Outcome 3.3

Portfolio Post

 

3.3 States the strengths & possible limits of your own ability to observe & offer literacy & numeracy experiences with children less than 4 years of age

 

An Ability
This portfolio post is in relation to a previous reading blog post on how teachers can best support literacy and numeracy learning across multiple contexts and encourage parental involvement. As one of the limits in ability that teachers face is offering and observing activities between contexts with very young children under 4 years of age.  It is during these ages that parental involvement and communication is vital, as educators cannot see what experiences the child has previously been exposed to at home, therefore relying on parents to extend learning and continue the connection between childcare and home environments.

In the previous blog on this topic I stated that ‘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.’ These ideas where further evident with some peer feedback I received in relation to educators being aware of the ways they can help parents understand and provide experiences that best suit their child’s learning needs.

Recently I overheard a parent say about his toddler, who was getting upset, ‘she gets frustrated because she has no words to tell us how she feels’. This made me consider how parents understand their child’s individual needs so well and that educators need to complement this process by providing parents with resources in information on how they can best support their child’s development. As young children (under four years) are also having their first experiences of the outside world, away from their families, they are also still developing their own persona and social identity. Therefore it becomes more important for teachers to utilise parents’ and caregivers’ knowledge of their child’s individual needs and personal learning experiences.

The integrated nature of literacy and numeracy during these age groups (under 4), highlights the need to offer a range of learning experiences, not only catered towards literacy and numeracy but both learning areas. One of my own limits in offering literacy and numeracy experiences for children under four is that during these age groups I don’t believe literacy and numeracy learning can be separated, yet it occurs in everything that the child experiences. For me, an ability that has been improved (in relation to integrating literacy and numeracy with individual learning needs) by providing accurate and useful feedback and assessment in observing very young children’s literacy and numeracy learning, has been using anecdotal records as it has allowed me to be mindful of the child’s personality and provide un-biased accounts of learning, from both the child’s perspective and my own perspective.

Evidence of a lesson plan that was based on an anecdotal record that I created to plan for learning and create an experience based on a child's specific interests can be viewed in my professional portfolio (in Figure 1) by clicking on the link below:

http://annarobertsprofessionalportfolio.weebly.com/32-plan-structure-and-sequence-learning-programs.html

The following is a newsletter I found in relation to summative assessment and is useful for showing educators how they can integrate observation and planning with individual learning needs and identities.

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/e-newsletters/newsletters-36-40/newsletter-40/
 

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

Outcome 2.3

(Sources further information; developing &/or collecting resources for literary & numerical teaching & learning)

 Week 7

An action plan: identify something you have heard of or are interested in learning more about, creating a plan of action to investigate it further

As I have been interested in using play to support learning during early childhood, I have recently heard of the ‘Play is the Way’ Program. I would therefore like to find out more about this program and how it supports play based learning within preschools, early learning centres and schools. I have learnt and observed that play is profoundly important for the development of early literacy and numeracy through exploration and interaction and would like to know about which programs and resources are available to support imaginative play, especially those that can be used within diverse contexts (for example between preschools and schools).

To enhance my learning and investigate this program and find resources I will follow these steps:
1. Research the ‘Play is the Way’ Program online via the website...    

                                                https://www.playistheway.com.au/

2. Note resources and information provided by the website...
- ‘Play is the Way’ is catered towards primary schools, where the program uses play based learning in the form of ‘games’ to encourage ‘social and emotional’ wellbeing and pro-social behaviours through the development of positive identities, creative thinking skills and team based learning processes (play is the way, 2013).
- Resources include free resources such as videos, articles, descriptions and program guides and resources that can be purchased such as booklets, manuals and posters.
Administrators Guide: https://www.playistheway.com.au/img/cms/PITW%20Admin%20Guide.pdf
3. Research preschool equivalents of adaptations:
- Since this is a more primary school aged program, is there anything similar for preschool and if not how could this program be adapted to suit the birth-4 age group?

Resources for further learning:
- Find definition for play and its importance: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/every_child_magazine/every_child_index/why_play-based_learning.html
- Read about the development of social behaviours:
This book, 'Child’s Play: Revisiting Play in Early Childhood Settings’ by Elizabeth Dau (2001) explores child development through play and is available from the Flinders library. (Image from Google Images)

 

 

 

 - ‘Play is the Way’ professional development oppurtunities, Adelaide 19^th February 2014.
- Lady Gowrie centre professional development learning oppurtunities for further information on adapting using the elements of social behaviour development from ‘play is the way’ in preschool contexts:http://www.pscsa.org.au/cms/files/July%20-%20December%202013%20Training%20Calendar_0.pdf (Also helpful for identifying play and curriculum integration through the Early Years Learning Framework, and how to support a range of play experiences)

 References:

About Play is the Way. Retrieved September 16, 2013, from the Play is the Way Web site:
https://www.playistheway.com.au/

Play is the Way Administrators Guide. Retrieved September 16, 2013, from the Play is the Way Web site:
https://www.playistheway.com.au/img/cms/PITW%20Admin%20Guide.pdf

Why Play-Based Learning? Retrieved September 16, 2013, from the Early Childhood Australia Web site: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/every_child_magazine/every_child_index/why_play-based_learning.html

July - December 2013 Training Calendar. Retrieved September 16, from the Lady Gowrie Child Centre SA web site: http://www.gowrie-adelaide.com.au/cms/

Outcome 1.2

Week 5

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

 I was at a family gathering over the weekend and I was observing my second cousin (who I will call by the pseudonym of 'Sarah'), who is three and a half, engaged in play with a set of animal families and a train set. The way she assigned personalities to each animal figurine and how she connected the two worlds of the animal families to that of the train set, directed my thinking to how literacy is so interconnected in everything we do and experience. Imaginative play fascinates me, how during childhood we have the potential to create other realities, separating the reality of the present from the reality of the imagined, yet still exist and communicate within the two environments at the same time. Sarah continued to switch between communicating within the two different contexts quickly and effortlessly, whenever she was spoken to by an adult she would lift her head, reply to what they were saying and then go back to displaying the personality of the animal she was impersonating in her imaginative play.

I was amazed at how well she could modify her communication style to suit the context. This observation drew my attention to the point that Barratt-Pugh (2000) made in her article, how so much of the learning involved with literacy and becoming literate is embedded in our everyday social and cultural interactions and understandings. Where Sarah was demonstrating her understanding in a practical sense of what family meant, which social roles were required, how trains could be used for transport, how dialogue can be used to represent talking and communicating within situations and how social roles can be represented and recreated between contexts. Sarah was also able to process and make sense of what was happening in her external, physical world whilst being simultaneously engaged with her internal, cognitive world.


Relevance to Topic Outcome:

1.2 Explains how young children’s literacy & numeracy learning can be socially conveyed through their behaviour, feelings or approach

References:

Barratt-Pugh, C. (2000). The socio-cultural context of literacy learning. In C. Barratt-Pugh & M. Rohl (Eds.), Literacy learning in the early years (pp. 1-27). Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin