Tomorrow is International Literacy Day. It has been celebrated on 8 September for over fifty years. The purpose of the day is to remind the international community of the importance of literacy and to eradicate illiteracy around the world. It values literacy education for young people the world over. This year’s theme is Literacy and skills development and focuses on the integration of literacy with other skills to enhance people’s lives and employment opportunities.
In our early childhood classrooms, the focus is always on the development of literacy. A strong foundation in both reading and writing enables children to be more successful learners at school and independent learners out of school. It provides them with skills essential to full participation in and contribution to our world. While we may not be ostensibly training them for future employment, the literacy skills they learn in early childhood form the foundation upon which that learning develops.
The idea of integrating literacy development with other skills is not unfamiliar to early childhood classrooms. The most effective approaches focus on teaching skills in meaningful contexts rather than in isolation.
In celebration of International Literacy Day this year, I have uploaded some new resources to the literacy collection. As with other readilearn literacy resources, the focus is on teaching literacy skills in context.
Teaching phonics and letter-sound relationships is an important part of literacy education in early childhood classrooms. To be fluent readers and writers we need to understand the relationship that exists between the letters and sounds of our language. This knowledge is what enables us to extract meaning from texts we read and ensure that others can interpret the intended meaning in words we write.
The process of expressing thoughts in writing can be laboured for young children as they stretch out words to identify individual sounds and the letters we use to represent them. From the initial stages of making arbitrary marks upon the page, children develop into proficient writers through recognisable stages of approximation. Readable writing is dependent upon the effective use of letters to represent sound.
Reading is not so dependent as there are other cues and strategies that readers can employ to interpret a writer’s message. Young children garner information about texts they read from supporting illustrations, prior knowledge of the subject matter and text type (for example, narrative or non-fiction) and understanding of how language works. This information supports their reading which is guided by words they recognise by sight as well as their knowledge of letter-sound relationships.
When teaching children to read, it is important to ensure children learn to use effective strategies that access all available cues. Over-dependence on any one cuing system leads to a break-down in the process. While the teaching of phonics has an important place in early childhood classrooms, I have resisted making resources for teaching phonics in isolation for two main reasons.
Two reasons against making resources to teach phonics in isolation
#1
I believe reading is best learned and taught by reading. Knowledge of letters and sounds can be learned while reading meaningful and enjoyable texts. Teaching and learning can occur in literacy lessons, lessons in any subject, or whenever an opportunity to interact with print exists, which is frequent in our print-rich environment.
I have previously written about some strategies I consider beneficial for teaching reading and will no doubt write more in the future. You can read some of those posts here:
For the inspiration for this post and the resource it describes, I must thank Pamela Wight, who featured in the author interview last month.
In commenting on the What’s in a name? post, Pamela mentioned the awkwardness of singing and spelling her grandson’s name – Schuyler, a name with which I was unfamiliar. I joked to Pamela that I’d thought of recording a few names, innovating on the tune of BINGO, to show how “easy” it might be. Pamela suggested I should, even though I explained that my singing voice is anything but, and she told me the pronunciation for Schuyler: Skylar. Well, I couldn’t help myself. My head started racing with ideas of incorporating Schuyler’s name into reading and writing lessons teaching phonics and spelling skills. The result is the resource Let’s read, write and spell with Schuyler,
Yesterday, 2 March was Dr Seuss’s birthday. How did you celebrate? Did you read a favourite Dr Seuss story – maybe even more than just one or two? Which is your favourite?
Children love the rhythmic, rhyming stories written by Theodor Seuss Geisel who was born in 1904. (A question for your children – how old would he be if he was still alive today?)
Having fun with rhyme is a great way for children to learn about the sounds of language.
In the beginning, the rhymes can be real or nonsense words, as are many employed by Dr Seuss, training the ear to hear. Children are delighted when they discover pairs of words that rhyme. It is great when parents and teachers share their excitement of discovery too.
Like those of Dr Seuss, many stories and poems for young children are written in rhyme. The rhyme is pleasant to the ear, and encourages children to join in with the reading or telling, using meaning and sound to predict the next rhyming word.
When children are ready, familiar rhyming texts are often the first they read independently, using a combination of memory and print. How many children do you know who first started reading with a Dr Seuss book; such as The Cat in the Hat, Fox in Socks, One Fish Two Fish, Ten Apples Up On Top, or any other favourite.
