Claire McLachlan

Literacy in early childhood and primary education: Issues, challenges and solutions

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy teaching and learning. The book explores the continuum of literacy learning and children’s transitions from early childhood settings to junior primary classrooms, and then to senior primary and beyond. Reader-friendly and accessible, this book equips pre-service teachers with the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies and skills needed to teach literacy. It places the ‘reading wars’ firmly in the past as it examines contemporary research and practices. The book covers important topics such as literacy acquisition, family literacies and multiliteracies, foundation skills for literacy learning, reading difficulties, assessment, and supporting diverse literacy learners in early childhood and primary classrooms. It also addresses some of the challenges that teachers may face in the classroom and provides solutions to these. Each chapter includes learning objectives, reflective questions and definitions to key terms to engage and assist readers. Further resources are also available at www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/literacy. Written by an expert author team and featuring real-world examples from literacy teachers and learners. Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education will help pre-service teachers feel confident teaching literacy to diverse age groups and abilities.

Teacher Knowledge Needed for Differentiated Early Reading Instruction

Differentiated instruction in reading refers to teachers’ use of research-based assessment procedures and instructional strategies to cater to the differing skill needs of beginning readers (see Chapter 8 of this volume). To provide for effective differentiated instruction, it is important for teachers to have an understanding of how reading and writing develops. Attaining that understanding, however, is frequently a problem.

Content knowledge: The sciences, maths and numeracy

Learning intentions This chapter is intended to help you learn that: Conceptual development of infants and toddlers must be planned for and key concepts are found in most early childhood curricula. Concepts in science, mathematics and sustainability are important for infants and young children to learn. Everyday concepts and academic concepts must both be supported in the early childhood learning environment. In this chapter the theory and the practice of Vygotsky’s (1987b) work on concept formation will be introduced. This work is important for framing approaches to building content knowledge in mathematics and science in the context of the environment. This is an important part of the early childhood curriculum that can sometimes get lost in play-based approaches. In this chapter, a model for understanding how concept formation occurs in relation to children’s everyday experiences of the world and their acquisition of formal knowledge will be examined. The model is explained using examples from practice which show how children and teachers can work together to build conceptual knowledge within play-based approaches to curriculum.

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education by Claire McLachlan

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy teaching and learning. The book explores the continuum of literacy learning and children’s transitions from early childhood settings to junior primary classrooms, and then to senior primary and beyond. Reader-friendly and accessible, this book equips pre-service teachers with the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies and skills needed to teach literacy. It places the ‘reading wars’ firmly in the past as it examines contemporary research and practices. The book covers important topics such as literacy acquisition, family literacies and multiliteracies, foundation skills for literacy learning, reading difficulties, assessment, and supporting diverse literacy learners in early childhood and primary classrooms. It also addresses some of the challenges that teachers may face in the classroom and provides solutions to these. Each chapter includes learning objectives, reflective questions and definitions to key terms to engage and assist readers. Further resources are also available at www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/literacy. Written by an expert author team and featuring real-world examples from literacy teachers and learners. Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education will help pre-service teachers feel confident teaching literacy to diverse age groups and abilities.

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education: Literacy acquisition: the child, the family and diversity in the modern world

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy teaching and learning. The book explores the continuum of literacy learning and children’s transitions from early childhood settings to junior primary classrooms, and then to senior primary and beyond. Reader-friendly and accessible, this book equips pre-service teachers with the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies and skills needed to teach literacy. It places the ‘reading wars’ firmly in the past as it examines contemporary research and practices. The book covers important topics such as literacy acquisition, family literacies and multiliteracies, foundation skills for literacy learning, reading difficulties, assessment, and supporting diverse literacy learners in early childhood and primary classrooms. It also addresses some of the challenges that teachers may face in the classroom and provides solutions to these. Each chapter includes learning objectives, reflective questions and definitions to key terms to engage and assist readers. Further resources are also available at www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/literacy. Written by an expert author team and featuring real-world examples from literacy teachers and learners. Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education will help pre-service teachers feel confident teaching literacy to diverse age groups and abilities.

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education: Learning about literacy in early childhood settings

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy teaching and learning. The book explores the continuum of literacy learning and children’s transitions from early childhood settings to junior primary classrooms, and then to senior primary and beyond. Reader-friendly and accessible, this book equips pre-service teachers with the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies and skills needed to teach literacy. It places the ‘reading wars’ firmly in the past as it examines contemporary research and practices. The book covers important topics such as literacy acquisition, family literacies and multiliteracies, foundation skills for literacy learning, reading difficulties, assessment, and supporting diverse literacy learners in early childhood and primary classrooms. It also addresses some of the challenges that teachers may face in the classroom and provides solutions to these. Each chapter includes learning objectives, reflective questions and definitions to key terms to engage and assist readers. Further resources are also available at www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/literacy. Written by an expert author team and featuring real-world examples from literacy teachers and learners. Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education will help pre-service teachers feel confident teaching literacy to diverse age groups and abilities.

