| | We have a large amount of content to place here for you, so keep checking in to see new developments. At the moment we are simply wanting to make resources avaliable to you through this page. The actual learning site is still under development.
Learning to Read
Learning to Read should start from birth by sharing baby books and modeling reading. Alphabet games using flash cards and a good colourful alphabet chart are a key ingredient in the learning to read process. Once a student is able to recognise letters, they also start to recognise common words.
Obviously this takes place without learning all of the rules of phonetics. I teach the letter sounds based on the alphabet chart and only stress the "hard and soft" sounds for consonants and long and short sounds for vowels. For example the hard sounding "C" as in the word Cut and the soft "C" as in Cease or where the C makes an S sound. I have found teaching the five different ways to spell the "owe"(boat, gross, toe, tow, dough) sound or more than two common vowel sounds (bough, cough, dough....) is very complicated early on and just makes reading too confusing.
Here is a link to a daily Phonics programme that is totally free and includes alphabet games and word lists:
Frantic Phonics
Early readers are very empowering to new readers as they are designed to give the reader success.
I would like to recommend the PM Early Readers and the Hear Me Read Bible Story series 1 and 2 readers. These are fantastic products and your older students will enjoy sharing these readers with younger students.
What stands these readers out from the rest is that they are using simple patterned texts and limited vocabulary and yet they have high narrative and “reading for meaning” content as opposed to the “Fat cat mat bat” type readers… Groves is in the process of purchasing a large volume of these readers however it will take some time to accession them within our library so we are recommending families buy a couple of sets.
The PM Readers are graded; Magenta Levels 2 – 3, Red Levels 3 – 5, Yellow Levels 6 – 8, Blue Levels 9 – 11and Green Levels 12 – 14. Preschool students will need to start on Magenta then Red.
PM Readers have CD Roms and Activity Sheets available as well.
Here is a link to PM Readers online catalogue where you can also print out an order form:
http://primary.thomsonlearning.com.au/Book.aspx?TabID=1&SubjectID=96
Here is a link for ordering the Read Me Bible series of readers:
http://orders.koorong.com.au/search/details.jhtml?code=0570047072 The price at Koorong is quite high and you may be able to negotiate a cheaper price for a set.
The Read Me Bible is great for shared reading and is the best Bible product I have found for young students…
http://orders.koorong.com.au/search/details.jhtml?code=185985530X
Students as young as 2 and 3 learn to read using these early readers and Alphabet Charts and the techniques explained in Jason’s reading notes.
-Letter recognition and phonological awareness (what sounds each letter makes). Here is an Emergent Reading Checklist
Year 1 on Developing Written Communication Skills
Notes By Jason Caldwell
Why Encourage Students to practice and develop their ability to communicate in written form?
There are many reasons why it is important for students from a young age to practice writing in a variety of genre forms:
- to entertain
- to foster artistic expression
- to explore the functions and values of writing
- to stimulate imagination
- to clarify thinking
- to develop higher order thinking skills
- to search for identity
- to learn to read and write effectively.
The Importance of Meaning Within Communication
Within our modern society the ability to communicate effectively using a wide range of genre is vital and obviously practice is required to develop essential skills. With this in mind, it is hard to understand why scholastic written English programme time is so often heavily weighted towards “syntax” (learning spelling, phonetics, grammar and jargon names for the parts of speech), instead of focussing on “semantics” (meaning and expression).
To me this is like a young person learning to drive without ever starting the engine. With a driving instructor who insists they memorise all the parts of the motor and how it works, before issuing a licence to drive.
If this were the case in real life, many going for their licence would give up in frustration or shear boredom, reaching the conclusion that they are “just no good at driving!”
Learning the intricacies of how a car works, the “syntax” is nothing compared with the joy of driving, “communicating meaning”. This analogy is even stronger when we consider how “syntax,” rules and conventions of English are acquired through the hearing and practicing speech. When children are involved in both sending and receiving meaning they quickly develop the essential communication skills.
An effective educator must remember the reasons for writing, “the communication of meaning.” Each individual has a different way of perceiving the world, unique perspectives and expressions and this gives validity to what each individual has to write. While teaching I have found students, who experience success through being validated as writers with a message, will want to spend more time practicing writing. It follows then, a strong correlation between the time spent on any activity and the skill level attained.
Students like and become good at video games because they get to drive, not because they sit around learning all the rules and conventions of each game.
One can best understand how something is constructed by attempting to put it together yourself.
Practical Keys and Strategies
Validate the Writer
Always validate the writer as an author, an individual with a story to tell. When a student shares their writing with you, be positive. Have them read it to you and talk about the good points, never focus in on spelling or grammar without having first discussed the message and positive points.
