Developing writing in a nursery class

Forum for 'Teeny Reading Seeds' and the 'Early Years Starter Package'
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debbie
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Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2007 2:28 pm
Location: UK

Developing writing in a nursery class

Post by debbie »

http://www.phonicsinternational.com/for ... .php?t=337

Visitors to the Pre-School forum may be interested in the thread above which is a diary recount of developing writing in a nursery class.

Many pre-school settings explicitly teach three to four year olds about letter shapes and the sounds that they are code for and it is amazing what progress many of the children make when taught very careful links and small steps.

Whilst reading and writing do 'emerge' for individual children, we no longer rely on 'emergent' reading and writing because nowadays we know how effective it is to explicitly TEACH our teenies the basic literacy skills.

There are a number of worries, however, about the quality, in reality, of provision for our teenies (and older learners) when children who are fast to learn 'take off' with or without explicit teaching - leaving other children further behind.

So, the questions remain along the lines of 'how good is the visual display for teaching and learning?', 'how well do adults reinforce aspects of learning such as the correct pencil hold, the correct letter formation and saying the sounds as close as possible to real speech?

Further, what does 'repetition' look like in pre-school settings? One person's idea of repetition may be very different from another person's idea of repetition.

Also, without doubt we have an aversion to paper and pencil activities in England and I find this particularly worrying. There is nothing more fit-for-purpose for teaching basic literacy skills then holding ordinary-sized pencils, sitting comfortably at the right -sized desks and using ordinary paper to write on. This method of teaching and learning seems to be disappearing fast in many settings - for all ages of learners...

...very worrying! :?
Debbie Hepplewhite
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