Developing Literacy Essay

pdf

School

Swinburne University of Technology *

*We aren’t endorsed by this school

Course

20001

Subject

Communications

Date

Jan 9, 2024

Type

pdf

Pages

Uploaded by JudgeBee3923

EDU20001 Developing Literacy Assessment 2: Essay Semester 2, 2020 EDU20001 Developing Literacy Assessment 2: Essay

Teaching phonological awareness in relation to supporting children’s early reading and writing development. This essay will outline the definition of phonological awareness and specify its importance in relation to supporting children’s reading and writing development within the early years. As mentioned by Fellowes and Grace (2020), phonological awareness is very important in literacy development as it’s the initial teaching step to support children’s emergent reading and writing skills. Without phonological awareness, children could face challenges understanding the makeup of literacy contexts (Department of Education and Training, 2019). The following essay will talk about teaching and evaluating children’s phonological awareness. Additionally, there will be an example provided for how phonological awareness may be taught to students in the foundation year level. Firstly, looking at the definition for phonological awareness, as stated by Fellowes and Oakley (2020, p. 253) it is “the understanding that speech can be broken down into smaller parts”. Phonological awareness is also referred to having the skill to identify “syllable structure, rhyme, and initial and final sounds” (North & Parker, 1994). In order to develop successful reading and writing skills, it is vital for children to have phonological awareness (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 272). The THRASS chart is a commonly used method for teaching phonemic awareness in primary school education with three core areas being; reading, spelling and writing. These core areas are interconnected in order to support children’s understanding between the relations to the 26-letter alphabet and the 44 phonemes linked to the letters (The THRASS institute Australasia & Canada, 2018). To begin the teaching process of phonological awareness and support pre-reading development within the early years of childhood, one of the main methods to keep in mind is singing nursery rhymes, as this is the way children are able to hear sounds and listen to patterns in speech (Department of Education and Training, 2019). It is essential for children within their early years to be given opportunities to listen to stories and develop an interest for books because “the starting point for helping children to read is to build their pre-reading skills” (Tassoni & Hucker, 2005, p. 192.) Reading stories is important as they assist “children

EDU20001 Developing Literacy Assessment 2: Essay to differentiate between sounds” through connecting “sounds to letters, naming and sounding all letters in the alphabet” as well as practicing to “hear and say initial and final sounds in words and short vowel sounds within words” (Tassoni & Hucker, 2005, p. 192.) When it comes to teaching phonological awareness to support children’s early writing development “A literacy-rich environment demonstrates how literacy is useful in everyday life by allowing children to interact with print/texts independently and with educators” (Department of Education and Training, 2019). Although children’s writing skills develop gradually over time, it is crucial for educators to provide plenty of opportunities for children to explore the process of writing (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 449). Some practices to support children’s emergent writing skills can be through providing plenty of oral language experiences, for e.g. encouraging children to engage in conversations about things within their interests as well as listening to others when they speak, as this is an important element for writing; the more words children have in their oral vocabulary will give them more confidence towards writing exercises (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 450). Furthermore, regularly reading books to children as well as displaying a variety of prints to expose children to texts “develops their understanding about the way language is used in written communication” (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 450). Last but not least, allowing children to observe adults while they write is another good way to demonstrate creating texts and a way to encourage children to practice and compose their own texts (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 450). At stated by Fellowes & Grace (2020, p. 450) there are four writing components to focus on when teaching and supporting children’s understanding in this area, the first is; The writing context; which is the setting/or the writing situation, to elaborate further, it is the focus point of what the reason is for the text, who the audience is and the subject matter of the writing. The second component is the text form (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 451) which is the style of text that the author uses, for e.g. a form of text could be a script, poem or a novel (BBC, 2020). The third component is the process and strategies which refers “to the techniques that writers use as they compose texts” for e.g. “they might draw a picture or jot down ideas for the content of a text before they start writing and they might read over their text at the end and make some improvements” (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 451). The final component is the conventions which are the technical characteristics of writing which include correct principles

