Using journal writing with young English language learners.
VoLl
riI2011
ISS
410-7201
A Journal on Language and Language Teaching
LLT
Journal
Vol.
14
No.
1
Pages:
1 76
Yogyakarta
April, 2011
ISSN
14107201
PUBLIS ED BY
ENGLISlI LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY P OGRAM
SANATA HARMA UN VERSITY
ISSN 1410- 7201
Vol. 14 No. 1-Apri12011
A Journal on Language and Language Teaching
Published by
English Edu cation Study Program
Sanata Dharma University
Impacts of Computer Technology on EFL Teachers'
Profession in Schools in Indonesia ...........................................
Pius Nurwidasa Prihatin
1
Critical Pedagogy: Historical Background and Basic
Pr inciples .............................................................................................
Paulus Kuswandono
11
Students' Error Models of Plagiarism in Writing Research
Papers ....................................................................................................
Christina Kristiyani and Gregorius Punto Aji
23
A Semantic and Cultural Analysis of the Colloquial
. Jakartan Indonesian Discourse Particles .. ...............................
Laurentia Su marni
41
Incid ent al Vocabulary Learning Through Extensive
Read ingActivities.................................... ..........................................
Made Frida Yulia
.
57
Using Journal Writing w ith You ng English Language
Learners ..................... ...........................................................................
Yuseva Ariyani lswandari
65
Vol. 14 No. 1April2011
ISSN 14107201
JOUR AL
A Journal on Lan guage and Language Teaching
LLT Journal
A Journal on Langu age and Language Teaching
Chairman
Vice Chairman
Chief Editor
Managing Editors
Editorial Staff
ISSN
Address
Phones
Fax
Soepomo Poedj o soedarmo
J. Bismoko
Ant. Herujiyanto
Christina Kristiyani, Barli Brarn
Ignatius Harjanto (Widya Mandala Catholic
Unive rsity, Surabaya), Pius Prihatin P., Tutyandari,
FX. Mukarto, E. Sunarto, P. Kuswandono, Henny
HerawatC Ag. Hardi Prasetyo, 1. Suharjanto,
}.B. Gunawan
1410 720 1
Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Keguruan dan
Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Sanata Dharma
Mrican, Tromol Pos 29
Yogyakarta 55002
(0274) 513 301, 515352, ext. 1220
(02 74) 562 383
Notes on articles contribution:
LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE TEACHING JOURNAL (LLT Journal), to
ap pear twice a year (in April an d Octo ber) for teachers an d students, is
published by the En glish Education Study Program} Faculty of Teachers
Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University. This journal welcomes
articles on language and language teaching.
11
LLT JOURNAL VOL. 14 NO. 1
ISSN 14107201
Using Journal Writing with Young English Language Lear ners
Yuseva Ar iyani Iswandari
Sanata Dharma University
Abstract
Goodma n (1996) states that reading is a dynamic an d constructive process of
making sense from print. No two readers will ever produce the same meaning f or a given
text and the way they respond to the reading would be various. There are many types of
reading activities; one of them is read aloud that is going to be discussed in this paper.
According to justice and Pullen (2003), read aloud activity is one powerful means to be
taken into considera tion in aSSisting th e develop ment of children's emergent literacy.
Further,jim Trelease (th e author of "The New Rea d-Aloud Handbook) argues that read
aloud establishes goo d connection with journal writing as a response to it. Th at is why
the writer uses response journal writing to make connection with read aloud activity.
The objective ofthis paper is to analyze how children create journal writing as a response
to read aloud activity. The writer collected data by conducting observation and going
through a series of read aloud activity with a bilingual In do nesian child, named Piay.
Finally, after analyzing the data and highlig hting th e theory oftextu a I connections and
emergent literacy de velopment, the writer would like to present three findings on how
Piay creates her jou rn al writing as a response to read aloud activity: (1) by developing
the alphabet writing, (2) by making in tertextual as well as intratextual con nections,
and (3) by making autobiographica l connections to ward the story.
Keywords: read alQud activity, response j ournal writing, young English language learners
A. INTRODUCTION
The idea of choosing this topic comes
from the writer's personal concern on
children's literacy developmen t in her home
country, Indonesia. Based on the writer's
experience, many paren ts in the place where
she grew up often have assumption that th eir
children are ready to be exposed with readi ng
and writing when they first enter elementary
school. So, when children open a book and
"read' it or write somethi ng in a piece of
paper after being read a story, parents will
not consider it as a real action of reading and
writing. Writing, in their perception, should
be in the form of letters and how those letters
are sequenced into words and sentences. So,
when children draw a line and letterlike,
parents seldom respond to it. This is what
Peregoy describes in Reading Readiness
Perspective. According to this perspective,
"ch ildren will be developmentally ready to
read when they reach a mental age of 6.6
years" (Peregoy & Owen, 2005, p.S). That is
also one of the reasons why home literacy is
not introduced and emnhasized as early as
possible.
