Outcome 1.1

Week 11 Portfolio Post

• Outcome 1.1 Clearly describes how the concepts are connected to & supported by social relationships & contexts

An experience: describe something you saw or were a part of & what you learnt as a result

 

 

These observations are from a professional experience in a childcare centre where I have evaluated the social environment of the outdoor area to determine the literacy and numeracy learning processes that are occurring...

 I was able to observe three different types of play and learning in the outdoor environment, imaginative, social and developmental. The layout of the outdoor play area is attractive to children as there are lots of different coloured object and shapes. These include brightly coloured play equipment with tunnels and a slippery dip, an undercover veranda with many different toys to use, including dress ups for imaginative play and a sandpit with many different buckets and spades to choose from.

One example of literacy and mathematical learning I observed while sitting outside involved the children running around the outside area pretending to be crocodiles and clapping their hands together in front of them like a crocodile mouth. The other children would run away from the crocodiles and hide around the play equipment, under it and in the tunnels and behind the shade cloth of the veranda. The majority of the children seemed to like this game best, laughing and screaming in delight as they took on the role of the person being chased by the crocodile. The literacy and numeracy learning areas from this observation include:

Literacy:

- showing/reading emotion and expression
- imitation of symbols/words – being a ‘crocodile’
- social roles (group/individual)
- communicating – finding out information/body language
- understanding gestures – symbolic play
- negotiating socially acceptable behaviours in play

Numeracy:
- spatial awareness – navigating the outdoor space
- size of play equipment
- group dynamics – ‘crocodiles’ and ‘people’ and how many of each
- shape of the space/colour of the play equipment


One of the most appealing things outdoors is the sand pit. I have noticed that many of the children like going around the playground and just feeling different textures with their hands. They pick up handfuls of sand and let it drain through their fingers watching it fall intently. They also pick up little bits of sand and rub it between their fingers to feel the grains. The children also love it when buckets of water are brought out for them to use in the sand pit as they seem to particularly enjoy the feel of the wet sand, likening it to ‘mud’ and making mud pies. This kind of play would relate to sensory development such as touch. They also love using different objects in the sand pit such as buckets and sand castle models and filling them up to see how much sand will fit in them and what shape it will create when the sand is tipped out.

Literacy/Numeracy Learning Outcomes:

Literacy...
- textures, describing and feeling different properties of objects (bucket, water, sand)
- cause and effect – sand + water
- utilising prior knowledge – making comparisons between the sand and ‘mud’
- symbols – understanding that sand could represent mud
- fine motor skills
- hand-eye coordination

Numeracy...
- changes of objects (change of the sand) – awareness of change
- awareness of shapes (building sand castles with sand castle models)
- awareness of depth/capacity of the bucket – filling it with water and sand
- number concepts – how many buckets of water/how many sand castles

From these examples I have now learnt that the social and environmental aspects of learning are important for understanding as social relationships provide scaffolding, joint construction of meaning and allow the child to test and represent their understandings in concrete ways. Environmental aspects are important as the environment (natural and constructed) provides many underlying elements that promote spontaneous learning, for example larger spaces, many colours and shapes and different textures (sand, water, play equipment (metal)).

 

 

Week 11 Reading Blog

Week 11 Reading Blog

What?

This week I selected two readings that were based more on the primary school age group as I wanted to find out how children progress in their understanding from initial construction of knowledge to using their prior experiences to create meaning. The two readings I read were, for literacy, ‘Readers as Text Code Breakers’ (Harris et al, 2006) and for numeracy, ‘Early Number’ (Zeuenbergen et al, 2004).  

So what?

The main points as identified by Harris et al (2006) in ‘Readers as Text Code Breakers’ are:
- reading is integrated into our social and cultural understandings
- Strategies for making meaning, such as ‘decoding, predicting, confirming, self-correcting’ (p.87.)
- The importance of integrating comprehension, understanding and decoding of texts with a variety of examples of texts that can be related to real world, concrete understandings.

The main points as identified by Zeuenbergen et al (2004) in ‘Early Number’ are:  
- children need to develop comfort and familiarity with recognising, using and being aware of numbers from an early age
- children are often exposed to a variety of situations directly using numbers and number awareness during daily life
- Through the use of social understandings and play children begin to develop a deep awareness of number and progress in their skill level, (e.g. ‘sharing and division’ – (p.143).

