist (seeappendix 1) given to the mother of the participant, it is clearly showed thatthe home literacy environment and the support of the literacy at home were sorich. The score of the checklist was 33 from all maximal 37 true score, whereit can be stated from the description that the home literacy environment hasthe most supportive elements in our participant’s home. Every checklistsessions on each part of the questions was answered with a high score forexample on the statements “I or another adult.
.”, “What my child has…”, ” WhatI am…” and the mother said that the statements were true. What can be found from theobservation at home was that it was clearly shown that at home the highachievement young learner is supported with many Medias to encourage him tolearn, write, and read. There are so many books, a special bookshelf for himand a corner of reading, a ride-on toy which contains a lot of books inside, manydigital equipment to support his learning are also provided at home.
The subjectof this study is provided with manual books and digital books. The researcher could see there were children e-penfor reading, a smart-fun monitor to read and sing, a talking robot that canassist learning and reading, and many more. The subject of this study liked tolisten to story before bed, and the mother as well as the other adult at homeprovided and arranged extra time for them to be closer with book and literacypractices. The mother put a special time usually starts at 6.15 p.m. to learn,read, write or draw. This is obviously that the subject’s home isliteracy-friendly.
Furthermore, the mother ofthe subject of this study believe that his child can gain knowledge and some lifeskills from reading books. His mother liked to read books to his child and itmade the child enjoyed having book to read. From the interview it was foundedthat the mother was actually had a higher education level, she was a student ofa university but she did not choose to work.
She tended to give facilitation tohis child and a learning opportunity that could help him in school. The motherwas also encourage other adult at home to have an active role in the childeducation and the child literacy interest. The mother said that they started to introduce book before the childentering the school, even when the subject was still a baby. In addition, the researcher well-definedthat actually what the mother and other supportive elements at the highachievement young learner at home reflected what the ORIM framework notion.
Themother as well as the other adult such as his father, his uncle, at home gaveopportunities to the child, such as took him to bookstore, and then sherealized the recognition by stated the word found in some area, they interactedat home like discussing, playing alphabet game, and the mother as well as theother adult gave a role model to be more engaged with books by reading orwriting.5.Discussion Theterm home literacy environment where defined clearly in the subject of thestudy’s home. As a high achievement young learner at his school, Aastha wasprovided and supported with so many literacy tools, engaged with literacy eventas well as the literacy practice from his mother and the other environmentalsupport including other adult at home. In addition as we could see obviously,the mother was actually practiced the ORIM framework to the participant of thestudy. She believed what she did will help his son skill and knowledge gainingat school.
Thehigh score of the HLE checklist given by the researcher to the mother showedthat the high achievement young learner of this study’s subject was obviouslypresented an insight that the subject was supported with a rich home literacyenvironment. In addition we can say that what the parent and other adult aswell as the surrounded environment near the subject was a kind supportiveliteracy condition. And those are really important for the development and thehabit of the subject toward literacy and education including his readiness forreading and writing activity at school. What happened to our subject isrelevant to the statement that home literacy experiences and reading resourcesprovided by parents are identified as important factors in promoting children’sreading development (Adams, 1990), (DeBaryshe, 1993).
Then, home-literacy environment isdefined to have the following aspects. One is about reading activitiesincluding early home literacy activities (EHLA), and daily reading activitiesbetween parents and children (J. T Guthrie, 1995), (M. Sénéchal, 2002), (J. Roberts, 2005). The second one is about educationalresources especially books provided by parents (A.
G Bus, 1995), (Campbell, 2001). The last one is about emotionalfactors, for example, the parental belief, expectations, attitudes and habitsregarding reading (Baker, 1997).6.Conclusion The high achievement young learner who became thesubject of the study was obviously supported with rich literacy environment.Her mother provided many media such as printed books, digital books at home.
Aastha was introduced to literacy before school age. It means he was engagedwith early literacy at home. The mother gave routine time for reading andwriting starting with a simple word or starting with some alphabet. Theparticipant of this study, Aastha, then has a phonological awareness well inhis school. Theinteraction with the people surround him gave a confidence for him to learn andgain knowledge, not only does her mother who talk to him, discuss and read bookfor him, but the other like uncle, father, too. In addition, to make the reading and writing or literacy activity donewell without any much pressure feeling, the mother gave the example of howliteracy can be a good habit.
Role modelling for reading and writing is a goodidea and in fact it is an important support to do. Wecan also conclude that what was happened to the subject of this study’s home literacywas a kind of ORIM framework application that gave a lot of beneficial matters.However, what happened to the subject’s home of literacy support and habitmight be the factor and background of how the subject can achieve a highachievement at school, learn and do the lesson easily without any much obstaclesin Tapas. Or we can say that his home literacy environment might be the crucialfactor of his school readiness especially in writing and reading achievement.