Having an opportunity to interact
with many parents and children in a
different cultu ral backgroun d changes the
writer's previous concept of children literacy
development. In this new place, children
begin their literacy experience from the time
they are introduced with reading and writing
at home. Parents become the proponents of
emergent literacy perspective who adhere to
the belief that "literacy devel opment should
begin at the very young age at home amid
daytoday fa mily and community activities"
(Peregoy & Owen, 2005, p.6). Story books,
road signs, product's name in supermarkets,
65
Using Journal Writing with You ng English Language Learners
and other environmental prin ts beco me the
media of child re n's reading. At home, pare nts
also read a lot of story books. Children are
encouraged to respond and comment on the
story more t ha n merely doing com prehens ion
question activity. Besides, any for ms of
children's writing products a re also val ued,
including a ve ry rough drawing, wavy lines,
letterlike, and other forms of writing. The
good environm en t of literacy develop me nt,
as a result, provides good effects on cpildren's
academic readin ess and perform ance.
Reali zing its importance, the w r iter is
encouraged to a nalyze a good activity to help
children to develop their literacy as Go od m an
(1 99 6) arg ues that introductio n to li teracy
must be meaningful. Many studies have
shown that read aloud activity to ch ild ren
has been encouraged both at home and at
schools for many years since it is a hi ghly
recomme nded activity to assist childre n's
la nguage and literacy (Adams, 1990). Ln li ne
wi th the importance explained, the writer
fo rmulates one problem in this study, "How
do childre n create t hei r jou rnal writing as a
respo nse to read aloud activity?"
B. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In orde r to p rovide good perspectives
of theories t hat will support this paper, the
writer w ould like to review s ome rela ted
literatures w hich consist of three key topics:
(1) Read alo ud activity, (2) Response jou rnal
writing, an d (3) Young Englis h language
learners.
1. Read Alo ud Activity
According to Morrow, Ra nd, and Sm ith
(1995), read alo ud activity is "th e single most
important activity for bUilding the knowledge
required for eventual success in reading"
(p.23). It is a n activity where the adults,
parents, or teache rs read a book for chil dr en.
Besides read ing, during the activity, the
reader also helps the children to participate
actively by as ki ng questions, respond ing to
the story or pictures in the story, and ma king
connection w ith the personal expe rie nce.
66
Peregoy and Owen add the definition by
ma king connection with writing. They state
tha t listening to read aloud by adults and/or
peer s introduces children to the conventions
of w ritten English (2 005: 408). It goes in line
wi th Fountas & Pin nell (1996) who share
similar thought of the connection of read
aloud and written language:
Reading aloud is the foundation ofthe
early literacy fra mework. By being
immersed in a variety of well-chosen
texts children not only learn to love
stories and reading but they also learn
about written language. Children
assimilate a sense of structure of
written language and can produce
it in a way that sounds like reading
and app roximates text. It allows
the teacher to demonstrate ways
to make person al connections and
comparisons with books that children
use fo r in teractions in literature
circles and fo rm s a foundation for
other reading an d writing activities.
Tal king abo ut the benefits of read
aloud, the writer w ill underline some good
points from Morrow and Smith (1990). They
state that re ad alo ud can benefit children in:
(1) Buil ding vocabulary, (2) developing oral
la nguage, (3) developing written language,
(4) developi ng social sknI, (5) developing
p ho nological skill, (6) being able to make
connections betwee n the text and their
ow n life expe rie n ce, (7) Being able to think
critically. In ad ditio n, Trelease (2001) states
the impor ta nce of read aloud to children.
Some of them can be noted as follows :
a. Read alo ud activity helps children to
know a nd value books. When they can
value books, th ey will be motivated to
read their own books later on.
b. Read aloud helps children develop
their vocabular y since it guides them
to make con nection and sense of what
they hear and see.
c. Read aloud gives children opportunity
to explore places, people, and events
with their imagination.
L
rSSN 14107201
d. Read alo Ll d inlroduces the book refer to connections that are made fro m one
la nguage which is, most of the time, text to another text. Second, intratextual
differe nt from the daily language they connections t hat re fer to connections made
wi thin the same text (Panta leo, 2004). Th e
use every day.
e. Read aloud helps children develop last is autobiographical connections that
their written knowledge as it facili tates refer to connections that relate th e text to li fe
them to have wri tten respo nse t o what and life to text.
they have been read.
2. Response Journal Writing
The above types of connections will
be considered in analyzing how children
create respo nse journal writing after read
aloud activity in this paper. Besid es, the
writer will refer to Peregoy and Owen's
concept in viewi ng how children in young
age create journal wri ting. They state that
children who are in the emergent literacy
per iod will develop their writing through
some categories, namely: (1) writing via
drawing, (2). Writing via scribbli ng, (3).
Writing via lette rlike forms, (4). Writing
via reproducing welllearned unit or lette r
strings, (5) letter via inve nted spelling, and
(6) writing via conventional spelling. In the
early d evelo pment they will mostly d velop
the al phabet writi ng through drawi ng,
scribblin g, and letterlike form s (200 5,
p.169). It is indeed amazing to know how
ch ildren of young age try to make sense of
their response toward the sto ry being read
to them .