For my part in the celebration, I joined in with a challenge extended by Vivian Kirkfield to write a story in 50 words. The reason behind the 50 word challenge is that, although the total word count of Green Eggs and Ham is over 700, only 50 unique words were used. (Some of your children may like to check if that is so. How could they do it?)
I decided to write a rhyming nonsense story in exactly 50 words (title not included). I hope you and your children enjoy it.
Now if there is one thing I have noticed about “the news” over the years, it’s that the news reported in the media is generally bad. Often the stories are meant to alarm or frighten. I think it must be easier to control a population through fear. A little scaremongering may go a long way.
Although the song is called It’s Good News Week, it doesn’t have much good news to tell.
I selected a few headlines (expressly for my purpose) from a recent Conversation:
The role of water in Australia’s uncertain future
The scariest part of climate change isn’t what we know, but what we don’t
Stop, go back, the NDIS board shake-up is going the wrong way
We’re overdosing on medicine – it’s time to embrace life’s uncertainty
Australians less likely to survive home ownership than Britons
Is your child less likely to be bullied in a private school?
Uni drop-out rates show need for more support, not capped enrolments
The slide of academic standards in Australia: a cautionary tale
The absurdity of English spelling and why we’re stuck with it
All of these headlines state the existence of a situation or condition as irrefutable, like falling standards and failing students. I’m sure most of you will be familiar with headlines such as this one from the Conversation nearly two years ago:
In this article Misty Adoniou attributes the failure of some Australian children on national and international literacy tests to their lack of exposure and experience with standard English – they do not speak standard or “school” English at home. Adoniou says that is up to teachers to improve the language used by students and to make their understanding of correct usage explicit. However she says that many teachers do not have an explicit understanding of English and, as a result, are unable to teach it to their students.
I’m not sure how true that statement is. However, what I do like about this article is the advice Adoniou gives about teaching. She says that “all our teaching about language must be done in context and in the course of achieving real outcomes.” I couldn’t agree more.
Daily news – learning in context
In fact, from their first weeks of school I was explicitly teaching students about language and literacy using a strategy I borrowed and developed from the ubiquitous “show and tell”. I called this strategy simply “News”, and found it to be a powerful tool for teaching the skills of both reading and writing.
Its strength came from the familiar context, the connection to children’s lives and the importance it placed upon them. The teaching could be adjusted to suit different stages of development, to reinforce learning for some and extend the learning of others. For me, as teacher, it was a powerful learning tool. I was able to gauge children’s developing strategies, understand their needs and identify next steps for learning.
How it worked
Talk
A few children each day would have the opportunity to share their item of interest or “news” with the class. Class mates could ask for additional information or clarification if they wished.
Compose
We (teacher and children) would collaboratively compose a report, initially just one or two sentences, of what had been shared.
Write
I would model the composition and the writing process, rehearsing what to write while involving children in thinking about what to write and how to write it. How much they were involved, and the detail of language and skills discussed could be easily adjusted to suit their development. There was always ample practice and repetition, in a meaningful context, for children who needed more time; and discussion of strategies and ideas to extend the most advanced students.
Some of the writing strategies children were learning include:
Composition or rehearsal before writing
Directionality of writing
Translating conversational language into written language
Changing first person spoken text into third person written text
Identifying letters used to spell the sounds of language
Awareness of punctuation
Tenses, past and future, depending on what the children shared
Rereading to ensure message is correct and what to write next
Proofreading and editing
Identifying the main idea through choosing a suitable headline
Read
After the news was written, we would read it together to ensure it was correct and the child was happy with the way the news had been reported.
The text could then be used for developing a number of reading skills, for example:
Recognising words by sight
Noticing similarities in spellings, or differences in spelling of words with similar sounds
Punctuation and its effect on reading
Comprehension and grammar: who, what, where, when, and (sometimes) why
Reading with expression
Share
Each day I would print up the news for the children to take home to share with their family. It was a great first reading experience – about them, their friends and their families.
While this is only a brief overview of the strategy, the learning that can take place using children’s own language is obvious. Used as one small part of a rich literacy focused and literature-based classroom environment it is a powerful teaching tool. One day I will explain the strategy in detail so that others can use it too.
Flash fiction
But back to the headlines and Charli’s challenge.
Over recent years I have noticed an increased use of ambiguity in headlines and the introduction of (attempted) literary expressions into the body of articles. I have drawn on that for my flash. I hope it works.
Bridge plans in jeopardy
She scrolled through the headlines, searching …
Minister passes over bridge in favour of tunnel
Minister fails to dig himself out of tunnel fiasco
Norah Colvin 