Early+Years+Teaching+Practice


 * Early Years Teaching Practice **

 Collating our group’s observational reports of early years literacy teaching practice has revealed many similarities and differences. The approaches used for classroom activities and student organisation were both imaginative and similar with common theories and outcomes underpinning them. As the observation occurred close to Easter many classroom activities exploited this topic, ‘The initial project was a shared writing creating an acrostic poem using the word ‘Easter’ (Kim)’. In a different setting, ‘One group was assigned to the computers creating Easter cards; the second group was colouring and cutting out Easter puzzles’ (Maree). Creating culturally relevant work material ensures engagement in the classroom.

The ubiquitous nature of technology in today’s society led many to comment on the use of it in the classroom, ‘Teacher A used the interactive whiteboard to log into an information program about the beach titled “//Let’s look at the waves” // (SarahT)’. Moreover it was noted that ‘The teacher uses the interactive whiteboard to facilitate group language experiences for cloze exercises and phonics games’ (Rochelle). Creating a learning experience using current technology is vital for the younger generation whose lives will be dominated by it in the future. In classrooms with limited or no access to an interactive whiteboard the view was that it was a deficient learning space, ‘The classroom I was in is a new portable and unfortunately does not have an interactive whiteboard’ (Rochelle). Also, ‘During the observation, the interactive whiteboard was not working, so it couldn’t be used at all during the lesson. Students advised they usually use it a lot; they find it very fun and it definitely seemed like a good tool to have in the classroom’ (Sarah-Jane).

It was common in all reports that students were organised alternatively in large and small groups, engaged in individual and group activities, to maximise learning potential and keep lessons interesting. Observations included, ‘After the class had completed the poem, they went off into their designated groups (all named after animals)’ (Kim). Reports reiterated, ‘the teacher…had the students arranged into five small groups all completing different tasks. Different tasks can serve as an advantage to keep classes appealing and exciting to younger students’ (Maree). I observed that the ‘the class appeared engaged in all the activities and eager to learn and please the teachers’.

The organisation of the teacher, by having coherent lesson plans underpinned by relevant theory and appropriate materials, appears to correlate with learning satisfaction and outcomes. ‘The teacher informed me that every morning she starts her literacy block with ‘language experience’ (Hill, 2006, pg. 85) which is usually a recount of an activity the students have participated in or something interesting that has happened’(Rochelle). On the other end of the spectrum it was found that lesson plans and delivery with less structure (due to unforeseen circumstances in this case) can become confusing and less effective. ‘The usual teacher was away ill on this day so a replacement teacher was on call for the class. This would explain the limited flow of the lesson. It seemed to jump from one task to another whereas the approaches discussed in the reading material encouraged focus on one text and building different tasks out of this text’ (Sarah-Jane).

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