Understanding Development
If a student is still in the early writing stages encourage them to have a go at writing their message below their drawing, using their inventive letters and symbols. When they have finished they can tell you the message their symbols represent. Then ask if they want you to write their message in “big people’s” writing below their script.
I find young students who enjoy the writing experience always want to have the “big people’s writing” below their own. This gives the opportunity for you to model formal writing for them. Later you may suggest they have a go at copying over your letters and then later below your letters. This co-operative approach validates the young writer and is a different approach to the adult writing their own message and the student tracing over it.
Developmental Writing Stage
I have listed below a brief outline of each essential “Developmental Writing Stage”.
Drawing
Children draw and “read their pictures.”
Scribbling
Young children scribble and believe they are writing and often can “read” what they have just scribbled.
Invented letters
Children using symbols constructed from simple shapes.
Random Letters
As children become more familiar with letters from the alphabet they begin to string letters together to write their message.
Invented Spelling
Children work out their own way to spell words using conventional alpha letters. Initially they may have just one letter to represent a word, later a beginning and ending sound…
Common Spelling
Children start to use conventional spelling for common sight words.
When thinking about each of these important stages it seems a miracle anyone learns to write. All along the way a young child can be easily “crushed” by an adult who does not understand the importance and time required to pass through each stage. Often an adult may expect too much from a child, trying to force them into the boxes of adult conventions.
Wide Range of Genre -adding interest and meaning for young writers
Young writers enjoy using a wide range of simple genre:
*Writing a list
*Sequence
*Making lables
*Secret message or code
*Writing a sound
*display of two or three work alliteration
*Making a menu
*Cartoon with speech bubbles
Importance of Modeling
These writing activities will need to be modeled you the teacher and need to be displayed around the home environment to give worth to the activity and writer. Early written activities are often done together as a team effort. It is very important that the students still feels they were able to communicate their ideas and have a part in the publishing and writing.
Real Life Experiences
When trying to develop early writing skills it is important to write from real life experiences. For a student to practice their descriptive oral skills they need to be working from experiences that they have actually had. How can a student who has never even been to the circus or touched an elephant, create a make believe story about running away with the circus.
Young writers have not had the life experiences to draw upon to write convincing fiction stories. Usually all you end up with is a list of unbelievable events, “I went... then… and after that…” with little or no description. A student will experience greater success when speaking and writing about things they are familiar with and their ideas will flow more easily.
I encourage a student to try and make the reader of their story feel like they are actually there.
|
This is where the “whole language” experience is very powerful. Within the whole language writing process students share an interesting experience like touching and feeling jelly or sandpaper with their hands while blindfolded, or abseiling… Then they describe the experience in writing focusing on the situation. I often find students who have previously struggled to write or use description, love writing when they have a focus and an interesting experience to share.
Mathematics
Strategies for Building Strong Relational Understandings.
Counting and number games.
Make a game of counting anything that surrounds you. Activities counting buttons, counting 1 at a time then two, three, four or five at a time… helps children get a picture of a “lot of” or a “set of” a number. Using a “stop watch” strategy adds a fun dimension and turns the activity into a game e.g. “count as many button as you can in thirty seconds…”
Teaching strategy:
Talk about students beating their own time and making progress rather than comparing to others and attainment.
|
If a student can count beautifully to 100 but cannot count 6 objects, are the really counting? Obviously “rote counting” is important but just the first step. Activities in counting that use concrete or semi-abstract materials (drawing) help students to get a picture in their heads of what numbers mean. Knowledge of how they work will naturally follow.
Another fun activity is to count steps, jumps or actions. Adding the physical helps make counting meaningful. You may create your own dance sequence together with different numbers of steps or actions.
I like to use “Finger flash” to get students quick at number conservation and recognition.
e.g. “how many fingers am I holding up?” Change “Now?”…
Other Ideas:
Blow and count bubbles, make a tower out of blocks and count the levels, head count,
Extension: Measuring using a ruler…
Place Value
Place value is the system that underpins all decimal system mathematics. I usually use a place value table and MAB blocks (ones, tens and hundreds blocks, if you have the Math U See blocks they are great) to demonstrate to young students the concept of numerals representing a vastly different value depending upon which column they are in. I draw this table out large on a white board or on card and laminate so that it can be written on.
|  |
Millions
| Hun of Thousands
| Tens of Thousands
| Thousands
| Hundreds
| Tens
| Ones
| Ten ths
| Hundred ths
| Thousand ths
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Students also need to see concrete representations of numbers and it is a good idea to model amounts or draw them in picture form…
When learning to do simple addition or subtract this same place value table is very important.
MAB or Place Value Blocks can be purchased from: | |
DE Home
