Wk 5 Reading Blog

What?

· The reading I selected that is related to numeracy in early childhood was Take-Home Numeracy Kits For Preschool Children (Macmillan 2004). I chose this article to read as I thought it would be interesting to see how the teachers working in a Koori preschool in New South Wales were able to deeply engage Australian Indigenous children in numeracy-related activities. I thought it would be interesting to see the types of activities that they created for the children as I also wanted to know a bit about what kinds of activities there are for children that are numeracy-related.

· The reading I selected that is related to literacy in early childhood was The Role of Literacy in Early Childhood Education (The Reading Teacher 2004). This journal is compiled of different sections of research written by six different educators. I chose to read this journal as I thought it would be interesting to see what roles literacy does play in early childhood and how important literacy is in the early years of a child’s life.

So what?

The main arguments from Take-Home Numeracy Kits For Preschool Children (Macmillan 2004) are:    

·Take-home numeracy kits were created for children at a Koori preschool in NSW as a part of a project that was created so that children in preschool were able to obtain and have access to knowledge in numeracy.

·The concept of situation learning is discussed, which is about how when learners are active participants, knowledge of numeracy meanings are created for these learners (Macmillan, 2004, p. 29)
.·Numeracy experiences in early childhood settings are becoming greater and educators have been trying to connect numeracy to every-day life issues so that children will be able to have more access to mathematics (Macmillan, 2004, p. 30). This can then be more meaningful for the children when taking part in numeracy-related experiences.

·Numeracy kits were made for the children at this preschool which had three or four activities in them that let children be able to explore, practice and play and the activities in these kits were connected to problem solving, counting, making patterns and other numeracy related activities (Macmillan, 2004, p. 30).

·This type of framework for Indigenous children is recommended as it helps these children to be able to be successful in their community and the wider community without them losing their identities (Macmillan, 2004, p. 37).

·Families of the children also were able to be supportive towards the children’s learning as they took part in helping them with the numeracy kits when the children took them home (Macmillan, 2004, p. 36).

·From my understanding the children were able to gain new language related to numeracy through the kits and they were all very engaged in what they were doing and developed many new skills.

The main arguments from The Role of Literacy in Early Childhood Education (The Reading Teacher 2004) are:

·There is a huge link between the development of children’s literacy and the amount of support parents give towards this. If parents use literacy and let children take part in literacy-related experiences at home then they are able to have basic knowledge of literacy, which is very helpful for when they begin school (The Reading Teacher, 2004, p. 86).

·A child’s ability to read and write is affected by what they learn when listening and communicating to other people as well as observing how others such as parents use literacy in everyday life activities; Rhyming and chants from parents help children to be aware of phonics at an early age (The Reading Teacher, 2004, p. 86).

·What children learn should be meaningful and teachers should be able to build on what children already know. In Early childhood settings teachers can also create literacy-related experiences spontaneously (The Reading Teacher, 2004, p. 88).

·When children listen and speak to others, they are able to get have an understanding of how sentences are constructed and how words are spoken (The Reading Teacher, 2004, p. 89).

·Literacy skills that can be developed by children are skills such as being able to read pictures, being able to clap syllables of words, singing songs, talking about artworks they have made and the list goes on (The Reading Teacher, 2004, p. 91).

·If children are placed in an environment that provides them with many literacy-related experiences then the children will be able to gain many skills such as being able to read and expand their vocabulary (The Reading Teacher, 2004, p. 91).

·An important fact is that children develop literacy skills earlier than kindergarten age (The Reading Teacher, 2004, p. 90). So this is something that parents need to know so that they can support their children in their learning.

Now What?

Implications I have made from Take-Home Numeracy Kits For Preschool Children (Macmillan 2004) are:

· It is important for me as a future educator to be aware of the learning opportunities children can have in numeracy-related experiences and being able to build on the skills that children already have in numeracy.

·I think it will be important for me as a teacher to have good communication with both children and their parents and understand that each child is an individual learner and each child has different learning needs.

·As an educator I can help children to be able to gain a vocabulary in mathematics and I can help to make mathematics enjoyable while the children are learning.

·Get the children involved in experiences that they can connect to their community and be able to use the skills from the experiences in the real world.

Implications I have made from The Role of Literacy in Early Childhood Education (The Reading Teacher 2004) are:

· As an educator it will be important to listen and communicate effectively with the children.
·I believe it will be important to use every learning experience as an opportunity to be able to build on the children’s literacy skills. For example you can create conversations on what the child is doing and then expand onto more topics from that conversation.
·I think when teaching children it will be important to use new words when talking to the children so that then they can learn new words that could be more complex than what they use in their vocabulary.
·I believe parents can let children come to places with them such as the supermarket so children can talk about what they see there.
·From looking at the reading for literacy, it has made me realise that it is important to let children be able to read books themselves, even if they can’t understand the words yet, they will be able to use their imagination to make up their own story through their interpretation of the pictures.

 References:

The Role of Literacy in Early Childhood Education. (2004) The Reading Teacher,  58(1). 86 – 100. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.flinders.edu.au/doi/10.1598/RT.58.1.9/pdf

Macmillan, A. (2004). Take-home numeracy kits for preschool children. Australian Journal of Early Childhood, 29(2). 29 – 40. Retrieved from http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.flinders.edu.au/fullText;dn=136663;res=AEIPT