Portfoli Week 7

A Resource:

Outcome:1.3

The aim of this resource is to assist the learners and future teachers  to understand the importance of developing early literacy and numeracy skills in young children. The learner can explore approaches to planning, that encourages literacy and numeracy skill development and can also  reflect on ways to implement these ideas into practice .While reading this resource I thought that it provided a very useful insight into how children’s literacy and numeracy skills can be enhanced through play and also how teachers and parents can support children literacy and numeracy skills.

The power of play is the most useful tool for literacy and numeracy learning:

The resource states that the play based approach  is very important for educators working with children aged from birth to five years and they need to recognize this age group’s unique stage of development. The way young children take in information, make sense of things, understand and learn is not the same as for children of older ages. Promoting opportunities for children to explore, be exposed to and participate in literacy and numeracy is an important part of the early childhood year and also gives very useful examples. It also mentions that understanding what literacy and numeracy is and what it looks like is an important first step for the early childhood educator. Literacy and numeracy is much more than the narrow view that many in the community have, of writing, reading and counting or recognizing numbers and reciting the alphabet. In fact, literacy and numeracy is far broader and richer than that definition and is in just about every aspect of life.

It also states that a play-based curriculum emphasizes that children in the early years take in information through open-ended play based experiences and with a hands on approach.It also states that the play-based curriculum reflects a hands-on approach to learning where children both indoors and outdoors are surrounded by opportunities for a play which promote literacy and numeracy and providing a range of play experiences can promote literacy and numeracy skills.It has also listed some skills which are present in literacy and numeracy.

Skills underpinning literacy and numeracy include:

· Reasoning

· Classifying

· Grouping

· Sorting

· Recognising

· Distinguishing

· Symbolising

· Representing

This resource also states that as teachers we should be aware that literacy and numeracy are part of everyday life. Walking along a street and noticing the traffic lights, the leaves on the ground, the shapes and colours of cars. Literacy and numeracy is meant to be a meaningful and relevant part of everyday life for young children and we as a teacher should build positive messages and attitudes about literacy and numeracy in the children. We want them to participate in rich play learning experiences that support and promote literacy and numeracy and all other aspects of their learning and development. It also states that the challenge for the early childhood educator is to provide a rich range of opportunities that do not use formal and structured literacy and numeracy. When I will become a professional teacher this resource will be very helpful for me because it describes in detail about how to develop children’s literacy and numeracy skills.

Resource:

Early Literacy and Numeracy

Self-Guided Learning Package

www.gowrievictoria.org.au/.../Early%20literacy%20and%20numerac