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education: List of figures

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy teaching and learning. The book explores the continuum of literacy learning and children’s transitions from early childhood settings to junior primary classrooms, and then to senior primary and beyond. Reader-friendly and accessible, this book equips pre-service teachers with the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies and skills needed to teach literacy. It places the ‘reading wars’ firmly in the past as it examines contemporary research and practices. The book covers important topics such as literacy acquisition, family literacies and multiliteracies, foundation skills for literacy learning, reading difficulties, assessment, and supporting diverse literacy learners in early childhood and primary classrooms. It also addresses some of the challenges that teachers may face in the classroom and provides solutions to these. Each chapter includes learning objectives, reflective questions and definitions to key terms to engage and assist readers. Further resources are also available at www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/literacy. Written by an expert author team and featuring real-world examples from literacy teachers and learners. Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education will help pre-service teachers feel confident teaching literacy to diverse age groups and abilities.

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education: Frontmatter

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education provides a comprehensive introduction to literacy teaching and learning. The book explores the continuum of literacy learning and children’s transitions from early childhood settings to junior primary classrooms, and then to senior primary and beyond. Reader-friendly and accessible, this book equips pre-service teachers with the theoretical underpinnings and practical strategies and skills needed to teach literacy. It places the ‘reading wars’ firmly in the past as it examines contemporary research and practices. The book covers important topics such as literacy acquisition, family literacies and multiliteracies, foundation skills for literacy learning, reading difficulties, assessment, and supporting diverse literacy learners in early childhood and primary classrooms. It also addresses some of the challenges that teachers may face in the classroom and provides solutions to these. Each chapter includes learning objectives, reflective questions and definitions to key terms to engage and assist readers. Further resources are also available at www.cambridge.edu.au/academic/literacy. Written by an expert author team and featuring real-world examples from literacy teachers and learners. Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education will help pre-service teachers feel confident teaching literacy to diverse age groups and abilities.

Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education: Multiliteracies: growing the next generation of readers

Chapter objectives To define and examine the concept of multiliteracies. To consider the notion of literacy in a changing world. To reconceptualise literacy in the classroom. This chapter explores multiliteracies as part of examining how children come to centres and schools with diverse literacy experiences, which may or may not match the literacy environment of the centre or school. The chapter encourages students and teachers to reconsider how the nature of readers and the contexts in which reading occurs are changing with the advent of technology. Ideas to support an ever-increasing array of text types and multimodal applications for various ages in the classroom are investigated. What are multiliteracies? The term multiliteracies is used to capture the complexities of the range of types of texts in which gestural, spatial, verbal and visual elements are included and which use a wide range of communication channels that inl uence people’s literate practices (New London Group 1996; Makin, Jones Diaz & McLachlan 2007). People today live in an increasingly globalised world, in which finance, global capital, trade, information, communication and media technologies merge across economic, political, cultural and social i elds, all requiring understandings of specific forms of literacy. People of all ages, including children, are drawn into globalisation, consumerism and interaction with technology, media and communication systems. Globalisation has led to shifting conceptions of what constitutes literacy and this shift in thinking has important implications for teaching the next generation of children. New technologies emerge daily, bringing with them new everyday functional community literacies, such as changes in the internet, email, MP3s, mobile phones, electronic maps, signs and advertising. The internet, according to an advertisement on New Zealand television at the moment, has been in New Zealand for more than 20 years; in this period it has brought about enormous changes in the ways people connect, interact and communicate.

Early Childhood Curriculum: Content knowledge: The arts and health, wellbeing and physical activity

Learning intentions In this chapter we will examine: current research on the content knowledge that teachers need to have about the arts, health, wellbeing and physical education in early childhood how teachers can build on children’s home experiences in the early childhood classroom to help transform children’s thinking. In this chapter the theory and the practice of Vygotsky’s (1998) work on concept formation will be further discussed. The content areas of arts and health, wellbeing and physical education will be used to illustrate the importance of conceptual knowledge in the early childhood curriculum. How to integrate domain knowledge into curriculum was identified by students in our opening scenario: Jacob : I guess that’s part of the curriculum design stuff, isn’t it? That you work out what it is that you want children to be able to do and therefore you plan activities and work out in advance what you think they will achieve, so that you can assess if it worked or not. Arohia : But how does that fit with all these ideas around co-construction that our practicum lecturer has been talking about? How can I plan in advance, if I am trying to work with children to plan the curriculum? On the face of it, the topics in this chapter sound like an unusual combination, but as we hope this chapter shows, much of the concept formation associated with these domains of knowledge involves the interrelationship of cognitive abilities and psychomotor skills. For the purposes of simplicity only, the arts in this discussion include the visual arts, dance and music. The focus is on concept formation that involves developing physical abilities, such as drawing, painting, playing a musical instrument, singing, dancing, and playing on the jungle gym, playing ball games and other games with rules.