The early formative year of education are the most crucial and beneficial to the young students as they embark on their academic journey. It more or less contribute greatly on how they perceive the learning process and life as well. The children have a natural curiosity about the world and bring with them a wide range of experiences, hopes, abilities, needs and interests providing a perfect platform curriculum and policy for the early primary context(Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2000). In the words of John Watson "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select -- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man or a thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors" (Watson, 1930) explains how important the formative years are.
In this essay, the writer will identify, explore and critically analyses the strategies of reading and writings, examining particular aspects of these strategies, their strengths and limitation likewise. Further, it will outline consideration that is important for teachers to adhere to while adopting these strategies.
An Overview of the Australian Curriculum
The Australian Curriculum have been developed overtime, to meet international quality standards within three dimensions of learning areas, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities (Toner, 2017). The curriculum provides for a wide range of learning areas that range from literacy, numeracy, ICT competence, critical and creative thinking, ethical behavior, personal and social competence and last but not least, the intercultural understanding(Toner, 2017). Cross-sectional priorities include the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and cultures, Asia and Australia’s engagement with it and Sustainability. The curriculum is well designed to respond to the student’s day to day lives and contemporary issues encountered.
In Australia it is critical for teachers to have adequate knowledge and understanding of their students; their cultural background, religious differences and more importantly to learn how that affects or promotes their learning(Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2011). It is important to fully be aware of the students physical, social and intellectual capabilities and how that may affect an individual’s learning ability so as the teacher can model the learning process appropriately and inclusively for all. High level professionalism and ethics is desired and a well-developed know-how of management of students from multi-cultural, diverse linguistics and more so those with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background(Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2011). Further, the teachers should be able to meet the learning requirements for children with special abilities and those with disabilities.
It is crucial for teachers to have a broad understanding of the curriculum content and more so, be aware of teaching strategies such as literacy and numeracy teaching strategies and their application in teaching. For Example, in a literary and numeracy lesson, a teacher may emphasize on key areas such as rhyming and syllabification and ensure that he develop a personalized teaching sequence that integrates both literacy and numeracy strategies, with resources and activities that are familiar to the kids. These may for example, relate to their way of life and background setting at the community and family level(Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2011).
Proper classroom communication and well communicated learning goals that are challenging but achievable are advocated in the Australian Curriculum. More importantly is the ability to establish goals and good learning programmes and adoption of wide range of teaching strategies and resources that keep the students engaged. Such programs as 'First Steps' (Department of Education) can drive a teacher’s knowledge base in the area.
Reading and Writing Strategies
In their early years, the children draw their experiences and learning from the four main settings that are; the family, community, pre-schools years and the early years of schools(Fellewes " Oakley, 2014). Each acts in complimentary of the others and none is sufficient enough without the rest. In the early primary context, the curriculum are modelled to specifically meet the needs of the young ones, especially, in learning how to read and write. The teachers play a crucial role in internalizing and applying strategies that drive effective early children development. Although Australia is in the fore-front in the resurgence and explicit study of language, other countries such as UK have also come up very rapidly especially in encompassing grammar teaching as a central function in English Curriculum(Jones " Chen, 2012).
Pedagogical conceptualization of grammar (Myhill, 2005) have in the recent past shifted from the initial traditional prescriptive and decontextualized (Jones " Chen, 2012) approaches to the current one which builds strength in rhetorical power of grammar in improved reading, writing and development (Macken-Horarik, Love " Unsworth, 2011; Myhill, 2005, 2011; Lefstein, 2009).
Reading is a continuous and active process of being able to comprehend different type of texts, understand their meaning(Fellowes " Oakley, 2014). Students can be taught to be excellent readers and writers with adoption of appropriate strategies.
Shared reading
Ideally, shared reading occurs when children are encouraged to learn their reading interactively with the guidance of their teacher(Fountas " Pinnell, 1996). It acts as a support system where children challenge one another and observe the fluency and expression form the experts. It is through this way that the children participate jointly in reading, learn critical concepts of how print works, get a feeling of learning and start to perceive themselves as readers(Fountas " Pinnell, 1996).
Key strengths in this strategy is the fact that the children enjoy their reading sessions something that may not happen when they read alone. It is makes the learners build courage allowing them to internalize difficult words and make connections between existing and new knowledge. Aspects such as fluency, focus and attentiveness are attainable through this strategy. Through reading stories loud in class, children can improve their vocabulary, comprehension skills, world view and listening skills and generally, their attitudes and perception on books and readings (Girgin, 2013).
