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.

 

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