I think the title sums this up, this is a blog post I have been wanting to write for a while. As a teacher absolutely committed to play, people are often surprised that I also advocate for children having a strong foundation in number and literacy.
I guess many think that if my class is play-based then this just does not fit with explicit teaching. In fact this could not be further from the truth. It is through developing an understanding of play, the role it plays in learning and the importance of providing a developmentally appropriate approach that led me in my pursuit of truly providing for the individual. I am the first to acknowledge that I am certainly not at the end of my journey and in some aspects, this is just the beginning.
This journey has also made me very well aware that levels and stages are a man made constraint placed upon learning and that age should not be a guide for how we engage with children. A construct put in place to make children fit nicely into boxes.
Age is used as such a strong argument from every side of education, those that feel the need to wait and those that feel the need to accelerate. The truth however is that it is not age that means anything at all, it is developmental readiness and child-led interest. These two indicators are what we should be using to determine what it is or is not we choose to have children engage with.
As professionals we need a deep understanding of learning if we are to be able to do this.
Let's start at the beginning, because that is a very good place to start. When referring to structured literacy, I don't think that there is any play-based advocate that would argue against a high quality oral language environment. Phonological awareness is developed out loud, the building blocks of structured literacy come to pass in an environment that is strongly based on oral language and auditory processing, but also that understands how children learn to identify and manipulate sounds. This is something children are doing innately from the time they are born and there is absolutely nothing inappropriate about encouraging specific phonological development in a classroom, in fact it is a whole lot of fun. This hour glass figure is a great visual for literacy acquisition and everything in orange can be done in a class based on play in a fun and engaging way.
***Structured literacy is not 'phonics' it is the name for the body of work sometimes called the Science of Reading and is all about how the brain learns to read...not some brains...all brains! It is all about explicit teaching.
This diagram below is my own, it is not quite as specific as the diagram above, but shows you what aspects can clearly be developed through play. It is not perfect and is always a work in process based on my learning journey.
Working with these areas of phonological understanding also allow us to capture useful information, which may allow us to engage sooner rather than later if a child has a specific difficulty, that is not developmental in nature.
So how is this done? Well as a class we dedicate short periods throughout the day to engage in explicit, fun activities that develop these skills, while the rest of the time, children get to engage in wonderful interest led play, inside and outside of the classroom.
Children all have individual developmental goals, which I have shared many times before and are linked at the top of this blog. We have now tied part of these goals to the code, to ensure we are following a structured approach to literacy. When the children show developmental readiness and (totally key) an interest in learning more, we start to engage with these aspects individually.
There is no age and stage relationship here, we are guided by the child. Some are six when they start to work individually with us, some younger, but the common factor is this, they are ready and interested. This is similar to Finland, interest for more learning is absolute key. If a child takes time to be ready and interested, they should be allowed that time.
If we take away the age factor as a determiner and start to just engage individually with the child, we will be meeting their needs, regardless.
Number is run in a similar way with agency, it is all about the development of number sense through fun, using patters, materials and ensure children have a strong understanding of the concept of the whole and its parts. Explicit teaching of these aspects in a fun way, that is playful in nature is they key.
Explicit teaching of these early understandings in both number and literacy can and do co-exist naturally in our play based environment.
When we interact with children in a developmentally appropriate way, according to their individual needs, we start to see that their is no such thing as level and stage, just a learning journey that is best assisted by professionals that know enough about learning to do so.
There is no one or the other, no this or that, just a culture of learning and play that brings the best out in everyone and provides for the many needs of our diverse learners.
No cookie cutter approach, no one size fits all, just a kete of strategies and approaches that as teachers we continue to develop over time.
I have just uploaded a pdf of all the activities we use for phonological - phonemic awareness linked with our individual goals. This can be found here Phonological ideas for the everyday classroom it is on TPT.
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