Journal, in this study, refers to a form
of notebook or collection of w riti ng in which
daily writing is recorded in order to clarifY
the writer's th ought. According to Madeline
Kovarik (200 6, p .1 79), there are five effe ctive
types of j ournals for respondingthe literat ure:
(1) diary, wh ich facilitates hildren to have
personal reaction and it is usually secret,
(2) response journal writing, wh ich allows
children to refl ect and react to w hat they
have read, (3) dialogue journal, which allows
children to com municate their thought to the
teacher, parents, adults, and/ or pe er then the
others w ill respond, (4) double entry journal,
which facilitates child re n to write the idea of
a text on the half page and reaction on the
other half page, an d (5) learning log, which
allows child ren to record what they have
learned th roughout the story. Of those five
types, the one which is the most suitable to
be the foll ow up of read aloud is response 3. Young English Language Learners
journal writ ing.
In this study, the wri ter defi nes
As it has been stated before that yo ung English language learners using
response journal writing has connecti on with Peregoy and Owen's defini tion. They are
read alo ud in the way it fac ilitates children to "children who sp eak English as a no nrespond to what they have listened fro m the na ive language and who live in all parts of
reading in the form of writing. N o e & Jo hnson the United States . Besides, many of these
(1999) state that response journal writing children are the daughters and the sons of
encourage children to think critically toward immigrants w ho come to the United States
the books being read and to relate t he story to work for better future. In short, Engli sh
to their prior knowledge and experience. In becomes those chil dren's second language" (
relation with making connection with the Peregoy & Owen, 200 5, p. 3). Sin ce they come
children's personal experience, Sm olki n from countries other than the United States,
& Donovan (2001a) ci ted by Burgess & they bring different culture background. As
Tracey (2006, p.7) men 'on that the re are a a result, lea rning English especially in the
number of ways for ch il dren to make te, tual young age is not easy for them. Mo reover,
connectIOns as a response to read alo ud. The accordi ng to the 1990 U.S. census, over 6 3
first one is intertextual con nectio ns which million children between t he ages of 5 and 17
67
Using Journal Writi ng with Young English Language Learners
spoke a language other than Engli sh at ho me
(Crawford, 200 1). This, th erefore, increases
the number of limited Englis hprofici ent
students at schools. Therefore , introduci ng
literacy both reading a nd writing sh ould be
emphasized and should be in a meaningful
way so t hat they can rea lly develo p it well.
C. METHODOLOGY
a. Subject
The subj ect is Piay, a 4yearol d
bilingual child since her first language is
Indo nesian a nd her second la nguage is
English. Sh e was born in Illinois and has
been living in t he U.S. sin ce then . In he r daily
commun ication, sh e uses both Englis h a nd
Indo nes ian to talk to her com m unity. She
often speaks Ind onesia n only to he r mothe r' s
frien ds because her moth er is Indo nesia n.
The only time she speaks English is w hen she
is with her fathe r a nd her fr iends at school.
The reason the writer chooses her departs
from h er admiration to t his gi rl's abili ty
to speak bot h la nguages well. Besides, the
writer fou nd out that she likes to rea d many
story books, both Indo nesia n stories a nd the
English ones. That is w hy the w riter wa nts
to an a lyze h ow Piay w ill react an d create
response to the read alou d in the form of
writi ng.
Based on t he early observati on, the
writer notices t hat Piay has strong fa m ily's
literacy behaviors. Accord ing to Peregoy
(200 5:179) , family literacy's behavio rs are
activities do ne by home family to support t he
deve lopment of children's literacy. At home,
Piay and he r mother always have read ing
aloud t ime befo re going to bed. Besid es, she
is provided with many good English story
books an d English movies to watch.
b. Data Collection
To collect the da ta, two steps were
done. First, the w riter interviewed Piay's
parents to kn ow her literacy a nd cultu re
68
background. Second, the writer, then, visited
her 10 tim es and w ent through some rea d
aloud activity and response journal writing.
Of those 10 tim es, t he writer could not start
working with Piay for the first five meetings
because she di d not want to have read aloud
activity wit h the writer. So, the writer decided
to build a good relation with her first on those
meetings. The writer began to work with her
on the last five m eetin gs.
In working on the read aloud activity
with th e subject, th e w riter used five children
story books con sisting of three English story
books and two Indon esian story books. The
title s ofthe story books are: 1. Unhei (English),
2. Snow White (Englis h), 3. Liong and Pau
Pa u (E nglish), 4. 5i Ra kus (IndoneSian), and
5. Per p ustakaanku (Indonesian)
D. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
In th is section, the writer would li ke
to d iscuss the answe r of the formulated
proble m "How do childre n create th eir
jou rnal writing as a respons e to read alo ud
activity?" Based on the observation and
analysis of her recorded response journal
writing after read aloud activity, the writer
p resents th e fin djng w hich is related to how
the subject creates her response journal
writing after r ead aloud act ivity. The subject
creates her r esponse journal writing through
some ways mentio ned by Peregoy, Smolkin
and Donovan, and Pantaleo:
a. By deve lop ing the alphabet writing
th rough drawing, scribbling, and letterlike for ms (Pe regoy & Owen, 2005, pp.
