FACULTY OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Assignment No 1

Name ELESTINA SHAMUDZARIRA

Programme BACHELOR OF EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

AND DEVELOPMENT

Module title & Code LANGUAGE, LITERACY & NUMERACY (BEE 2204)

Module Tutor/Lecturer

Due Date 22 FEBRUARY 2019

QUESTION: - With relevant examples discuss any four (4) indicators of diverse classroom.

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Pre-reading activities cover a range of possibilities, all directed at helping learners engage in
a process of discovery and to feel authorized to engage with the form and content of the text.
What all successful pre-reading activities have in common is that they are student-centred.
The teacher has to identify the potential problems of readability inherent in a chosen reading
text, and then has to help students find ways to surmount those difficulties. Rather than just
provide answers or summarize the content, the teacher can help children identify the sources
of their reading difficulties.

Picture books emphasizes the value and pleasure of rereading familiar materials, and provides
good practice to build fluency and combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format.
This gives the child a chance to learn and apply strategies for figuring out the meaning of a
new text and new pictures. Before having the child read, tell him or her the title of the book,
and discuss the picture on the cover. Draw out the child’s ideas and predictions and ask
question for example, what the child sees in the picture and as a teacher you have to guide the
child and explain clearly what shown on the picture like yes this is a chicken, or a hen and
there is a fox. Help the child look through the pictures, covering the words, this is called a
picture walk. As you talk about what might happen in the story, use the language of the text
as much as possible. These pre-reading activities are very important for helping the child
become familiar with the concepts and language patterns of a book building background
knowledge. Sometimes you might read the whole book out loud first, pointing to the words,
and encouraging the students or children to notice or join in whenever there is a repeated
pattern or refrain. The teacher also has to check if the students notice repetition of words like
that is mine or he is my friend. Then ask the child to read the text as independently as
possible, but with your help as needed.
The teacher should always be ready to help in a supportive way, but try not to jump in too
quickly to correct every mistake. Keep the focus on helping the child make sense and on
learning more about print. When the child pauses before a new word, or makes a mistake,
wait a little bit to see what the child does, and to allow time for the child to think. If possible,
give a cue such as look at the picture. Could Rosie go thought the fence?” Often children can
figure out some words, or correct their mistakes if they’ve previewed and talked about the
book with you and are allowed adequate thinking time.

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Oral language provides children with a sense of words and sentences and builds sensitivity to
the sound system so that children can acquire phonological awareness and phonics. Games
such as Mix-up Fix-up, or Concentration can be made on the spot, using sentences or words
from the story or the child’s dictation. Other games like fishing for sounds, or picture sort
should be prepared in advance. This is also an important opportunity to model reading for
pleasure, and to share a variety of good literature that a child is not yet ready to read
independently. Also, this is a way for children to be exposed to new vocabulary, concepts and
different kinds of story structures. When selecting a text to read out loud, be sure the student
knows he or she will not be expected to read this text now it is your turn. Try to respond to
your child’s interest and attention level, is he or she listening? Is the story line too complex?
Are there words the student does not know? You can model good reading and comprehension
skills by asking questions and making comments for example, I wonder what they mean
when they say, he is slow like tortoise. Through their own speech children demonstrate their
understanding of the meanings of words and written materials. Children reared in families
where parents provide rich language and literacy support do better in school than those who
do not. Language poor families are likely to use fewer different words in their everyday
conversations and the language environment is more
likely to be controlling and punitive. Exposure to less common, more sophisticated
vocabulary (rare words) at home relates directly to children's vocabulary acquisition. Rare
words are those that go beyond the typical 8,500 most common words in the English
language. There is a strong relationship between vocabulary development and reading
achievement. Understanding the meanings of words is critical to understanding what a child
reads. Good readers combine a variety of strategies to read words. Even when children have
strong familiarity with the alphabetic code, they frequently meet words for which the
pronunciation is not easily predictable. Children who acquire strong vocabularies increase
their ability to make sense of what a word might be while using what they know about
phonics.

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Brainstorming is a process one goes through in an effort to generate ideas, let the creative
juices flow, and problem solve. It can be applied to a variety of activities including conflict
resolution, writing and figuring out math problems. The root of developing innovative ideas
in any context stems from efficient brainstorming (Whitacre, 2010. Brainstorming is an
effective way to think of new ideas individually or within a group. First, the steps are outlined
with a group in mind. Second, ideas for brainstorming are presented with an individual in
mind. Follow the steps in the group strategy, but use the individual strategies to widen your
scope for ideas, creativity, and solutions. Students pool what they know about the topic of a
text and share their knowledge in the native or target language. The goal is to activate the
learners' horizon of expectation, and help learners identify what the text is about. Pre-reading
exercises can take different forms, but ideally, they are learner-centred rather than teacher-
centred. For example, if the text is a film or cartoon review, and only one student has seen the
cartoon, that student can tell the others about the plot or other notable features of the cartoon.
brainstorming allows for students and experts alike to draw upon the knowledge of others,
which helps in developing a sense of community and purpose among classmates and
colleagues (Whitacre, 2010). The goal is to pour your thoughts onto paper without worrying
about whether they make sense or how they fit together. Because students have different
learning styles, some students will be uncomfortable with the disorganized frenzy of spilling
thoughts onto paper. For instance, left brain dominant students and sequential thinking
students may not benefit from the process if it becomes too cluttered. There are more
organized ways to brainstorm, however. For this reason, I will explore a few ways to get the
same results. Brainstorming for Right Brains, right-brained thinkers are typically comfortable
with a variety of shapes, ideas, and patterns. Right brains do not run from chaos. The artistic
side of the right brain enjoys the process of creating and it doesn't really matter whether they
start with cluttered ideas or clumps of clay. The right brain may be most comfortable with
clustering or mind mapping as a brainstorming method. Brainstorming for Left Brains, if the
process above makes you break out into a cold sweat, you may be a left brain. If you aren't
comfortable with chaos and you need to find a more orderly way to brainstorm, the bullet
method might work better for you. Brainstorming initiates problem solving behavior
and ignites critical thinking skills in students. After a brainstorming session,
students are no longer reading for the sake of reading, they are reading to discover
if the ideas they brainstormed have any merit. By reading in this way, they pay
closer attention to the events and information in the text and are able to break the
text down to notice subtleties of plot, action and resolution.