Now what?

From reading these articles I am now more aware, as an educator, of how important the social aspect of learning is to literacy and numeracy development, for example communicating, cooperating to create shared understanding and forming connections between everyday life and learning concepts. To answer my initial question, children become more aware of their previous experiences as they are exposed to more learning and diverse environments. Therefore literacy and numeracy understandings begin to change as children engage in more diverse social situations, learn to have a wider range of communication strategies and begin to develop an awareness of their learning.

 

 

References:

 

 

 Harris, P., Turbill, J., Fitzsimmons, P. & McKenzie, B. (2006). Readers as text code breakers, Reading in the Primary School years (pp. 114-158). South Melbourne: Social Science Press.

Zeuenbergen, R., Dole, S. & Wright, R. (2004). Early number, Teaching mathematics in primary schools (pp. 121-148). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.

 

 

Outcome 4.2

Week 10 Portfolio Page

4.2 Describes how parents, peers & communities may see, feel & shape young children’s early literacy & numeracy experiences
 

A resource: select & present a resource you have found or developed, providing justification for its use when working on literacy or numeracy with very young children


 

As part of my professional learning, a resource I have found very useful in illustrations of practice and considering practical applications of the EYLF and NQS in early childhood settings is the National Quality Standard Professional Learning Program, the NQS PLP provided by Early Childhood Australia - http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/.

 My reading blog focused on parental and family involvement in early literacy and numeracy learning and experiences, therefore the professional learning program is helpful for my personal learning as it provides me with contextualised examples of how young children’s literacy and numeracy experiences are integrated with their social environments.

As relating to week ten’s focus of ‘technician – how do I crack this code?’ I believe that I learn best through hearing and discussing other people’s experience and similarly children learn best through exploratory and social learning and shared experience. Therefore the following videos and article have helped me think about how families and parents, children, educators and centres can form partnerships to support learning, providing me with realistic examples to refer back to when unsure or in need of refreshing my memory when I do not have access to examples from professional experience (especially since I am about to complete my degree and enter the professional world and would like to tie my knowledge together and reflect on my learning). Apart from helping me conceptualise my ideas and experiences, this website also offers suggestions on how to reflect, providing reflective questions and how to observe and practice observing when viewing the videos.

 

 

 

1. https://www.facebook.com/notes/national-quality-standard-professional-learning-program-nqs-plp/families-as-first-teachers-their-way/557075214334462

 

These articles are great for allowing educators to share ideas, the article here for example talked about the importance of creating partnerships with families and recognising the importance of parents as being the primary ‘experts’ on their child’s learning needs and not as the educator taking that away from them, but respectfully and mutually sharing ideas and valuing the expertise and knowledge that families bring to our practice.

 

 

 

 

 

2. http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/e-learning-videos/have-you-thought-about/

 

The ‘Have you thought about vignette series’ Provides examples of practice from actual settings and ways of constructing environments and presenting yourself as a professional. They also discuss issues in practice and ideas or current debates.

 

 

 

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqmCaC-ADc4

 

 

This video was helpful for suggesting simple ways we can include parents in our centres more effectively and maintain strong communication, the example given was to create a blog or online posting where parents can keep updated about daily routines and activities in action and see it connected with curriculum frameworks.

 

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYLrDiPH9sk

The reflective questions the NQS PLP (2013) suggested to use for this video were:

• ‘What was the thing that stood out in the vignette to you?’
• ‘What questions would you like to ask?’

 

- The example here of using the outdoor environment to provide literacy experiences and structuring the ‘community’ of the learning environment within the centre was designing a treasure hunt as a group and using maps or directions to locate items, using literacy skills such as:
               

• Identifying, locating and labelling symbols and features of the environment
• Using directional language
• Communicating ideas
• Interpreting written and spoken communication
• Interacting in a group situation
• Spatial awareness
• Hand eye coordination skills/eye tracking

 

 

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UivL7SB4cY4

This video illustrated the importance of maintaining communication with families and discussing and sharing progress, interests and daily achievements and actively celebrating success and showing the child that there are mutually trusting, supportive relationships so they can feel at home in the preschool environment, like it is an extension of their family in cultural background, beliefs and functioning.

 

 

Reference:

 National Quality Standard Professional Learning Program (NQS PLP). Retrieved October 20, 2013, from the Early Childhood Australia website, http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/

 



Week 10 Reading Blog

Technician - How do I crack this code?
- Given very young children’s development of language and abstraction, how do contextual, multimodal symbols and conventions support their encoding or decoding of the world around them?

Week 10 Reading Blog

What?

This week I was interested in finding out how teacher’s can best support literacy and numeracy learning across multiple contexts and encourage parental involvement. Before I could answer this question I wanted to find out how parents increase literacy and numeracy outcomes for their child. The two readings selected to help me answer this question were, ‘Parental Involvement in children’s acquisition of Reading’ (Darling & Westberg, 2004) and ‘It’s in the bag: Parental involvement in a numeracy at-home program’ (Muir, 2012).

So What?

Parents can greatly enhance the acquisition of both literacy and numeracy skills by encouraging and modelling good literacy and numeracy habits, recognising and responding to their child’s individual needs and abilities, and engaging in joint construction of knowledge during shared reading and numeracy activities (Darling & Westberg, 2004; Muir, 2012). The development of basic literacy knowledge in relation to reading was defined by Darling & Westberg (2004) as knowledge of ‘letter names and sounds, phoneme awareness, early decoding abilities, word recognition and reading comprehension’ (p.774), to be able to guide the development of these skills parents need to have knowledge of strategies to help children learn how to read and decode text. Strategies can include:

- phonic awareness and cues
- use of memory tools (e.g. flashcards, pictures and words (symbols))
- reading in an appropriate learning environment or space
- sounding out letter and word sounds
- guidance, encouragement and celebrating success
- discussing the book before reading it (e.g. awareness of title and pictures)
- encouraging the child to self-correct and not jumping in on mistakes, giving the child time to recognise and correct themselves
(Darling & Westberg, 2004)

Another factor that can enhance or limit literacy and numeracy learning in the home environment includes parental attitudes to literacy and numeracy learning and pedagogy. This includes parent’s early experiences with learning mathematics or reading, negative or positive and societies views toward numeracy as more negative compared with literacy often because numeracy is attributed to just number skills, and general rote learning, rather than the integrated nature of literacy and numeracy that involves daily experiences and concrete problems (Muir, 2012). Parents were able to assist with numeracy development by valuing numeracy activities as just as beneficial as literacy activities (such as reading) and applying numeracy concepts to games and daily concrete experiences (for example cooking) (Muir, 2012).

Now What?

Educators can help parents become more involved in their child’s literacy and numeracy learning by engaging parents in continuous communication and correspondence, giving parents strategies and information on how to support literacy and numeracy development and designing specific learning tasks to engage both parent and child in literacy and numeracy concepts that are easily understandable and provides parents with outcomes that are easily observable (Darling & Westberg, 2004; Muir, 2012).

For me, this reading helped me recognise that learning is very context dependent, and that for successful learning and ‘decoding’ to occur a strong emphasis needs to be placed on connecting learning environments and our role as educators in providing parents with information, especially when they do not have the initial knowledge on how to best assist their child’s literacy and numeracy development. Muir (2012) provided an example of a worksheet that educators could send home to make numeracy homework more enjoyable and engaging for parents, children and families, this example has helped me conceptualise what kind of activities and information I could be providing and how I can respectfully engage parents in literacy and numeracy learning.

 

 (In Muir, 2012, p.29)

 

 References:

Muir, T. (2012) It’s in the bag: Parental involvement in a numeracy at-home program. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 37(2), 27-33.

Darling, S. & Westberg, L. (2004) Parental Involvement in children’s acquisition of Reading. The Reading Teacher, 57(8), 774-776.  