168169).
In her firs t response journal writing
after being read to the story of Unh ei,
she d rew an d co mbined some lines in
w hich accordin g to her those combined
lin es were Chinese characters which
meant "I the king". She tried to write
Ch inese chara cters because the
story was a bout a chinese girl na med
Un hei. Th erefore, it is clear that she
ISSN 14107201
LLT JOUR NAL VOL. 14 NO.1
tries to develop h r alpha bet writi ng
by drawing some pictures, creati ng
letterlike forms as it is in her "Chinese
character", a nd scrib bl ing forms.
pj ct ure 1. Piay's Chi nese characters "I the ki ng"
.f
b. By making in tr textual as well a
intertextual connections
As it is stated by Smolkin and Donovan
(2001), intratextual connections are
con nections made within the same text
and/or sto ry. She makes intratextual
connectio ns in the fourth story of
Snow White. In her response journal,
first, she drew Snow Wh ite picture by
looking at the picture in the story. After
that she wrote lette rlike form "snow
white cry she sad" because sh e saw
in the book th at Sno w White did not
smile. She shows her understanding
of the readi ng aloud and tries to ma ke
connection between the story an d
her resp onse journal. Besides, she
also makes intertextual connection in
which she tries to make connection
from one text and/ or story to another
text and/or story. Th is happened when
she wrote her response journal to
respond to the fifth reading. In the fifth
reading th e w riter read an Indonesian
story Perp usta kaan ku. In one of th e
pictu res, there was a picture of a li on in
front of the li brary. After looking at that
picture, she directly took her bo ok an d
wrote "Li ong" severa l times in scribble
writing form. Scri bble writing form is
"wavy lines tha t do not look like letters ,
but look li ke w riting" (Peregoy & Owen,
200 5, p. 169). It is clear that sh e makes
connection of the story to the previous
story "Liong and Pau Pau" in the thi rd
read aloud activity. Instea d of writing
"lion", she wrote "Liong" beca use in the
story of "Liang and Pau Pau" the lion's
name was Liong.
Pi cture 2. Third book being read "Liang and Pau Pau" and one page in
Perp usta kaanku
69
Using Journal Writing with Young English Language Learners
c. By
making
a u tobio gra phic a l
co nnections toward the story
According to Pantaleo (2004),
auto biograp hical connection s are
connectio ns that relate the text and/
or the story to one's personal life and
perso nal life to text and/or sto ry. This
onnectio n appeared in the response
of the story of"Unh ei". In her res ponse,
she mentioned that her "Chinese
character" meant "I the. ki ng". The
reason why she mentioned "kin g" was
because according to her "king" was
identical with lion (from the movie
"Ki ng of the Jungle") an d lion was brave
an d great. She said that she was great
because she did no t as k her mo ther to
change h er name into American's na me
as other nonnative students in he r
schools did. This personal connection
proves the writer wha t Goo dman has
believed that personal con nect ion to
th e text and/or story helps children
make m ea ni ng.
E. CONCLUSION
implement read aloud activity, it is suggested
that parents or teachers choose books that
are suitable with the children's age and
interest. Besides, parents or teachers are also
encouraged to choose books that can facilitate
children to th ink critically and construct
meaning making. Finally, books that provide
some good mo ral values to children are also
recommend ed.
REFERENCES
Adams, M.J. (1 990). Beginning to read.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Burgees, M. & Tracey, D. (2006). ReadAlouds
in the school setting. A Paper as the
requirements for the master and arts
degree in read ing specialization, NJ:
Kean University.
Crawford,]. W. (200 1).Census2000: Aguidefor
th e perplexed. Retrieved on September
25, 200 6 from http://ourworld.
c om pus erve. co m /ho m e pages /
JWC RAWFORD /census02.htm
Fountas, I.e. & Pinnell, G.S. (1996). Guided
reading within a balanced literacy
pro gra m. In Fountas, I.e. & Pinnell,
G.S. (Eds) , Guided reading: Good first
teach ing for all children. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinema nn.
Clearly from the case of Piay, the
w riter could see that journal writing b ecomes
a good response media toward "read aloud"
activity because it can fos ter children to
develop th eir w riting. After they are read Goodman, K.S. (1996). On Reading: A
to a story, they try to respond it in the form
Co m m mon -sense Look at the Nature of
of journal writing. It is very interesting to
Language and the Science of Reading.
know the fact that chil dre n w hom pare nts or
Portsmou th, NH:Heinemann.
teachers consider them in the early stage of
writing development can really make good Jus tice, L.M. & Pullen, P.e. (2003). Promising
interventions
for
promoting
connection between the story and what
emergent literacy skills: Three
they w rite in journal w riting. How ever, as
evidencebase approaches. Topic in
Justice & Pullen (2003) state that pa rents,
Ea rly Ch ildhood Special Education, 23
adults, or teachers need to give the time
(3),99114.
that the children need so that they can really
explore and express their response toward Kovarik, M. (2006). Meaningful responses to
literature. Kappa Delta PI Record.