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Concentration or Memory Game, To Make Select 5 – 10 words from a book (or books) the
child is reading. Print each word clearly and boldly on separate cards, making pairs of each
word. The child may be able to help you by copying the words you write. Shuffle the cards
and place them face down in neat rows. Take turns turning up two cards at a time and reading
the words aloud. If the two cards match, the player keeps them and takes a second turn. If
they do not match, the cards are replaced face down and the next player takes a turn. Play
until all the cards are matched. The player with the most pairs wins. If the child has trouble
recognizing a word, say the word do not ask the child to sound out the word. The purpose of
this game is to build automatic recognition of whole words. You can control the difficulty of
the game by the choice and number of words used for very beginning readers, choose
meaningful words that are visually distinctive: like toy, dad, mom, and keep the number of
words low. For a more challenging game, include some words that are less distinctive: when,
what, this, that, but be careful not to overwhelm the child. Instead of matching pairs, you can
use rhyming pairs like look, book, dark, park. This game can also be used to build letter
recognition and letter/sound association. Paste or draw simple pictures on one set of cards;
and on the other set, print initial consonants to go with the pictures. For example, paste the
picture of a dog on one card, and write the letter “D” on a matching card.
Introduce a poem or rhyming story such as Miss Mary Mack, Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack
all dressed in black, black, black with silver buttons up and down her back, back, back…”
Encourage the child to point out words in a text that have similar spelling patterns. Help the
child think of other words that have this pattern. You may have to write a few words for him
or her sack, pack, stack and then have the child read the whole word and underline the
repeated part of the word, ack. Using magnetic letters or scrabble pieces form a word with the
ack pattern. Ask the student to change the first letter of the word (for example, ‘s’ in sack) to
make a new word such as pack. You should be sure to provide a limited number of letters two
or three at first for the child to choose from. Remember to choose a word pattern that is
useful and important to the student and that relates to something that he or she has read or
will read. If possible, start with a word he or she already knows in the word family. After
reading a book about being sad, start with the word cry and then followed with fry, try and
try. Remember to review the word families you have chosen to work on periodically through
other games such as Go Fish (using word families) or Read Around. Be sure to give the
student a chance to go back to a book, poem, or other texts where he or she can apply this
new reading skill. Poems, nursery rhymes and jump rope jingles are a great resource for early
readers.

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Building key literacy skills in the early years will yield the best long-term results for children.
But many children fail to read confidently support to continue developing their literacy skills
through pre-reading activities. All children can benefit from embedding literacy instruction
within the content areas. For those children who struggle to read and write effectively,
strategies that focus on explicit vocabulary and comprehension instruction are important.
Additionally, some children may be deficient in conventional literacy skills, decoding, oral
reading fluency, comprehension, writing, and spelling. In these cases, more intensive and
individualized interventions may be required. To enable all students to succeed in literacy,
schools, districts, and states must select curricula and interventions that are based in research
and have solid evidence of effectiveness, and they must put in place the resources and
infrastructure to implement them effectively. Doing this requires both careful planning and
resources, but the costs of equipping children with the literacy skills they need to succeed are
far less than those of failing to do so.

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REFERENCES

1. Allen-Simon, C. (n.d.). Making Connections - Read Write Think. readwritethink.org.

Retrieved June 10, 2014, from http://www.readwritethink.org/professional-
development/strategy-guides/making-connections

2. Baumgartner, J (2008) A step-by-step guide to brainstorming. iSixSigma. Retrieved

on 10/08/08 from http://www.isixsigma.com/tt/brainstorming/

3. Janet Swaffar and Katherine Arens. Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum: A
Multi-Literacies Approach. New York: Modern Language Association, 2005

4. John Shindler, transformative classroom management 2009

5. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1998). Cooperative learning and social

interdependence theory. In R. Tindale, L. Heath, J. Edwards, E. Posavac, F. Bryant, Y.
Suzrez-Balcazar, E. Henderson-King, & J. Myers (eds.), Theory and research on small
groups (pp. 9-36). New York: Plenum. Social Psychological Applications To Social
Issues, Volume 4.

6. Liza Charlesworth, 2017 First Little Readers Parent Pack: Guided Reading Level D:
25 Irresistible Books That Are Just the Right Level for Beginning Readers

7. Shindler, John (2003) Creating a More Peaceful Classroom Community by Assessing

Student Participation and Process. Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution
Spring, v. 5.1

8. Watson, M., & Battistich, V. (2006) Building and sustaining caring communities. In
C.M. Evertson & C.S. Weinstein, (Eds.) Handbook of classroom management. (pp.
253-279). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

9. Whitacre, T. (2010). rise to the top. Quality Progress, 43(9), 61

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