Unit 10 – Supporting Children’s Literacy and Numeracy Development: Learning to Read:

How to choose appropriate books for children at different ages and reading levels by getting to know the children’s interests and preferences, which may include picture books and stories, fiction and non-fiction books. How to create stimulating experiences and activities that encourage reading: Matching activities. Sound snap. Group story time. How to demonstrate using phonics to decode words using large book or whiteboard. How to share books with children encouraging them to use pictures as cues, decode words using phonic knowledge and recognise common, irregular words.

Refresh: What are the different methods used to teach children to read? Read hand out, annotate accordingly.

Sequence by which children learn to read: If children have a positive experience at the earliest pre-school stages, they will have learned that print is significant and may also have learned to recognise their own name written down, or a few basic letters and sounds. As they start to have more experience of reading, they will be more aware of the of the conventions of how to handle and use books and that text reads from left to right. They will being to learn to recognise the link between the verbal and visual word.

What schemes and resources are available to support reading? Ideas?

Listening to children read: When listening to children read, you should ask them about the text and discuss what they are reading. This may take the form of talking about how a character might be feeling, retelling the story or discussing a point that might be ambiguous within the text. This is because decoding the writing, although important, is only part of reading. As they learnt to read, children will also need to develop comprehension skills and be able to relate the text to their own experience to make sense of it.

The need for early years professional to be reading and writing role models: It is important for young children to make sense of why they are leaning to read and write and to be able to put this into context. They should have opportunities to see that adults read books for pleasure, to find out information and write things down to refer or to pass information to others. Remember – children learn all the time from their environment and the adults around them. Praise and encouragement are very strong motivators. They will support the child gaining confidence. Children should be exposed to good adult role models so they can see reading skills used and the pleasure that can be delivered from reading.

How do we choose appropriate books and activities for children? How?

Task: Planning a reading activity in accordance to your age range at placement. Please take the table on page 397 into consideration.

Encouraging early mark making and writing development: You have 30 seconds to list as many mark making resources as you can. GO!!

Encouraging early mark making and writing development: You have 30 seconds to list as many mark making resources as you can. GO!!

Encouraging early mark making and writing development: You have 30 seconds to list as many mark making resources as you can. GO!!

Supportive Environment: for children developing writing skills, they will need to be provided with a supportive environment. This means that they should have stimulation and resources available when their skills are developing: Environmental print – displays with captions and information, key words, clearly labelled areas within and outside the setting in all areas of development. Dictionaries and topic-based word banks. Adult role models so that children can see the purpose of writing. A variety of clearly labelled material's and writing areas available so that children can use them to write for their own purpose.

The link between learning to write and learning to read: Children in schools and early years settings will learn to read and write at around the same time. It is important that learning to read and learning to write are interrelated and that children will need to have a wide range of literacy experiences in order to support the development of each. Lets look at page 398 in our text book.

Task: You are required to describe different theoretical approaches to teaching children to read. (P2) This will need to be completed in an essay format. You will then need to go on to explain the use of synthetic phonics in helping children to read and write. (P3) This can be included in your theoretical approaches, or you can create a separate essay. You will then need to continue to discuss the extent to which different theoretical approaches may help children to learn to read. (M2) You should ensure you have sufficient evidence to conclude and strengthen your explanations and discussions. You can use the EYFS to aid you.

Any questions?