"read aloud" activity thro ugh journal writing
better.
Morrow, L.M., Rand, M. K., &Smith, J.K. (1995).
Reading aloud to children:
Another good point to co ns ider is
related to how parents or teache rs ch oose Characteristics and relationships between
good and app rop riate bo oks. In order to best
teachers and student behaviors.
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Reading Research and Instruction, 35
(1), 85101.
Morrow, L.M. & Smith, J. (1990). The effects of
group size on interactive storybook
reading. Reading Research Quarterly,
25,213231.
Noe, KL.S. & Johnson, N.J. (1999). Getting
started with literature circles. MA:
ChristopherGordon Publisher, Inc.
Pantaleo, S. (2004). Exploring grade 1
students' textual connections.Journal
ofResearch
in Childhood Education, 18 (3), 211229.
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resource book for K12 teachers.
Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Smolki n, L.B. & Donovan, c.A. (2001a). The
contexts of comprehension: The
info rmation book read aloud, comprehension
acquisition, and comprehension
instructional in a firstgrade
classroom. Elementary Schooljo urn ai,
102 (2), 97123.
Snow, C.E., Tabor, P.O. Nicholson, P.A. &
Kurtland, B.F. (199 5). SHELL: Oral
language and early literacy skills in
kindergarten and firstgrade children.
Journal of Research in Childhood
Education, 10,3 7-44.
Peregoy, S.F., & Boyle, O.F. (200 5). Read ing, Treiease, J. (2001). The new readaloud
writing, and learning in ESL: A
handbook. New York: Penguin Books.
71
riI2011
ISS
410-7201
A Journal on Language and Language Teaching
LLT
Journal
Vol.
14
No.
1
Pages:
1 76
Yogyakarta
April, 2011
ISSN
14107201
PUBLIS ED BY
ENGLISlI LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY P OGRAM
SANATA HARMA UN VERSITY
ISSN 1410- 7201
Vol. 14 No. 1-Apri12011
A Journal on Language and Language Teaching
Published by
English Edu cation Study Program
Sanata Dharma University
Impacts of Computer Technology on EFL Teachers'
Profession in Schools in Indonesia ...........................................
Pius Nurwidasa Prihatin
1
Critical Pedagogy: Historical Background and Basic
Pr inciples .............................................................................................
Paulus Kuswandono
11
Students' Error Models of Plagiarism in Writing Research
Papers ....................................................................................................
Christina Kristiyani and Gregorius Punto Aji
23
A Semantic and Cultural Analysis of the Colloquial
. Jakartan Indonesian Discourse Particles .. ...............................
Laurentia Su marni
41
Incid ent al Vocabulary Learning Through Extensive
Read ingActivities.................................... ..........................................
Made Frida Yulia
.
57
Using Journal Writing w ith You ng English Language
Learners ..................... ...........................................................................
Yuseva Ariyani lswandari
65
Vol. 14 No. 1April2011
ISSN 14107201
JOUR AL
A Journal on Lan guage and Language Teaching
LLT Journal
A Journal on Langu age and Language Teaching
Chairman
Vice Chairman
Chief Editor
Managing Editors
Editorial Staff
ISSN
Address
Phones
Fax
Soepomo Poedj o soedarmo
J. Bismoko
Ant. Herujiyanto
Christina Kristiyani, Barli Brarn
Ignatius Harjanto (Widya Mandala Catholic
Unive rsity, Surabaya), Pius Prihatin P., Tutyandari,
FX. Mukarto, E. Sunarto, P. Kuswandono, Henny
HerawatC Ag. Hardi Prasetyo, 1. Suharjanto,
}.B. Gunawan
1410 720 1
Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Keguruan dan
Ilmu Pendidikan, Universitas Sanata Dharma
Mrican, Tromol Pos 29
Yogyakarta 55002
(0274) 513 301, 515352, ext. 1220
(02 74) 562 383
Notes on articles contribution:
LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE TEACHING JOURNAL (LLT Journal), to
ap pear twice a year (in April an d Octo ber) for teachers an d students, is
published by the En glish Education Study Program} Faculty of Teachers
Training and Education, Sanata Dharma University. This journal welcomes
articles on language and language teaching.
11
LLT JOURNAL VOL. 14 NO. 1
ISSN 14107201
Using Journal Writing with Young English Language Lear ners
Yuseva Ar iyani Iswandari
Sanata Dharma University
Abstract
Goodma n (1996) states that reading is a dynamic an d constructive process of
making sense from print. No two readers will ever produce the same meaning f or a given
text and the way they respond to the reading would be various. There are many types of
reading activities; one of them is read aloud that is going to be discussed in this paper.
According to justice and Pullen (2003), read aloud activity is one powerful means to be
taken into considera tion in aSSisting th e develop ment of children's emergent literacy.
Further,jim Trelease (th e author of "The New Rea d-Aloud Handbook) argues that read
aloud establishes goo d connection with journal writing as a response to it. Th at is why
the writer uses response journal writing to make connection with read aloud activity.
