Number Agents

 So if you have been following my journey, you will know that I have been developing my understandings of structured literacy over the last five years.  You will also know I am a massive advocate for play and developmentally appropriate teaching, not only that you will know that my journey into structured literacy has also taken me into developing a scope and sequence for maths. If you have been reading for awhile, you will also know I am a big believer in storytelling and that this is my favourite quote. Depending on how long you have been following me you may also know that this all started with play and a need to address oral language, from there everything has spiralled.   You will know that these goals are massive for me and that being developmentally aware is something I am very very passionate about.  I believe we need to be ready for children, that we meet them where they are at and that we must as educators understand the brain. Last year I was in a ne...

 There is such a debate at the moment (not sure if it ever stopped.) Structured literacy vs balanced literacy.  Sometimes however it feels that many argue without even knowing what they are arguing about.  In fact it is becoming increasingly obvious to me, that those that argue against structured literacy have very little understanding of the Science of reading and basically think it is just about phonics. The argument is, children can't just be taught to sound out words...that is not an effective strategy, children need to experience language to be exposed to great vocab, to be surrounded by literature, to love reading...what is funny is this, structured literacy does all of these things and more! The other argument is often from those who have children that naturally took to reading (I had two of those myself) they don't see the need in all children learning this way and believe it to be boring.  Well I can say hand on heart, that even my more duck to water readers...

 As you will know, if you have been following my journey (or have read my last post) this year I faced a real challenge.  The children walking in the door lacked number sense, had a very limited understanding of the role of numbers.  They could write numerals, but had no idea of their meaning.  Numerosity was a real issue.   I do wonder if my work in structured literacy has helped me to see better when children have struggles.   On top of this, developmentally across the board children were not quite ready for the world of Number Agents.  So for the first year in what seems forever, I could not teach maths how I would have always done. My journey into structured literacy had shown me the value of a scope and sequence, so I took it upon myself to research and find one that would work for these children specifically for maths. I busily read the NCETM early years math curriculum (which were the basis for many of the big ideas and the teacher spe...