Week 7 Reading Blog

 What?

The two readings I used to support my learning this week were ‘Creating and using a mathematical environment’ by Tucker (2010) and ‘Learning to Read the World: Literacy in the first 3 years’ by Rosenkoetter & Knapp-Philo (2004). This week I was interested in looking into the learning environment and how we as educators can structure it best to allow for the most beneficial exploratory learning and also how our interactions with children can help guide learning and the relationship between the environment and intentional teaching. Therefore I felt these articles provided a comparison between these questions in the form of answering my broader question of, how do children make sense of their environment through literacy and numeracy?

So what?

The article by Tucker (2010) provided a comprehensive overview of the practical ways in which educators could support mathematical learning and the development of numeracy through the structure of the learning space and consequently how it effects a child’s ‘psychological’ and ‘physical’ learning attitudes (p.15).  Tucker (2010) outlined the importance of the environment on learning outcomes where the resources, organisation of physical space, and correspondence of inside and outside environments can enhance or limit learning in the form of encouraging multimodal and diverse ways of thinking, diversity of experience, self-confidence and autonomy, shared intentionality, individualised learning processes and enjoyment.

The second article by Rosenkoetter & Knapp-Philo (2004) explored how children develop early literacy in the form of everyday communication and interaction where:
- words and their corresponding concrete and implied symbols help form literal and applied understandings.
- Through the use of verbal, drawn and written and other multi-modal forms of communication children begin to realise their own autonomy
- Children gradually build a personal profile and repertoire of communication within family, cultural, social and community contexts by interacting, imitating, observing and creating using literacy
- With continuous exposure to words, books, speech, signs and symbols children learn to understand their world
- Successful literacy learning depends on the following relationships and the partnerships they create: (see diagram below)

                                                     

Now what?

Both articles illustrated the highly integrated nature of literacy and numeracy within every day, exploratory experience that centred on interaction within the social context. Children therefore make sense of their environment through literacy and numeracy as these skills give them the tools to be able to communicate, explore and form understandings. While much of the literacy and numeracy development comes from being a social, environmental and psychological participant within their world. From a more practical point of view, educators can structure the learning space for optimal engagement by utilising everyday materials and involving children in the creation and implementation of learning experiences by encouraging imaginative play, creative expression and shared thinking.

References

Rosenkoetter, S. & Knapp-Philo, J. (2004). Learning to read the world: Literacy in the first 3 years. Zero to Three, 25(1), 4-9

N) Tucker, K. (2010). Why play? & Creating and using a mathematical environment. Mathematics through play in the Early Years (pp. 5-14). London: SAGE Publications