The objective ofthis paper is to analyze how children create journal writing as a response
to read aloud activity. The writer collected data by conducting observation and going
through a series of read aloud activity with a bilingual In do nesian child, named Piay.
Finally, after analyzing the data and highlig hting th e theory oftextu a I connections and
emergent literacy de velopment, the writer would like to present three findings on how
Piay creates her jou rn al writing as a response to read aloud activity: (1) by developing
the alphabet writing, (2) by making in tertextual as well as intratextual con nections,
and (3) by making autobiographica l connections to ward the story.
Keywords: read alQud activity, response j ournal writing, young English language learners
A. INTRODUCTION
The idea of choosing this topic comes
from the writer's personal concern on
children's literacy developmen t in her home
country, Indonesia. Based on the writer's
experience, many paren ts in the place where
she grew up often have assumption that th eir
children are ready to be exposed with readi ng
and writing when they first enter elementary
school. So, when children open a book and
"read' it or write somethi ng in a piece of
paper after being read a story, parents will
not consider it as a real action of reading and
writing. Writing, in their perception, should
be in the form of letters and how those letters
are sequenced into words and sentences. So,
when children draw a line and letterlike,
parents seldom respond to it. This is what
Peregoy describes in Reading Readiness
Perspective. According to this perspective,
"ch ildren will be developmentally ready to
read when they reach a mental age of 6.6
years" (Peregoy & Owen, 2005, p.S). That is
also one of the reasons why home literacy is
not introduced and emnhasized as early as
possible.
Having an opportunity to interact
with many parents and children in a
different cultu ral backgroun d changes the
writer's previous concept of children literacy
development. In this new place, children
begin their literacy experience from the time
they are introduced with reading and writing
at home. Parents become the proponents of
emergent literacy perspective who adhere to
the belief that "literacy devel opment should
begin at the very young age at home amid
daytoday fa mily and community activities"
(Peregoy & Owen, 2005, p.6). Story books,
road signs, product's name in supermarkets,
65
Using Journal Writing with You ng English Language Learners
and other environmental prin ts beco me the
media of child re n's reading. At home, pare nts
also read a lot of story books. Children are
encouraged to respond and comment on the
story more t ha n merely doing com prehens ion
question activity. Besides, any for ms of
children's writing products a re also val ued,
including a ve ry rough drawing, wavy lines,
letterlike, and other forms of writing. The
good environm en t of literacy develop me nt,
as a result, provides good effects on cpildren's
academic readin ess and perform ance.
Reali zing its importance, the w r iter is
encouraged to a nalyze a good activity to help
children to develop their literacy as Go od m an
(1 99 6) arg ues that introductio n to li teracy
must be meaningful. Many studies have
shown that read aloud activity to ch ild ren
has been encouraged both at home and at
schools for many years since it is a hi ghly
recomme nded activity to assist childre n's
la nguage and literacy (Adams, 1990). Ln li ne
wi th the importance explained, the writer
fo rmulates one problem in this study, "How
do childre n create t hei r jou rnal writing as a
respo nse to read aloud activity?"
B. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
In orde r to p rovide good perspectives
of theories t hat will support this paper, the
writer w ould like to review s ome rela ted
literatures w hich consist of three key topics:
(1) Read alo ud activity, (2) Response jou rnal
writing, an d (3) Young Englis h language
learners.
1. Read Alo ud Activity
According to Morrow, Ra nd, and Sm ith
(1995), read alo ud activity is "th e single most
important activity for bUilding the knowledge
required for eventual success in reading"
(p.23). It is a n activity where the adults,
parents, or teache rs read a book for chil dr en.
Besides read ing, during the activity, the
reader also helps the children to participate
actively by as ki ng questions, respond ing to
the story or pictures in the story, and ma king
connection w ith the personal expe rie nce.
66
Peregoy and Owen add the definition by
ma king connection with writing. They state
tha t listening to read aloud by adults and/or
peer s introduces children to the conventions
of w ritten English (2 005: 408). It goes in line
wi th Fountas & Pin nell (1996) who share
similar thought of the connection of read
aloud and written language:
Reading aloud is the foundation ofthe
early literacy fra mework. By being
immersed in a variety of well-chosen
texts children not only learn to love
stories and reading but they also learn
about written language. Children
assimilate a sense of structure of
written language and can produce
it in a way that sounds like reading
and app roximates text. It allows
the teacher to demonstrate ways
to make person al connections and
comparisons with books that children
use fo r in teractions in literature
circles and fo rm s a foundation for
other reading an d writing activities.
Tal king abo ut the benefits of read
aloud, the writer w ill underline some good
points from Morrow and Smith (1990). They
state that re ad alo ud can benefit children in:
(1) Buil ding vocabulary, (2) developing oral
la nguage, (3) developing written language,
(4) developi ng social sknI, (5) developing
p ho nological skill, (6) being able to make
connections betwee n the text and their
ow n life expe rie n ce, (7) Being able to think
critically. In ad ditio n, Trelease (2001) states
the impor ta nce of read aloud to children.
Some of them can be noted as follows :
a. Read alo ud activity helps children to
know a nd value books. When they can
value books, th ey will be motivated to
read their own books later on.
b. Read aloud helps children develop
their vocabular y since it guides them
to make con nection and sense of what
they hear and see.
c. Read aloud gives children opportunity
to explore places, people, and events
with their imagination.
L
rSSN 14107201
d. Read alo Ll d inlroduces the book refer to connections that are made fro m one
la nguage which is, most of the time, text to another text. Second, intratextual
differe nt from the daily language they connections t hat re fer to connections made
wi thin the same text (Panta leo, 2004). Th e
use every day.
e. Read aloud helps children develop last is autobiographical connections that
their written knowledge as it facili tates refer to connections that relate th e text to li fe
them to have wri tten respo nse t o what and life to text.
they have been read.
2. Response Journal Writing
The above types of connections will
be considered in analyzing how children
create respo nse journal writing after read
aloud activity in this paper. Besid es, the
writer will refer to Peregoy and Owen's
concept in viewi ng how children in young
age create journal wri ting. They state that
children who are in the emergent literacy
per iod will develop their writing through
some categories, namely: (1) writing via
drawing, (2). Writing via scribbli ng, (3).
Writing via lette rlike forms, (4). Writing
via reproducing welllearned unit or lette r
strings, (5) letter via inve nted spelling, and
(6) writing via conventional spelling. In the
early d evelo pment they will mostly d velop
the al phabet writi ng through drawi ng,
scribblin g, and letterlike form s (200 5,
p.169). It is indeed amazing to know how
ch ildren of young age try to make sense of
their response toward the sto ry being read
to them .
Journal, in this study, refers to a form
of notebook or collection of w riti ng in which
daily writing is recorded in order to clarifY
the writer's th ought. According to Madeline
Kovarik (200 6, p .1 79), there are five effe ctive
types of j ournals for respondingthe literat ure:
(1) diary, wh ich facilitates hildren to have
personal reaction and it is usually secret,
(2) response journal writing, wh ich allows
children to refl ect and react to w hat they
have read, (3) dialogue journal, which allows
children to com municate their thought to the
teacher, parents, adults, and/ or pe er then the
others w ill respond, (4) double entry journal,
which facilitates child re n to write the idea of
a text on the half page and reaction on the
other half page, an d (5) learning log, which
allows child ren to record what they have
learned th roughout the story. Of those five
types, the one which is the most suitable to
be the foll ow up of read aloud is response 3. Young English Language Learners
journal writ ing.
In this study, the wri ter defi nes
As it has been stated before that yo ung English language learners using
response journal writing has connecti on with Peregoy and Owen's defini tion. They are
read alo ud in the way it fac ilitates children to "children who sp eak English as a no nrespond to what they have listened fro m the na ive language and who live in all parts of
reading in the form of writing. N o e & Jo hnson the United States . Besides, many of these
(1999) state that response journal writing children are the daughters and the sons of
encourage children to think critically toward immigrants w ho come to the United States
the books being read and to relate t he story to work for better future. In short, Engli sh
to their prior knowledge and experience. In becomes those chil dren's second language" (
relation with making connection with the Peregoy & Owen, 200 5, p. 3). Sin ce they come
children's personal experience, Sm olki n from countries other than the United States,
& Donovan (2001a) ci ted by Burgess & they bring different culture background. As
Tracey (2006, p.7) men 'on that the re are a a result, lea rning English especially in the
number of ways for ch il dren to make te, tual young age is not easy for them. Mo reover,
connectIOns as a response to read alo ud. The accordi ng to the 1990 U.S. census, over 6 3
first one is intertextual con nectio ns which million children between t he ages of 5 and 17
67
Using Journal Writi ng with Young English Language Learners
spoke a language other than Engli sh at ho me
(Crawford, 200 1). This, th erefore, increases
the number of limited Englis hprofici ent
students at schools. Therefore , introduci ng
literacy both reading a nd writing sh ould be
emphasized and should be in a meaningful
way so t hat they can rea lly develo p it well.
C. METHODOLOGY
a. Subject
The subj ect is Piay, a 4yearol d
bilingual child since her first language is
Indo nesian a nd her second la nguage is
English. Sh e was born in Illinois and has
been living in t he U.S. sin ce then . In he r daily
commun ication, sh e uses both Englis h a nd
Indo nes ian to talk to her com m unity. She
often speaks Ind onesia n only to he r mothe r' s
frien ds because her moth er is Indo nesia n.
The only time she speaks English is w hen she
is with her fathe r a nd her fr iends at school.
The reason the writer chooses her departs
from h er admiration to t his gi rl's abili ty
to speak bot h la nguages well. Besides, the
writer fou nd out that she likes to rea d many
story books, both Indo nesia n stories a nd the
English ones. That is w hy the w riter wa nts
to an a lyze h ow Piay w ill react an d create
response to the read alou d in the form of
writi ng.