Outcome 3.1

Week 9 Portfolio Page

 

An Experience: describe something you saw or were a part of & what you learnt as a result

Outcome 3.1: Offers a careful interpretation & analysis of children’s early literacy/numeracy skills & interests

Following my reading for this week I was inspired to design a simple learning task based on using household materials and test it with a toddler. The task I designed was for my 1.9 year old niece, therefore while planning this experience I took into account her interests and prior knowledge/experience. From planning this experience I learnt how to plan for a very young child and evaluate the learning occurring based on literacy and numeracy development, utilising the knowledge I've learnt from both: 
- Further reading
- Evaluating observations and designing learning experiences tutorials

 

Child’s age:

1 year, 9 months

 

Interests/Prior Knowledge:

- opening/closing things

- hiding games/objects (e.g. peek-a-boo)

- excellent language develop, already using two word utterances, imitating new words frequently, able to label objects verbally and respond to what she see’s and experiences verbally.
 

Activity Description:

 

Materials:

- pink, rectangle Tupperware box (or other shape/colour)

- 3x laminated frog picture cards
 

 

 

 

The learning outcome:

 

OUTCOME 5: CHILDREN ARE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS

à Outcome 5.1: Children interact verbally and non-verbally with others for a range of purposes

 

(DEEWR, 2009)

 

For the toddler to respond verbally and non-verbally to what they hear, see and touch

by... feeling, exploring the box and what’s inside the box (the frog cards) and make meaning by using fine motor skills, touch, hearing and sight to respond to the object verbally and non-verbally, also developing finger coordination and muscle strength.

 

Educator Support:

- listen/engage child in a two way interaction, talk normally with the child.

- model language use

- use facial expression to communicate emotion/interest

- provide interesting/engaging materials in a range of different sizes, shapes and colours

- ask prompting/scaffolding questions: enhances the toddlers awareness of words/communicative interaction:

e.g. what’s in there?

 What’s that?

They’re frogs

Where’d they go?

 

(Bardige & Bardige, 2008)

 

 

Observations:

- picked up cards

- opened/closed lid

- put cards on floor

- shook box (listened – put ear close to the box while she shook it)

- felt container with fingers (explored opening clasp)

 

Verbal utterances:

- said “frogs” – repeated the word after I said it

- “more frogs” - after I handed her the frog cards

- “ooh”  - when she first saw the box and opened it to see the frog cards

 
 

Evidence of Learning

 

 

                        Literacy Skills: 

• Communicating emotions/feelings in language and facial expression
•  fine motor skills (picking up cards/box and opening/closing the lid)
•  making sense of the object/creating meaning through exploration
•  realising the use for the box
•  Finding further uses - connecting the sound of the box to its possible use (e.g. picking up the box and shaking it to hear the noise it made with the frog cards inside)
• Classifying the object (symbols and words) – naming the ‘frogs’
• Describing/interpreting using oral language

 

                        Numeracy Skills

•  awareness of size/shape
•  spatial awareness
•  patterning, opening and closing lid consecutively
•  recognising the concept of ‘more/less’ when she said “more frogs”

 

 

 

 

References:

Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). (2009). Belonging, Being & Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF). Canberra, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia.

Bardige, B. & Bardige, M. (2008). Talk to me, baby! Supporting language development in the first 3 years. Zero to Three, September, 4-10

Week 9 Reading Blog

What?

This week I wanted to learn more about language development and more specifically how children use language to represent their understandings and I will be able to support this learning. Since reading about babies and toddlers I have since become interested in their learning and how it differs from older children. I have also been curious to learn more about the way babies communicate non-verbally when they are unable to communicate using spoken language and which signs they display to be able to interact with adults and other children. Therefore the two readings I selected for week nine were:

- ‘Talk To Me, Baby’ by Betty Bardige and M. Kori Bardige (2008)
- ‘Infants and Toddlers Exploring Mathematics’ by Eugene Geist (2009)

My reasons for selecting these readings in particular were that they both provided practical examples of contextualised behaviour, therefore allowing me to reflect on what I had experienced. Both articles also broke down the learning into observable categories, which would be handy for future use. As I sometimes have trouble breaking the learning down whilst observing and figuring out what to look for I wish to develop my skills in this area by reading about specific behavioural signals that I can refer to when analysing the learning that is taking place.

Now What?

