Case Study #12, Question #1

Kenji encouraged his students to implement a developmentally appropriate literary activity by instead of having the preschool students blinding recreate the ABC's from the modeled version, he offered that they only use letters that held meaning to the preschool students so that they would gain a better grasp/foothold of the alphabetic knowledge that they already knew, and in the process, perhaps even experiment or be introduced to new letters at their own pace of learning. Also by suggesting that they follow a more flexible model (one that they create themselves) the preschool students could also find a ways to use/show others their letter knowledge (spelling their names, words they knew, even using the materials in other creative ways to show of their own creative abilities) instead of copying what the teacher had rigidly assigned them, and create their own work that they can be proud of (and not be ashamed if their product was "not as good as the teacher's").

Case Study #12, Question #2

The second activity plan implemented the use of the book read to the preschool students about trains to help aid and transition the preschoolers into the mind-set of thinking about "trains" so that when they begin working on their ABC activity they will be primed, even excited, to create a product that will express their knowledge of trains. The second activity also incorporates a variety of artistic mediums the preschool students can use to express their knowledge of the alphabet (a creative representation of trains) either by their own direct hand (through writing, scribbling, gesturing, mark-making) or by using environmental texts (the variety of cut out textured letters). It can also be noted that by having the preschool students share their materials (glue-sticks) also promotes social interaction and cooperation, as well as aid them with practicing their literary knowledge with each other (ex. "Can you please pass me the 'F'... no, that is an "E", an "F" only has two 'arms'... yes that right there is an 'F', thank you!")