Early Literacy Experience Analysis

Thanks to my family and sister, I am here today. When I was two years old, my new sister Carly was diagnosed with a rare developmental disorder, called Smith-Magenis Syndrome (SMS). Of coarse at the time I did not understand what this meant, but as we got older many of Carly’s challenges were things that came easy to me and other typically developing kids. One of her biggest challenges was and still is today, is communicating effectively. For instance, Carly didn’t use full words until she was in elementary school for a couple of years. Before, most of her communication was pointing or using monosyllabic repetitions when she wanted objects. At worst, she would express her thoughts and feelings through tantrums and outbursts, which usually …show more content…
It’s a service-learning course that partners with the preschool located in the town’s elementary school about 45 minutes from Iowa City. This town is quite small and rural, however there is much diversity. Many of the town’s population were either from Mexico and other Latino nations, or refugees from Southeast Asia. Furthermore, many of the students at preschool did not speak or even understand English. Therefore, in this course we spent two mornings a week in the classroom not just reading to the students, but also beginning to show them how to start reading. For instance, we often reviewed that we start by reading the text on the left page before we read the text on the right. During this class we also travelled to the town’s Tyson factory, where many of the student’s family worked. Therefore, this class gave me insight into working with families of a different cultural and/or socioeconomic status from my …show more content…
At the camp, us volunteers helped organize and set up activities while the kids were in their therapy sessions, and hung out with the kids while they were on their breaks, at lunch, and during field trip activities. I also had the opportunity to watch group therapy sessions. Some of these sessions were focused on the counseling aspect of speech language pathology. These sessions gave me better insight from the kids how stuttering felt for them and how it impacted their daily life. Their responses were genuine, and I was impressed and humbled by how open they were to talking about stuttering. Therefore, from this experience I took on an organizational role by helping set up group activities and by being aware of the time schedule. Overall, my favorite part of being a volunteer was getting the chance to get to know all the eleven kids at the camp