During the literacy session the children had to read their topic book “Lost in the toy museum” in their groups using reading strategies to help such as; “read aloud with expression, showing awareness of exclamation and speech marks” and use “phonic strategies to decode words” (Literacy and Numeracy Framework, 2014). The children had this book read to them prior to this activity various times in the week so are familiar with some of the words.
I observed a group of six children who are more able than the other groups in terms of reading and writing. They read the title together and put the book in the middle. They decided they would go in order of the line that they were in to read a sentence out of the book. As a practitioner I decided I would act as a facilitator and be there for support if there were an issue such as an argument or a child needed my support.
Most of the group were very confident readers and was able to read the book with fluency only getting frustrated with certain words such as ‘Chinese’ as they wanted to say the ‘e’ on the end. However they would sometimes result in using her phonics to spell out a word in order to work it out developing her problem skills.
There was one student who lacked self confidence and asked for my support in reading. However with some praise and support from me as the practitioner and the support of her peers she used her phonics to read the book and spell out the words. Once she realised that making mistakes was fine as it is a part of learning she started to read the book with fluency and accuracy. She then started helping other children who got stuck on words by supporting them with praise and saying “it is ok to make mistakes”. They were also very confident and able to use different expressions when someone was talking or when a question mark was being used. However they found changing expression when an exclamatory was used difficult through lack of understanding of why it is being used.
After this they had to write a paragraph about what they remembered from or found out in the book “Lost in the museum”. When writing their paragraphs if the pupils got stuck when spelling a word they would often result in using their phonics to say the word and then proceed to use them to spell the word. However the quiet pupil who had very little self confidence thrived in this task. She was able to spell the majority of words which she decided she would use within her paragraph. However when she became stuck on how to spell a word like ‘Chinese’ she used her problem solving skills and decided rather than using her phonics to say the word and then use them to spell the word she would look through the book for the word in order to spell it. She then proceeded to tell her peers about her new found strategy In order to help them spell words which they found difficult. This demonstrated a higher standard of problem solving in order to further her learning independently and efficiently.
From this session the children learnt how to read using independent reading strategies such as using phonics in order to decode words which they found difficult to read. They were also able to read the book with fluency and use expression at different points in the book such as when a question mark was being used or when a character had a narrating part in the book etc. This demonstrates that they were able to gain some knowledge and learn important skills from this literacy session.
They took place is social and communicative play as they had a set of rules to follow and also had to communicate with one another in order to take an active part in the activity and complete it successfully. This related to the Foundation Phase Framework as this provided the children with an opportunity to play through learning. Although the children may not have been aware they were taking part in play through learning due to the different types of play involved in learning. This also links to Vygotsky’s key point of “what a child can do today with assistance she will be able to do by herself tomorrow” showing that giving a child support to aid their learning will indeed help them in the future and promote them to learn through trial and error as they attempt to sort the issue one day without the support and aid of a practitioner or member of staff. This also links to Vygotsky’s theory of ZPD as we were able to see where the group’s zone of proximal development was as they were able to use phonics to decode words, they needed some help with exclamatory sentences and they couldn’t read the book without pausing. However it also links to Piaget’s Cognitive developmental theory. This session linked to Piaget’s theory as it demonstrated a more mature and advanced cognition development. Through the one pupil using the realising that she could use the book in order to spell a word that she found difficult it demonstrated a more mature reasoning process and demonstrated she could think more scientifically regarding how to use her surroundings. Due to the class being a mixed class of year one and two pupils this pupil had just turned seven years old showing that she should be within the transitioning period of moving from Piaget’s stage two ‘Preoperational stage’ to Piaget’s third developmental stage of ‘Concrete operational’ developmental stage. This shows that from this activity the child in question was able to develop her learning and knowledge within her literacy subject achieving the Literacy and Numeracy Framework elements.
The Literacy and Numeracy Framework helped to structure this activity as it helped the teacher to set clear developmental aims for the literacy task. Due to the clear aims being demonstrated within the task from the framework the children were aware of what the task expected from them and what they needed to attempt trying. This supports the Literacy and Numeracy Framework showing how efficient and effectively it can be used. However due to the children being able to achieve these aims/elements through working as a group more individual tasks supported by the LNF elements needs to be given to push their independent learning further.
Early Years Education - EYE 