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

EDU20001 Developing Literacy Assessment 2: Essay of “spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, grammar and usage and paragraphing” (Lilydale High School, 2015) . Under the Australian curriculum (n.d.), learning literacy falls under two predominant practices which are: “ comprehending texts through listening, reading and viewing ; and composing texts through speaking, writing and creating ” both practices require understanding in text, grammar, word and visual knowledge areas. In order for educators to evaluate and assess children’s early reading and writing development, whether it be in a childcare setting, kindergarten or the first year of primary school, educators should try to detect “children’s knowledge of print concepts at the earliest opportunity”, such as; book handling; whether young children know what the use of a book is for or if they understand the idea of a front/or back cover as well as the concept of turning pages in a book, directionality; whether children recognize that the direction of words move from left to right, concepts of words; understanding that words within a sentence need to have a space in between, concept of letters; in terms of representing sounds, and lastly, identifying punctuations; for e.g. the use of “talking marks”, full stops or question marks (Fellowes & Grace, 2020, p. 250). In terms of providing a learning experience which is based on teaching children about phonological awareness, the example provided will be directed towards the foundation level also known as the first year of primary school. Under the Victorian curriculum (n.d.) the chosen content description will be “Blend and segment onset and rime in single syllable spoken words and isolate, blend and segment phonemes in single syllable words (first consonant sound, last consonant sound, middle vowel sound)”. The experience requires students to sit down in a circle at the group time area of the classroom, and the teacher will hold up students’ name cards one by one. There will be two name cards, the first card will have the students name written in its usual form for e.g. “Henry”, the teacher will then discuss breaking down the sounds in Henry’s name, which are known as syllables and demonstrate this by clapping out each broken-down sound “Hen-ry” resulting in two claps. The teacher will then hold up the second name card to demonstrate the written form of the syllables in Henry’s name for e.g. Hen-ry . This is to enhance children’s phonological awareness in spoken and written language and literacy. A further prop/or resource which may be used by the teacher in order to enhance the experience could be a puppet, for e.g. children may watch

the number of times the puppet’s mouth moves when breaking down the sounds of students’ names. The idea of using a puppet for this experience has been inspired from McGraw Hill (2015). Each child will be evaluated through the demonstration of clapping out the syllables in their own names as well as attempting to their peers’ names. In conclusion, for children to have success with developing reading and writing skills, it is important for students to have phonological awareness to understand that words are made up of broken-down sounds; syllables. Reading stories and singing songs to children is vital in the early years to expose children to hearing the sounds in patterns of speech. It is also important to expose children to literacy-rich environments to help them familiarize themselves with texts and for adults to role-model their writing skills in order to encourage children to attempt writing too. It is evident that phonological awareness is interconnected to reading and writing skills and therefore for success in literacy, phonological awareness should be exposed to children within the early years of their childhood.

EDU20001 Developing Literacy Assessment 2: Essay References Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. (n.d.). Literacy. Retrieved August 22, 2020 from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10- curriculum/general-capabilities/literacy/ BBC. (2020). Form, structure and language. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z3brcdm/revision/1#:~:text=FORM%20%2D %20is%20the%20name%20of,intentions%2C%20characters%20or%20key%20theme s. Department of Education and Training. (2019). Phonological awareness (emergent literacy). Retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/professionals/learning/ecliteracy/eme rgentliteracy/Pages/phonologicalawareness.aspx Department of Education and Training. (2019). Literacy rich environment. Retrieved from https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/professionals/learning/ecliteracy/em ergentliteracy/Pages/literacyrichenvironment.aspx Fellowes, J., & Oakley, G. (2020) Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education (3 rd ed.). Oxford University Press. ProQuest Ebook Central. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/swin/detail.action?docID=5979409 Lilydale High School. (2015). Conventions. Retrieved from https://lilydalehs.vic.edu.au/english/conventions/#:~:text=Conventions%20refers% 20to%20the%20mechanical,spelling McGraw Hill. (2015, February 10). How to Teach Phonemic Awareness [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1i4wCuNHJU North, C., & Parker, M. (1994). Teaching Phonological Awareness. Powers Hall Infant School Speech and Language Unit, 10(3), 247-257. Retrieved from https://journals- sagepub-com.ezproxy.lib.swin.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.1177/026565909401000301 Tassoni, P., & Hucker, K. (2005). Planning Play and the Early Years (2 nd ed.). Oxford, England: Heinemann Educational Publishers. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.au/books?id=jphPiYP35LMC&printsec=frontcover&sourc e=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=reading&f=false The THRASS institute Australasia & Canada. (2018, January 18). THRASS Intro – Phonemic Awareness [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=312&v=bVs4DMCb_iw&feature= emb_title Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority. (n.d.). Foundation Level: English. Retrieved August 23, 2020 from https://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/foundationlevel?layout=1&d=E

Your preview ends here

Eager to read complete document? Join bartleby learn and gain access to the full version

Access to all documents
Unlimited textbook solutions
24/7 expert homework help

Developing Literacy Essay

Related Documents