ECL210+Assignment+1,+Part+B

ECL210: Part B- Connecting with an early years teacher and their teaching program

The second part of the assignment was to connect with an early year’s teacher and their teaching program.

I went to Roslyn Primary school in Belmont, to a year one to two composite classroom with approximately twenty students in the class.

The aim of this part of the assignment was to observe a two hour literacy block in an early years classroom. Observations were made to see the different teaching approaches used and the different activities created for the students during the two hour literacy block, by this particular classroom teacher, also to see what their teaching program is like.

Before taking part in my observation of the literacy class, I had to comply with standard procedure by getting the teacher of this year 1-2 classroom to sign a permission slip that explained what the information I obtain from my observations will be used for and that I had my ‘working with children check’ so I am certified to work with children voluntarily ( a copy of the permission slip can be seen in the appendices)

During the class I made rough notes in my work book and also filled out observation templates noting the time each task took, the resources used during each task, the grouping of students and also what teaching approaches were used ( a copy of the observation template and my rough notes can be seen in the appendices).

The first activity that students participated in this two hour literacy block was for the students, sitting in their 5 table groups with 4-5 students at each, to take part in an ‘Independent reading’ task. Students were to read, either silently or out loud to themselves from a book they were up to in their readers. While students took part in this activity the teacher went around the class checking each student’s progress and offering assistance when necessary. This task only needed the student’s readers, pencils and erasers and only took approximately 20 minutes.

The next pat of the literacy block was an ‘independent writing’ task, this involved students practising writing words from their word lists in their folder trying to spell them correctly, the teacher again walks around the class room checking each students progress and offering assistance when needed. This task needs the students word lists, pencils and erasers and takes approximately 10 minutes.

The students than gathered in a group on the floor in front of their teacher. This activity was a ‘shared reading activity’, their was a white board with a large picture book titled ‘The pirate that wouldn’t wash’, which the teacher had been reading to the students as a lead up to their ‘pirate day’ coming up in the following weeks.

The teacher had already read some of the book to the children, throughout the rest of the book the teacher used the three P’s, that being pause, prompt and praise to encourage the students involvement in the reading of the book, some of the prompts used by the teacher were.. What happened there?, and also He can walk the plank or...?,these were used effectively as the students were all engaged during the reading and seemed to know the book quite well. The uses of these tools are similar to what we talked about during tutorials and what we saw during a video we also watched I tutorials. There was only one resource needed during this activity, that being the large picture book. The task went for approximately 20 minutes.

The following activity was the main one throughout the two hour literacy block. This entailed the students sitting at tables in their five reading groups, which were colour groups chosen by the teacher e.g.) Red, green, blue ECT.., with approximately four to five students in each colour group.

Each of the five groups had different tasks, with four groups reading books and the other one taking part in a computer exercise to do with forming sentences and placing full stops.

One of the four reading groups read ‘Jordan’s Catch’ with the teacher, this was an example of ‘Guided reading’, as each of the students had a copy of the book that the teacher had hosen for them, they also completed a mind map using the white board, this was led b the teacher.

Another of the five groups read ‘Jack and Chug’ in a group, reading one page each per student.

One group read ‘Nilsam gets flight’, reading one page per student and after the reading filling in a missing word sheet to do with the book.

The last group read ‘Lost in the forest’, where each student read independently, the aim of this was for the students to pick out adjectives they saw throughout the book eg.) Dinosaurs running, and to write them down in their work books.

This task was overall successful, although some signs of restlessness the teacher did well to attend to each group when necessary. These group activities went for approximately 40 minutes.

The next activity was a group task led by the teacher, students sat in front of the teacher while a projector screen with an online full stop game was showing on the white board, students were to take it in turns in coming up and placing the full stops at the end of sentences. The teacher once again used pauses, prompts and praises to encourage student’s involvement. This task was an interesting use of technology and went for approximately 15 minutes.

The students were than asked to sit back in their initial table groups as per the start of the lesson. The teacher than used the white board to write the days date for the student’s to copy out in their work books. This was a ‘Shared writing’ task, as he students worked in groups and were led by their teacher. The activity than went to students forming two letters together, from what the teacher had wrote on the white board e.g.) co and ad), and sounding them out. Throughout this task the teacher supervised and offered help to the students when needed. This task took approximately 15 minutes and drew the literacy session to a close.

Some of the similarities to what has been read in ‘Early literacy development’ and discussed in tutorials to a real class room environment were the use of pause, prompt and praise as a method of encouragement for the children and also many of the individual and group reading and writing tasks were the same in the class room as discussed in the book e.g.) independent reading and writing, and group shared reading and writing tasks).

The main difference from going to discussion in tutorials and readings to a real class room was the different needs of individual students need to be taken in to consideration and also how to break up the students in to different groups so that they each have an equal chance to learn and develop.

This class room experience was valuable and was very enjoyable, I learnt a lot to do with different teaching approaches, how to plan out a session and also how to handle different children and attend to their needs.