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Literacy and Numeracy

Expectations In Prep

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Dimensions of Teaching and Learning

Teaching of reading

Teaching of writing

The importance of Oral language

Numeracy in Prep

Monitoring and mapping progress

Overview

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What are the key elements of an effective Prep program?

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Dimensions of Teaching and Learning in Prep

What do we want Prep students to learn?

Focus on content and learning objectives outlined in:

• draft Australian Curriculum

• EYCG Learning Statements

• P-3 Literacy and Numeracy Indicators

What do we need to do to improve learning?

Use feedback to:

• Recognise, encourage, challenge and improve student performance

• Inform teacher planning in early intervention

• Report to parents and students

• Report to school, community and systems

• Establish effective partnerships between school and community

What evidence of learning is required for Prep students to demonstrate what they know and can do?

The Early Years Curriculum Guidelines describe processes for monitoring and assessing in Prep.

Teachers gather evidence through:

• Identifying the skills and abilities of students on all areas of growth and development on entry to Prep

• Observations

• Focused discussions

• Digital records

• Time sampling

• Collection and analysis that reflect understandings, capabilities, dispositions

How well have students learned?

• Core content aligns with the achievement standards of the Australian Curriculum

• Observation and monitoring demonstrates knowledge and skill development

• Children provide feedback and reflection of their learning progress that reflects their role in the learning process

• Judgements about children’s learning progress against learning statements demonstrates consistency and links to supporting documentation e.g. AC, P-3 Literacy and Numeracy Indicators, EYCG Learning Statements

How will curriculum be taught to maximise learning for all students?

• 5 contexts of learning (EYCG) will provide intellectually challenging and connected learning opportunities for all learners

• Learning outcomes of the curriculum content will be maximised through careful planning and assessment practices

• Plan to cater for diversity of students

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How do you teach reading in a balanced Prep program? What is the expectation?

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Draft Australian Curriculum: Reading

By the end of Kindergarten (Prep), students • recognise several types of print texts and identify the

purposes of some familiar texts • effectively navigate a simple picture book or digital text

using knowledge of basic concepts about print • discuss how factual texts differ from imaginative texts • name sound-letter matches for most consonants and

short vowels• recognise high frequency sight words and work out

short regular words using context, grammatical and phonic knowledge

ACARA Australian Curriculum Consultation Portal

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Draft Australian Curriculum: Reading

By the end of Kindergarten (Prep), students • read aloud short predictable texts with some fluency • demonstrate early reading strategies such as re

reading to maintaining meaning • retell one or two events in a story or a film, and

discuss events and characters • relate one or two facts from an information text. • recognise and name most letters of the alphabet

ACARA Australian Curriculum Consultation Portal

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Components of a balanced reading program

• Reading to children• Shared big book experiences• Activities related to reading experiences• Exposure to environmental print (signs,

names, labels)• Co-construction of their own books and

texts• Building student’s skills in each of the

areas in the Four Resource Model

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Four Resource Model

Code breakerCode breaker Text participantText participant

Text userText user Text analystText analyst

How can we use the four resource model in Prep?

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Reading in Prep

How do we teach reading in Prep?• Build on student’s knowledge (virtual

schoolbag)

• Talk about the structure of sentences

• The difference between words and letters and how they work in writing

• Opportunities to engage in texts

• Constantly monitor reading progress

• Focus attention on the meaning

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knowledge of the structure of language

Knowledge used during reading – Three Cueing System

meaning

knowledge of letters and sounds

Making meaning during reading

knowledge of the world and of texts

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Questions that prompt students to use the three cueing systems

Knowledge of the world and of texts(Semantic cues)

Knowledge of the structure of language(Syntactic cues)

Knowledge of letters and sounds(Graphophonic cues)

Did that make sense?

Look at the pictures?

What do you think it might be?

Can you re-read this?

Did that sound right?

Can you re-read that?

Can you say it another way?

What is another word that might fit here?

Does it look right?

What sound does it start with?

Can you point to the word

beginning with ‘s’?

It could be ‘hat’, but look at the last letter. (The word the child is reading is ‘ham’.)

During reading

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What strategies do children need in order to begin the reading process?

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Reading strategies

• Knowledge of how texts work

• Phonic knowledge (letters and sounds)

• Picture cues

• Understand the structure of language

• Cross reference all sources of information to confirm meaning

• Understand that reading is about meaning making

Giving children strong foundations in these systems stops them from falling into the danger of relying on just phonics or picture cues in isolation

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Video - key questions • P-3 literacy indicator being addressed: -

Reading and Viewing

iv. Uses and discusses print concepts including reading from the front to the back of a book, using left-to-right progression, working from the top to the bottom of the text and matching some spoken words with written words one-to-one correspondence)

• How does the teacher build oral language in this video?