Teachers should be involved throughout i.e. before reading, in the process of reading and even after the reading exercise. For example, before the reading, the teachers can prepare the learners psychologically, introduce the context of the story and engage the children maybe with illustrations on the cover page. During the reading the teacher should ensure all students are attentive and none is left behind, perhaps by directing the process and managing the pace. Correcting the students along the way is beneficial. Afterwards, the teacher can review the process and engage the children by asking simple related questions and even take them back to the point of making predictions(Fountas " Pinnell, 1996).
The choice of books to read should be guided by books containing predictable events, poetic/rhyming characters especially when encouraging novice readers. Books with repetitive events exaggerates positive consequences which is beneficial for children with language development and reading challenges(Girgin, 2013).
Modelled Reading
Modelled reading is essentially reading to or reading aloud with the learners listening to the teacher or tutor reading out aloud(Carrell, 2018). Through this strategy, the teachers yields huge influence on improving the learners reading behaviors and in the process encourage their growth and developments in reading independently(Victoria State Government, 2017). Modelled reading enables maximum amount of support by the tutors since they control the process(Duke " Pearson, 2002).
The rationale behind this strategy is the ability of learners to familiarize with texts that may be beyond their reading capability with assistance of the instructor. With the teacher selecting the kind of material to expose the students to, they end-up benefitting from a wide range of literature that build their internalization power and builds their critical thinking abilities. For example, the teacher can introduce new vocabularies that the students don’t interact with regularly and involve the learners in putting them into context. The process significantly help the learners build awareness in different styles of language such as intonations and expressions.
Thinking aloud model can be complemented with the modelled reading strategy. The teacher can use this strategy by inputting a constructive interruption in the reading(Keene " Zimmerman , 2007). The think aloud strategy provides a gateway to the readers mind since it enables talking out the thoughts built. When this strategy is used, the teacher must be very cautiously with the level of audience that is involved. The Australian’s Curriculum and education policies have allowed the teachers to model learning processes befitting the level of audience as long as he/she has the content at hand.
Interactive writing
Interactive writings refers to the dynamic and instructional method where the teacher and students work jointly to come up with a meaningful text while still discussing the details of the learning process(Roth " DeStefano, 2014). The strategy holds the dynamic and organic aspects and can be easily modelled to fit the diverse needs of the students. The children and the teacher can go through an experience together i.e. a classroom event and brainstorm on a given story line or theme they want to write about, perhaps, animals seen in a class visit to the game park and then work together in composing the text and reviewing.
This strategy offers an evidence based approach and enables increased proficiency in writings for the students(Roth " DeStefano, 2014). Further, it offers high level involvement of the instructor guiding the children all through. It slowly encourages independent writing but the children may experience some challenges in the initial stages of upper classes where they are fully independent, however, the children easily pass through that. In Grade 2-5, deliberate shifts are conducted with lesson sequence becoming more fluid and dynamic and elements of share the pen modified(Roth " DeStefano, 2014). The lessons also increase in frequency and increase in length while teaching points expand and extend around genre(Roth " DeStefano, 2014).
Guided writing
In this strategy, the teacher provides word maps from which the students develop their writing abilities through organized ideas. The teacher is able to guide students with similar needs and assist them complete a writing exercise as a team. The teacher guidance is however, limited to enabling the children structure their sentences well, achieve proper grammar and assisting them build their vocabulary and thus building their writing abilities(Ningsih, 2016).
The Indonesian Curriculum for example, states very categorically that, the average junior high school student should be exposed to building competence in reading and writing skills. Similarly, the Australian curriculum advocates for guided writing among other strategies (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership , 2017).
The strategy benefits the students by enabling them perceive audiences in their writings and acknowledge topic and purpose as they plan for their writing. It also encourages student revise and edit their writings. On the contrary, this strategy is challenging to the students and requires intensive support of the teacher.
Conclusion
The new Australian Curriculum: English (ACARA, 2012) has considerable implications for teachers’ knowledge about language (KAL) and pedagogic practice(Carrell, 2018). It advocates for continued personal knowledge development for the teachers to enable them to meet the needs of all kind of students. The early childhood education being important, the policy and curriculum demands that an all-inclusive approach is adopted where children of diverse background have access to equal opportunities. Writing and reading are basic requirements in their growth and development and therefore, adoption of the right strategies is critically important. Modelled and shared reading strategies as discussed are crucial strategies that can be adopted. Similarly, guided reading and interactive writing plays significant role in building the skills and abilities of the young generation. In all of the above, the positive attribute out-way the negativity making them ideal for use in the primary level education.
References
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