Literacy skills develop gradually in early years. Oral language is a foundation for early literacy and its development begins at birth. Infants listen to caregivers talk and sing to them. Older infants and toddlers talk to communicate their needs to the people around them. By the time children are in preschool, there is a significant increase in their use of conversation to create and sustain relationships. Three and four year olds ask questions, listen, refer to things that are not present, and talk about desires and imaginary situations. Their vocabulary grows and they master the basic rules of grammar. Young children are also beginning to read and write, at first in unconventional ways (such as reading pictures and drawing horizontal lines or scribbles) and later in more conventional ways.
Unfortunately, our children are unable to attend school at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that learning needs to stop. Adults at home may use these following strategies to support early learning in language, literacy and communication through the activities sent out by the teachers on their blogs;
Strategies to support comprehension:
Strategies to support comprehension:
- Engage in extended back and forth conversations with children.
- Create stories with children.
- Read and discuss books with children.
- Incorporate ideas from stories and books throughout the day.
Strategies to support speaking:
Strategies to support speaking:
- Model appropriate speech.
- Listen to children speak.
- Use open ended questions.
- Encourage children to talk instead of using gestures.
- Encourage children to talk to one another.
Strategies to support vocabulary:
Strategies to support vocabulary:
- Encourage children to describe their thoughts and experiences.
- Read books and tell stories with both basic and unusual vocabulary.
- Provide opportunities for children to use new materials and ideas.
Strategies to support phonological awareness:
Strategies to support phonological awareness:
- Explore and identify sounds with children.
- Make rhyming words.
- Build syllable recognition (by breaking words into syllables)
Strategies to support alphabetical knowledge:
Strategies to support alphabetical knowledge:
- Build letter recognition.
- Build letter-sound awareness.
Strategies to support reading:
Strategies to support reading:
- Provide reading materials that cater to the child's interest.
- Read interactively with children every day.
- Encourage children to read to adults.
Strategies to support book knowledge:
Strategies to support book knowledge:
- Explore the book with children.
- Help children distinguish between pictures and print.
Strategies to support writing:
Strategies to support writing:
- Provide a variety of writing and drawing materials.
- Expect and support various forms of writing and developmental spelling.
- Encourage children to write for a wide variety of reasons.
- Take dictation from children. (Children dictate their ideas to adults to write)
Following are some links for your better understanding:
Following are some links for your better understanding:
https://youtu.be/L11jA1IRkUA
https://youtu.be/vJgl3-sIEBM
Kindly email me if you have any further queries regarding this article and I’d be happy to provide you with more details.
Kindly email me if you have any further queries regarding this article and I’d be happy to provide you with more details.
Regards,
Ms Zarmeena Aamir
(eys.coordinator@mls.com.sa)
ACTIVE LEARNING
ACTIVE LEARNING
“Active learning is defined as learning in which the child, by acting on objects and interacting with people, ideas, and events, constructs new understanding. No one else can have experiences for the child. Children must do this for themselves.”
- Mary Hohmann & David P. Weikart
The HighScope Curriculum is distinguished from other curriculums by its importance on “Active Learning”. That means learning is not simply a process of adults giving information to the children. Rather, the children are active learners- discovering things through active involvement with people, objects, events and ideas. They learn best from following their own interests while being actively supported and challenged by adults. In the classroom, the teachers are as active and involved as the children. They give thoughtful attention to the materials they provide, the activities they plan, and the ways they talk with the children to both support and challenge what the children are experiencing and thinking. This approach is called “Active Learning” – a process in which the adults and the children are partners in the learning process.
Active Learning has five ingredients, all of which must be present when the teachers plan an activity for the children. These five ingredients are:
1. Materials: The adults provide enough materials of children’s interest. For Instance, the children like to play with cars, or dinosaurs etc. Then these objects may be used for sorting, classifying or counting activities to develop mathematical skills.
2. Manipulation: The children have opportunities to explore and transform the materials they choose to use. For instance, the adults do not demonstrate how to use the materials. If a child does not want to count the cars but he/she is sorting them by colors then he is given a choice to do so. The child is still learning a mathematical skill by classifying the cars by their colors.
3. Choice: The children choose materials and play partners and plan their activities according to their interests and needs. For instance, a child chooses to play in the block center with the cars only with a certain person.
4. Child language: The children describe verbally or nonverbally what they see and do. For instance, in an activity, if the adult is doing all the talking the child becomes distracted and impatient; therefore no learning is taking place. When a child talks about what they are doing, they modify their thinking to take new learning in account.
5. Adult Scaffolding: The adults support the children’s current developmental level and offer gentle extension to advance their abilities to reason, create and problem-solve. For instance, using the same example, if a child does not want to count the cars but he/she is sorting them by colors then the adult may encourage him/her to count the sorted colored cars and discover which is more and less.
Family involvement is a key aspect of “Active Learning”. The teachers are experts in child development and the parents are experts on their children. Working together will lead to a happier and successful child. Just as children engage in active learning throughout the class, they can do the same at home when parents incorporate learning into different parts of the day. The children’s homes can be extensions of the classroom and therefore can be natural learning environments. Family members can use the home environment to build on learning; for example, supporting math concepts my naming the shape of common household objects, such as round plates, or counting the stair steps on the way to a room. The parents may also provide their children with activities keeping in mind the five ingredients of Active Learning.
Regards,
Ms Zarmeena Aamir
Daily Routine in Early Years
A regular daily routine is a framework for teaching and learning. It frees children and adults from worrying about what comes next, and it enables them to use their creative energies on the task at hand. The HighScope daily routine in our Early Years is designed to accomplish several key goals with the help of picture cards. It provides a consistent, predictable sequence of events that gives children a sense of control over what happens next and a stable and secure psychological environment within which they are free to make choices and initiate activities.
It was developed to help participants in HighScope programs to understand the importance of a consistent environment for children, and to provide them with the strategies for successful implementation of a daily routine in their settings. At the same time, there is enough flexibility that children feel neither rushed nor slowed down in carrying out their activities. Most important, children make choices - within reasonable limits – during each part of the day. Because the activities build on the children’s interest and abilities, they know they have a say in the learning experience. Children in HighScope programs feel that the daily routine belongs to them.
Creating a daily family routine/schedule cards at home would benefit the children to transit from one activity to another smoothly. You can make the family routine cards with your child to keep a consistency at home.
You may print out the daily routine visuals online from the link shared below or you may take pictures of your child doing an activity and use them as routine cards, or you can also help your child draw their own visual routine cards.
Ms Zarmeena Aamir
Early Years Coordinator
New Message from Ms. Suad:
New Message from Ms. Suad:
COVID-19: Five Helpful Responses For Families by Dr. BEcky Bailey:
No comments:
Post a Comment