• Is there evidence of teaching for metalinguistic awareness, phonological awareness?

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Why do we talk about reading levels?

What are the challenges?

What do you need to know about levelled texts?

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Using levelled texts

Why use levelled texts?• Useful for identifying appropriate materials for emergent,

beginning and early readers• Provides a shared language for discussing texts

Challenges with levelled texts• Levelled texts are highly contextualised• Rely on the premise that children have structural control over

SAE to access them• Significant challenge for ESL students and those that enter

Prep with limited oral language • May limit range of student’s reading material

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Using levelled texts

What do teachers need to know ?

• Who are my students and what is of personal significance/interest to them?

• What reading skills do my student’s have?

When teachers are familiar with

text characteristics, their confidence in providing children with developmentally

appropriate reading material is increased

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Emergent Texts

Characteristics

• Carefully controlled text

• Repetitive patterns

• Controlled and repeated use of vocabulary

• Wide letter spacing

• Familiar concepts

• Limited text on a page

• Pictures that directly relate to text to scaffold meaning

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Beginning Reader Texts

Characteristics

• Books contain more text per page• Inclusion of richer vocabulary• Assumes readers will be less reliant on picture

cues• More formal and descriptive language

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Early Readers

Characteristics

• Assumes readers have control over conventions of print

• Incorporates the use of high frequency words

• Sentence complexity increases

• Descriptive language increases

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Linking texts to levels

Text type Approximate level

Emergent Levels 1-3

Beginning Levels 4-7

Early Levels 8-12

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Why should I send readers home in Prep?

Do all children need home readers?

How do I inform parents about expectations and how they can help?

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How do you incorporate writing within a balanced Prep program?

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Draft Australian Curriculum: Writing

By the end of Kindergarten (Prep), students: - • write texts of one or two sentences to retell

events and experiences for a small range of audiences

• understand concepts about print such as letters, words and sentences

• use left to right directionality, return sweep and spaces between words

• handwrite most lower case and some upper case letters

ACARA Australian Curriculum Consultation Portal

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Draft Australian Curriculum: Writing

By the end of Kindergarten (Prep), students: - • use some capital letters and full stops • show some evidence of the use of sound letter-

letter knowledge to write unknown words • spell a small number of common words

correctly • use a key board to compose short texts,

locating the keys for most letters including capital letters and full stops

ACARA Australian Curriculum Consultation Portal

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Writing in the Prep Year

• Fine motor skills

• Explicit teaching of letters, speech sounds and letter formation

• Opportunities for co-constructing texts (innovations)

• Exposure to a range of text types for both personal and group purposes

• Links between spoken language and written language

• Connectedness between symbols, language patterns, conventions and letter sound relationships

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Oral language

• Crucial to literacy development

• Social interaction is foundation to language development

• Teachers act as facilitators not transmitters of language

• Students need to see connections to their words and print

• Use digital photo books to scaffold discussions

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Numeracy and Mathematics

• What is the difference?

• What are the expectations of Prep students?

• What does an effective numeracy program look like?

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Numeracy and mathematics

The Australian Curriculum has increased specificity regarding student’s mathematical knowledge under the number and algebra strand compared to the EYCG:

• The inclusion of numbers 11-20

• Reading the time: Students will begin to read the time on digital and analogue clocks

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Students cannot be numerate without mathematics. With our increasingly complex world, applications of mathematics rely evermore on higher order thinking and it is in the interplay between the world of mathematics and the real world that numeracy comes into its own… (Willis, as cited in National Numeracy

Review Report 2008, p3)

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Mathematics in Prep

• Embedded across the five contexts of learning

• Explicitly planned

• Develop by working with concrete materials and visual representations, and then moving towards symbolic representations

• Monitor and assess numeracy skills

• Differentiate for individual students

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Teaching Mathematics

• Build on previous experiences

• Connect mathematics learning to contexts that are relevant and authentic

• Connect different areas of mathematics

• Use language of Mathematics

• Develop higher order thinking skills

• Foster communication and justification

• Encourage reflection and articulation on learning

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Whole school continuity

• Achievement expectations of students - need for shared understandings between school leaders and teachers

• Prep’s position in the whole school curriculum plan?

• Planning to address all curriculum content

• Alignment of current curriculum documentation and Australian Curriculum

• How to ensure continuing raised expectations?

• Professional dialogue around practice and pedagogy

• Consistent assessment, monitoring and reporting