Portfolio Page 4

Portfolio 4
Emma Fitzpatrick 2107606
‘ An experience’

At Kindergarten where I am doing my placement, I was reading to a girl. The book I was reading was ‘Corduroy’ By Don Freeman.

The story was about a girl who went shopping with her Mum, whilst shopping she spotted a beautiful teddy bear that she wanted to buy.  Her Mum refuses to buy the bear because she doesn’t want to spend any more money and the teddy bear is also missing a button from his overalls.

The next day, the young girl comes back to the department store with some money that she found in her piggy bank. At this point, the girl that I was reading the story too says to me:
 ‘Emma, that girl must be 10’
I replied with ‘Why do you think she is 10?’
And she replied with ‘She is at the shops without her Mummy, she must be 10’.
So we turned the page, the girl in the story was buying the teddy bear. The girl who I was reading to turns to me and says ‘Yes she definitely is 10, Emma, she is doing everything by herself’,

I have related this experience to ‘4.2 Describes how parents, peers and communities may see, feel and shape young children’s early literacy and numeracy experiences’.
Although this experience isn’t from the perspective of a parent seeing and influencing literacy and numeracy, it is shown through the child’s knowledge. Her parents/caregivers must produce an environment of ‘when you are older you can be individual’. This student comes across as though she has had the prior knowledge of literacy and numeracy learning, through outside of the kindergarten setting.

4.2 Describes how parents, peers & communities may see, feel & shape young children’s early literacy & numeracy experiences  

Week 10

Readings Week 10

Emma Fitzpatrick 2107606

‘Fox, M. (2002). The power and the story: How reading aloud to children will change their lives forever. Orana, 8(2), 4-8’

‘English, D (2004) Promoting the development of young children’s mathematical and analogical reasoning’.

The literacy reading I chose for this week was Mem Fox’s ‘The Power and the story: how reading aloud to children will change their lives forever’. This title stood out to me, enticing me to read it for this week. I was always read to multiple times a day, right up until mid primary school. Reading was a huge part of my family’s day-to-day life. I can still remember being read to, and even my parents reading novels to themselves. Growing up, I always had a great interest in reading and even know, I love reading to children. I believe this came from my parent’s love of reading to me.

Mem Fox, outlined that if we read aloud to children, even from the day they are born until they go to school, it’ll make them very smart, form a special bond between you and them which is good for emotional development for present and future and it’ll help them to learn how to read perhaps even before schooling starts.

Fox elaborates that only 25% of the brain is developed before birth, where the following 75% happens in the first six years of life, primarily in the first three. Mem Fox has really backed up my beliefs about reading to children. I always loved being read to, reading to my friends and now I love reading to children. I have always seen this as such an important aspect of a child’s growth and development. Being able to read what my beliefs have been was so beneficial to me. I am going to continue to research my beliefs about reading to children, as I find this as a huge interest to my studies.

The numeracy reading I chose to read thus week was ‘Promoting the development of young children’s mathematical and analogical reasoning’. I chose this reading, as I feel as though I lack in mathematical areas myself. I believe that this reading would help me to perhaps understand children’s mathematical and logical reasoning.

This reading mainly focused on children aged four to seven years old. Although, I believe that it mathematical and analogical reasoning is very relevant and prominent in children aged zero to four years.  This reading has built on my understanding of the importance of children’s learning development and ways in which we can assist as educators to give children the best education they deserve.

(L) Fox, M. (2002). The power and the story: How reading aloud to children will change their lives forever. Orana, 8(2), 4-8’ http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.flinders.edu.au/fullText;dn=200207758;res=APAFT

(N) English, L. D. (2004). Promoting the development of young children’s mathematical and analogical reasoning. In L. D. English (Ed.), Mathematical and analogical reasoning of young learners (201-214). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Week 9

Week 9 Readings
Emma Fitzpatrick 2107606

‘Wood, J. (2005). Moses’s story: Critical literacy and social justice in an urban kindergarten. Beyond the Journal: Young Children on the Web’

‘Perry, B., & Dockett, S. (2008). Young children’s access to powerful mathematical ideas.’

The literacy reading I chose for this week was ‘Moses’s Story: Critical Literacy and social justice in an urban kindergarten’. The reason I chose this, was because I didn’t know what it was about but when I saw kindergarten it struck my interest immediately. At this stage in my study, I am looking at becoming a kindergarten teacher after university. I also would like to further research teaching and recognising critical literacy and social justice in kindergarten settings.  The numeracy reading I chose for this week was ‘Young Children’s access to powerful mathematical ideas’.

Further down the page, I have copy/paste 9 helpful reflections that ‘Woods’ used in his teacher research. I hope to be able to use these as a guide in the future to help me in my research.

I really enjoyed this reading, as it outlined how a particular boy in Wood’s kindergarten, would overcome emotional problems through using literacy. The young boy would come to kindergarten upset on many days, from home situations, and he would write: either on paper, journals and on the computer until he felt happier. I was also interested to find out that in Wood’s research, he was able to find that even without guided questioning to establish certain outcomes, the children were practicing many areas of the curriculum with their own discussion. Sometimes this discussion would come from reading books or certain situations.