The main points in both articles emphasised the importance of interaction in early language, literacy and numeracy development and how when we interact with children we often modify our language use to scaffold their understanding, introduce them to new concepts and vocabulary and support their interest by engaging them in new experiences that appeal to their curiosity (Bardige & Bardige, 2008; Geist, 2009). The article by Bardige & Bardige (2008) identified that children begin to develop their language from before they are born and begin to develop their initial understandings based on interaction and imitation. When a child is unable to communicate verbally they use gestures and similar verbal sounds (baby ‘babbel’, p.6), before progressing to single word utterances and finally multiple words to form sentences.

Similarly in the article by Geist (2009) children begin to develop numeracy skills right from birth through interaction and everyday experience. Geist (2009) describes the role of the educator as very important in scaffolding learning when they ‘...offer materials and activities that provide appropriate levels of challenge, help children question their own assumptions, and encourage them to think about and recognise relationships between objects’ (p.40). Here are some examples of learning provided by Geist (2009, p.40), which could be overlooked, yet provides valuable mathematical understandings:

 

 

 

(Geist, 2009, p.40)

 

Now What?

It is important for educators to understand the interconnectedness of literacy and numeracy and how simple, everyday learning experiences can provide beneficial understandings and concrete representations. For example, before reading these articles I would have been unaware that simply drinking out of a round cup is part of literacy and numeracy development, or the value of purely reading to a child and just talking in aiding language and communication development. With this knowledge I feel I am more capable at being able to scaffold children’s learning during spontaneous learning situations.

 

References:

Bardige, B. & Bardige, M. (2008). Talk to me, baby! Supporting language development in the first 3 years. Zero to Three, September, 4-10

 

 

Geist, E. (2009). Infants and Toddlers Exploring Mathematics. Young Children, 64(3), 39-41.

 

 

Outcome 3.2

...Shows Competence in observing & planning for literacy and numeracy experiences & environs, adapting to specific learner needs, interests & contexts

An Ability

Week 8

 

This week I have been thinking about how children bring their own ideas, perceptions, attitudes and ways of thinking to learning experiences and how it is important to plan for activities that allow for freedom of expression, free exploration, and also extend on interests. Consequently the educators role depends on being flexible and guiding learning rather than directing, while also being able to recognise and respond to the learning and thinking that is being displayed by the children. Throughout professional experience I have observed that children have a strong interest in their learning and like to feel in control and involved. Part of this engagement comes from being able to use their own creativity and individuality and be able to extend their learning in their own way by expressing what they have learnt using different mediums (speech, drawing, writing, remembering), making meaning in social situations and resourcing their own learning by selecting their own materials.

 

The skill I have developed and been able to use throughout my practicum involves supporting learning through the use of teaching and learning techniques such as, scaffolding, modelling and shared intentionality; while also selecting learning materials and arranging spaces for engagement, open ended exploration and making meaning through play. The following pictures are from an example of a learning experience I developed based on the children’s interests where children explored colour mixing using milk, food colour and detergent to produce a reaction that created different shapes and colours:

 

By allowing for creativity in expression, asking the children questions to prompt thought processes and structuring the environment that allowed for free exploration (providing a variety of materials and allowing the children to find their own ways to use the resources), opportunities for the children to use their independence and setting up the activity on a round table to allow for group interaction; I was able to provide a learning experience that catered for optimum engagement, involvement and exploration through play.

 

 

One of the most important things I learnt from professional experience is that literacy and numeracy are in everything, whether it be existing and communicating within social environments, drawing on prior knowledge and experience, seeing, experiencing and most importantly finding meaning in what we do, especially in the context of early childhood. Young children are often already competent in their literacy and numeracy use, they already come with experience, ideas, perceptions, cultural understandings, formed relationships and identities, the educator’s role is to therefore extend on specific literacy and numeracy skills and help the child become a literate and numerate participant in their world to their greatest ability to be able to be in control of their thinking, interaction and persona.

A useful website I have found that provides excellent practical, open ended, playful learning experiences that use resources that can be sourced from around the home is ‘the Imagination Tree’ - http://theimaginationtree.com, the examples of activities focus on a birth-4 age group and also provide examples of how to make, re-use and extend on learning experiences from both literacy and numeracy perspectives.