Based on t he early observati on, the
writer notices t hat Piay has strong fa m ily's
literacy behaviors. Accord ing to Peregoy
(200 5:179) , family literacy's behavio rs are
activities do ne by home family to support t he
deve lopment of children's literacy. At home,
Piay and he r mother always have read ing
aloud t ime befo re going to bed. Besid es, she
is provided with many good English story
books an d English movies to watch.
b. Data Collection
To collect the da ta, two steps were
done. First, the w riter interviewed Piay's
parents to kn ow her literacy a nd cultu re
68
background. Second, the writer, then, visited
her 10 tim es and w ent through some rea d
aloud activity and response journal writing.
Of those 10 tim es, t he writer could not start
working with Piay for the first five meetings
because she di d not want to have read aloud
activity wit h the writer. So, the writer decided
to build a good relation with her first on those
meetings. The writer began to work with her
on the last five m eetin gs.
In working on the read aloud activity
with th e subject, th e w riter used five children
story books con sisting of three English story
books and two Indon esian story books. The
title s ofthe story books are: 1. Unhei (English),
2. Snow White (Englis h), 3. Liong and Pau
Pa u (E nglish), 4. 5i Ra kus (IndoneSian), and
5. Per p ustakaanku (Indonesian)
D. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
In th is section, the writer would li ke
to d iscuss the answe r of the formulated
proble m "How do childre n create th eir
jou rnal writing as a respons e to read alo ud
activity?" Based on the observation and
analysis of her recorded response journal
writing after read aloud activity, the writer
p resents th e fin djng w hich is related to how
the subject creates her response journal
writing after r ead aloud act ivity. The subject
creates her r esponse journal writing through
some ways mentio ned by Peregoy, Smolkin
and Donovan, and Pantaleo:
a. By deve lop ing the alphabet writing
th rough drawing, scribbling, and letterlike for ms (Pe regoy & Owen, 2005, pp.
168169).
In her firs t response journal writing
after being read to the story of Unh ei,
she d rew an d co mbined some lines in
w hich accordin g to her those combined
lin es were Chinese characters which
meant "I the king". She tried to write
Ch inese chara cters because the
story was a bout a chinese girl na med
Un hei. Th erefore, it is clear that she
ISSN 14107201
LLT JOUR NAL VOL. 14 NO.1
tries to develop h r alpha bet writi ng
by drawing some pictures, creati ng
letterlike forms as it is in her "Chinese
character", a nd scrib bl ing forms.
pj ct ure 1. Piay's Chi nese characters "I the ki ng"
.f
b. By making in tr textual as well a
intertextual connections
As it is stated by Smolkin and Donovan
(2001), intratextual connections are
con nections made within the same text
and/or sto ry. She makes intratextual
connectio ns in the fourth story of
Snow White. In her response journal,
first, she drew Snow Wh ite picture by
looking at the picture in the story. After
that she wrote lette rlike form "snow
white cry she sad" because sh e saw
in the book th at Sno w White did not
smile. She shows her understanding
of the readi ng aloud and tries to ma ke
connection between the story an d
her resp onse journal. Besides, she
also makes intertextual connection in
which she tries to make connection
from one text and/ or story to another
text and/or story. Th is happened when
she wrote her response journal to
respond to the fifth reading. In the fifth
reading th e w riter read an Indonesian
story Perp usta kaan ku. In one of th e
pictu res, there was a picture of a li on in
front of the li brary. After looking at that
picture, she directly took her bo ok an d
wrote "Li ong" severa l times in scribble
writing form. Scri bble writing form is
"wavy lines tha t do not look like letters ,
but look li ke w riting" (Peregoy & Owen,
200 5, p. 169). It is clear that sh e makes
connection of the story to the previous
story "Liong and Pau Pau" in the thi rd
read aloud activity. Instea d of writing
"lion", she wrote "Liong" beca use in the
story of "Liang and Pau Pau" the lion's
name was Liong.
Pi cture 2. Third book being read "Liang and Pau Pau" and one page in
Perp usta kaanku
69
Using Journal Writing with Young English Language Learners
c. By
making
a u tobio gra phic a l
co nnections toward the story
According to Pantaleo (2004),
auto biograp hical connection s are
connectio ns that relate the text and/
or the story to one's personal life and
perso nal life to text and/or sto ry. This
onnectio n appeared in the response
of the story of"Unh ei". In her res ponse,
she mentioned that her "Chinese
character" meant "I the. ki ng". The
reason why she mentioned "kin g" was
because according to her "king" was
identical with lion (from the movie
"Ki ng of the Jungle") an d lion was brave
an d great. She said that she was great
because she did no t as k her mo ther to
change h er name into American's na me
as other nonnative students in he r
schools did. This personal connection
proves the writer wha t Goo dman has
believed that personal con nect ion to
th e text and/or story helps children
make m ea ni ng.
E. CONCLUSION
implement read aloud activity, it is suggested
that parents or teachers choose books that
are suitable with the children's age and
interest. Besides, parents or teachers are also
encouraged to choose books that can facilitate
children to th ink critically and construct
meaning making. Finally, books that provide
some good mo ral values to children are also
recommend ed.
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