Planning and Managing Literacy Learning - Essay Example

Planning and Managing Literacy Learning Name: Institution: Introduction Planning and managing literacy learning especially to the year 1 students is perhaps the one of the most challenging tasks that teachers face. Teaching year 1 children is not comparable to teaching already grown children who can read and write on their own. This is because teaching year 1 students require close watch, tactical approach to dealing with children, and a comprehensive manner of engaging children to the learning process throughout the period. The process involved in organizing these children for effective learning outcome is complex since it requires the full attention and contextual planning of the teacher in terms of what to teach, how to teach reading to the students and the particular aspects of reading to teach. This report, therefore, presents a comprehensive coverage of these aspects in relation to a year 1 teacher’s experience and skills in handing these students. The discussions, therefore, focuses and relates to the responses provided by the teacher interviewed through the questions provided in the appendices. The appendices also contain the responses of the teacher. Overview of targeted group As is already mentioned in the introductory part of this report, the targeted group in this scenario is year 1 students. Teaching year 1 students mostly focuses on communication since, in most circumstances students are expected to communicate with teachers, peers, students from other classes and even adults. This group of students requires enjoyable texts and teaching contexts since they need to learn to read, listens, view and at the same time interpret written, spoken and multimodal texts. For effectiveness, therefore, the curriculum for this category of children requires that they be provided with stories, rhyming verses, picture books, familiar performances, and poetry and non-fiction films. They are also required to construct their own texts after engaging in these activities. It is also essential to not that various teachers have various philosophical perspectives into how they engage year 1 children to achieve these curriculum objectives and, therefore, the approach followed by teachers various from one teacher to the other. The teacher’s philosophy As realized, teaching techniques differed based on what the teachers prefer. This, therefore, indicated that teachers are expected to have their own philosophies in terms of what work best for their students. For this specific situation, the teacher had a philosophy of trying to model the thinking routines, expectation and skills of the year 1 students he teaches. This was important to the teacher because he believed that it is an effective way of enabling not only him, but also the students to adhere to the learning process. According to the teacher interviewed the mechanism also plays an essential role in creating the aspect of responsibility. Through this philosophy, the teacher ensures responsibility for the learning process. Since it is difficult to deal with year1 students, especially in terms of engaging them to participate and focus on what is taught for the whole period, it is essential to ensure that the chosen philosophy focuses on creating an effective environment for the learning process. The teacher indicated that his chosen philosophy ensure creation of a positive and respectful environment that enable the children to feel safe and secure in taking learning risks. As it is always evident in most schools, there must be school policies to guide teachers in deciding what to teach, and the techniques to use. This, in most cases, is aimed at ensuring that at the end of the learning process, there are essential similarities in what each group is taught. In this specific interview, the teacher indicated that the school had seven comprehension strategies guiding him, especially in his literacy groups. In addition, the teacher indicated in the interview that there was also documentation that are used to show the expected reading levels for year2 reception purposes. This documentation also plays a critical role since it is used in producing reports and in communicating with parents. Selection of curriculum content The curriculum content to teach year1 children is diverse and, therefore, for effective teaching process, the teacher is expected to decide on which contents to teach and focus on and the text type to teach alongside the techniques for vocabulary development. In year1, the focus is to teach students how to read. The content of curriculum chosen in this scenario focused on teaching reading. In this particular situation, the teacher indicated that they were in the middle of switching between the old to the new NSW curriculum. Since the children in year1 have developed significant skills in decoding words, the focus of the teacher was to continue teaching them how to read effectively to the end of the sentence. This is focused in helping the children work out on the unknown works, especially if they are unable to sound them out correctly. Instructional procedures Instructional procedures play a critical role in the learning process. In this particular situation, the teacher indicated that he always start with teaching the whole class explicitly. He also indicated to focus on shared reading in order to help in demonstration of the skills chosen. The teacher then follows this with providing the children with enough time for guided practice demonstration of skills either in groups or individually. After this guided practice, the teacher indicated that time is also created for independent practice. He called the whole process an ‘I do we do, you do’ procedure. The teacher also indicated that in addition to this procedural instruction, he also provided the students with a learning target, also referred to as learning intentions alongside success criteria at the start of every lesson. This is also supplemented with reflections at the end of every lesson. This was indicated to aid the students in monitoring their learning process. In order to enhance the process, the teacher also indicated that at the end he would provide feedback to the students (self, peer and teacher) in order to enhance the learning process. Grouping of children According to the response to the questions provided by the teacher, he did indicate that the grouping strategy he uses is based on the students’ reading levels. However, he did indicate that the grouping is also subjected to changes when the students learning process progress. In addition, the groups could also be changed if a particular group of students requires instructions on a specific strategy or skill regardless of their levels. Assessment tools It was also evident from the response that the teacher employed the use of running records in order to assess reading, that is comprehension and decoding. In terms of how the records are stored, the teacher indicated that the records are stored in the classroom. Categorizing the records is in terms of levels, which are recorded in a central fold specifically for every term. This was indicated to be essential since it would help the next teacher in understanding the previous teaching and assessment tools used and how effective they were. In addition, the teacher indicated that rubrics, word samples, observations and formal written assessments were also being used as assessment tools. Selection and storage of resources According to the teacher, the selection of sources is done through the use of lots of leveled readers stored in a storeroom. The teacher recorded to have boxes within the classroom for each literacy group, in which he keeps the resources required for each week’s study. In addition, games, laptops, worksheets and iPads also provide essential resources from the internet or textbooks bought. Organization of the classroom for learning and rationale The teacher indicated that he organized his class in such a way that the desks were arranged into groups for every group’s work. The students have their own permanent desks, though the desks are changed every once or twice a term. However, the main area for teaching was recorded to be on a mat near the IWB and the teacher’s desk. The class also had a small for inquiry learning at the corner. The classroom arranged was recorded to be as in the image below. Evaluation The process of evaluation is to provide a rationale into the understanding of the various facts in relation to what is known, the effectiveness of the teacher’s methodology and inclusion of any additional things that would help better the process. Positives and negatives of the teacher’s program According to Dymock (2007), it is evident that comprehension poses serious problems to students. The author also continues to not that due to such problems realized when trying to enable students deal with comprehension, it becomes necessary to tackle comprehension in a explicit manner and through an effective strategy that is essential in helping students develop the learning skills to read and understand comprehensions. This is clearly evident from the teacher’s recorded manner of dealing with teaching the children to read through decoding and comprehension (Oesterreich, 2007). This is because the teacher has a instructional procedure that not only enables students to understand comprehensions and the reading process, but also enable them do the reading on their own after following the teacher, and reading together. This forms one of the positive aspects that are evident from the teacher’s techniques and approach to teaching year1 students. In addition, Oesterreich (2007) also provides analysis on early childhood English learning process especially in listening and speaking. Oesterreich (2007) indicates that for year1 students, there is need to give steps and instruct students in order to help complete tasks. This is one of the procedures the teacher indicates to have been using, in the process of teaching his year1 students how to read. The teacher’s technique of using shared reading process and diving the students into literacy groups also plays a significant part in helping the students cope along with other students. However, this division of students into literacy group offers a tricky situation with sensitive students since such students slow learning students might find it difficult to process since when grouped together there is no creation of challenge among the students. If looked at in this way, then the groupings poses a negative aspect in the teaching process. What to agree and disagree with and what to change A negative aspect of the teacher’s methodology concerns that interval of interchanging the groups. The teacher indicated that he interchanged the groups when particular group of students need instructions on a specific skill or strategy. This grouping methodology, therefore, tends to put students into categories that encourage group learning and does not effectively ensure individual’s progress monitoring process. The teacher indicated that he changes groups once or twice a term. This duration is inadequate especially when the learning process involves children learning English as first or second language. Considerations should be given to ensure that the frequency of changing groups is more than once or twice a term to being dependent on the process of the individual students. The teacher should consider changing this part to suit to individual students. Discussion of findings based on the learning theories As it is evident from the teacher’s response, it is clear that the Nativist theory fits appropriately to the year1 students. This is because the mechanisms placed by the teacher is in relation with the theory’s acknowledgement that the early attempts necessary in teaching children a language works well when children are provided with the mechanism where they internalize the grammar rules and help them produce many sentence structures (Harris, Turbill, Fitzsimmons & McKenzie, 2006). This is evident from the discussion because the teacher recorded that the year1 students could already read full sentences. Through the teaching process, especially in engaging the students to participate in the learning process in groups is also supported by the constructivist theory since this theory recognizes language learning in a social context where children interact with each other. Recommendations One of the major recommendations that can enable the teacher enhance the year1 students’ learning process is through the inclusion of reinforcements in order to enhance the learning process. Reinforcement can be in terms of rewards to children. This can encourage student’s participation. In addition, another recommendation would be to encourage to teacher to focus on individual learning developments of the students just as he does with the grouping techniques. This is because it appears, from the responses, as if the teacher focuses on the groups more than individual student concentration. References: Dymock, S. (2007). Comprehension Strategy Instruction: Teaching Narrative Text Structure Awareness, The Reading Teacher, 61(2), pp. 161-167 Harris, P., Turbill, J., Fitzsimmons, P., & McKenzie, B. (2006). Reading in the primary years (2nd ed.). South Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia. Oesterreich, L. (2007). Understanding Children: Language Development. Accessed September 23, 2013 from http://www.extension.iastate.edu/publications/pm1529f.pdf Personal Communication, September 22, 2013. Read More