I recently posted in my number agents group on facebook about the fact play, has made the effective teaching of literacy and numeracy possible. I really like the work of Nell Duke and her take on rethinking the reading rope. She features executive functions as playing a big role in developing effective readers, which is really missing from other models. Some people were keen to hear specifically how my day looks, so this post does that. Obviously like every school, there are often variations to our timetable and we do have swimming, which I use as one of our play sessions. My approach to reading is then based on loads of learning that you can read about in my last post, but summed up here. Fluency being the bridge to comprehension. But, back to the point of this post, what does my day look like and how do I merge two approaches, play and explicit teaching (two practices people see has being polar opposite) together. Each day, I write down the 'must do' item...
I am passionate about play and structured explicit learning, finding the best of both worlds.