This reading has really opened my eyes up to a whole new area that I would really like to research further myself.

The numeracy article I chose shows the importance of an educator. It shows that children are mathematical thinkers and can become very advanced in the area with correct education. Every one has strengths and weaknesses in many different areas, although it is shown that if a mathematics educator’s weakness is mathematics, the children can become effected.

As a person who is very under par with mathematics, I plan to provide the best possible mathematical education to my students. As I am aiming to become an early childhood educator, in a kindergarten, I don’t think I will struggle with conveying mathematical education. Although in saying this, I hope to be the best teacher I can, even if this means that other educators need to help me pick up this area to correct standards. I believe numeracy is just as important as any other area of a child’s learning and needs to suit every individual.

Reflections on this Teacher Research

·      Wood’s project highlights several important aspects of teacher research in early childhood education:

·      Wood focuses on an important issue the literacy achievement of young children in today’s urban classrooms that resonates with other early childhood educators.

·      Wood found a researchable question that was ‘doable’ and did not get in the way of his teaching; rather, it enhanced it. Further, he discovered that initial questions and lines of inquiry in teacher re- search often evolve and change over the course of a project.

·      In terms of data collection, Wood collected important vignettes, critical incidents, anecdotes, work samples, and conversations that provide telling examples of his teaching and Moses’s learning.

·      In terms of data analysis, Wood uses selected literature on teacher research and critical literacy as extra lenses for understanding his data.

·      Wood reflects on Moses’s learning and also on his own teaching, and makes important connections between the two effective teacher research projects allow us to understand our children’s learning and our own learning as educators.

·      Wood uses the data from his project to consider changes in his literacy teaching ‘both internal and external’ and to see how he can continue using teacher research as a form of professional development in the area of literacy. This is often the greatest challenge and reward in teacher research making changes in one’s thinking and actions to improve children’s learning.

·      Wood uses this column in the Beyond the Journal to disseminate the findings from his teacher research project, and invites other early childhood colleagues to continue the dialogue on the forms and functions of critical literacy in early childhood.

·      These, then, are seven key elements of Wood’s teacher research project that we hope readers will ruminate on and consider when undertaking their own projects

(L) Wood, J. (2005). Moses’s story: Critical literacy and social justice in an urban kindergarten. Beyond the Journal: Young Children on the Web, July, Retrieved 22^nd July, 2011 from http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/vop/VoicesWood.pdf

(N) Perry, B., & Dockett, S. (2008). Young children’s access to powerful mathematical ideas. In L. D. English (Ed.), Handbook of international research in mathematics education (2^nd ed). NY: Routledge

Week 8

Readings Week 8
Emma Fitzpatrick 2107606

‘Bridging the Vocabulary Gap: What the Research Tells Us About Vocabulary Instruction in Early Childhood’

‘Wynn, K. (2000). Findings of addition and subtraction in infants are robust and consistent: Reply to Wakeley, Rivera, and Langer. Child Development, 71(6), 1535-1336’

For this week’s readings, I chose “Bridging the Vocabulary Gap: What Research tells us About Vocabulary instruction in Early Childhood” and “Findings of addition and subtraction in infants are robust and consistent: reply to Wakeley, Rivera and Langer”. I chose this literacy reading, as I haven’t yet heard about the “Vocabulary Gap” and want to know what it is and what I can do to close the gap in my future classroom. The reason I chose this numeracy reading was because I haven’t done much, if any focus on numeracy in infants.

I remember reading in a previous reading, those children that come from low income families, and were three years of age, knew approximately 600 words less of those children of the same age, in a higher income family. Although I didn’t know that by the time those children are in grade two, the gap of vocabulary development increases to approximately 4,000 words.

There are four ways in which teachers can help support Early Childhood years with vocabulary development. These four researched based teaching practices are as follows:
1) – Provide purposeful exposure to new words,
2) – intentionally teach word meanings,
3) – teach word-learning strategies and
4) – offer Opportunities to use newly learned words.

I found this reading very interesting and I learnt a lot. I was able to distinguish ways to better my teaching ways to make vocabulary development inclusive for every individual child.

In the numeracy reading, Karen Wynn provides and discusses findings from a range of studies that approve or disapprove infants understanding of simple addition and subtraction. In the studies, proved to be successful, infants were given simple addition and subtraction equations. The various equations were correct and some were incorrect. The infants would look at the incorrect equations longer than the correct equations. The studies that were disapproving the relation to infants understanding simple addition and subtraction, were trying to challenge the idea.

Although this reading proved the different sides and arguments to the relation of infants understanding simple subtraction and addition, I would like to trial this myself. I am a big believer in ‘not believing until I see’. This subject is challenging for me to understand, and if the opportunity arises, I would love to look further into this area.

(L) Christ, T. & Wang, C. (2010). Bridging the vocabulary gap: What the research tells us about vocabulary instruction in early childhood. Young Children, July, 84-91. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.flinders.edu.au/docview/873822737?accountid=10910

(N) ‘Wynn, K. (2000). Findings of addition and subtraction in infants are robust and consistent: Reply to Wakeley, Rivera, and Langer. Child Development, 71(6), 1535-1336’