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