Engaged Learning

Engaged Learning

When children are involved in meaningful, engaged learning, they take an active role in meaningful tasks and activities. They assume increasing responsibility for their own learning and demonstrate their understanding. They explore a variety of resources and strive for deep understanding through experiences that directly apply to their lives, promote curiosity and inquiry, and stimulate new interests.

Emergent learners in supportive, literacy-rich environments repeatedly participate in engaged learning tasks. When engrossed in emergent reading, young children are operating at a deep level of semantic processing; they are manipulating their own syntax, sorting out possibilities, trying to maintain grammar, and experimenting with sounding like a reader (Holdaway, 1979). In the process, children are developing the knowledge and skills necessary to promote their literacy development toward more conventional behaviors. They demonstrate intrinsic motivation to engage in literacy tasks and are driven by curiosity to explore and experiment with a variety of literacy materials.

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