Early+years+teaching+approaches

Teaching Approaches

 * By Mary Lainson**

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There are various teaching approaches used to develop literacy practice with early year’s students in the classroom on a daily basis. Whilst every teacher has their own approaches in teacher their students in reading and writing, the most common methods used are as follows; =====


 * Guided reading: **

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Guided reading is where the teacher works with a small group of students, usually between 4-6 and each have their own individual copy of the same text. Before reading commences with the students the teacher needs to select an appropriate text. These texts should be at the children’s learning level, however still be challenging for them. To get the children ready for reading the title of the book should be discussed as a group and what the book might actually be about. Talking through the book and creating narrative and plot ideas before commencing reading should to be undertaken by the teacher. During reading, questions should be constantly asked and the teacher should be ensuring that students actually understand what it is they are reading. After reading, the teacher is able to have gained an idea as to where each student is at and if they have made improvement in their reading or may still need more help. =====


 * Shared reading: **

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Shared reading involves the teacher using an appropriate big book to read to the class as a whole. Shared reading is led by the teacher however the students can easily get involved by joining in reading or having a discussion about what they are reading is about. The benefits of shared reading are that it allows all the students to read along together. It too allows for a follow up activity based on the book that has just been read as a whole, and allows children to work as groups or independently. =====




 * Modelled writing: **

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Modelled writing is a way of teaching children how to write by example. In modelled writing the teacher writes words, letters or sentences on the whiteboard. This allows students to watch the formation of letters and to learn how to spell and pronounce words as the teacher demonstrates it on the whiteboard. =====


 * Independent reading: **

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Independent reading allows students to learn to quietly read to themselves without the help of their teacher. This allows them to build fluency in their reading and practice the pronunciation of words by repeating them and sounding them out or making a reference to the pictures. ===== 

My observation of a grade one/two literacy practice:
My observation of teaching approaches used in a grade two classroom were independent reading, guided reading and shared reading. The shared reading was the first approach that took place during the mornings literacy session and involved the teacher reading a big book to the children. The students all gathered round and sat on the floor whilst the teacher placed the big book on a stand for everyone to see. She started off by asking various questions such as what the book may be about or what they already know about the books topic.

Once this was completed, the students went back to their tables and read independently. Most students were very good with this and were able to read to themselves quietly, however some were getting distracted easily.

The teacher took a small group down the front of six students and they engaged in guided reading. They all had copies of the same book and read at their own pace. I watched as she talked about the book with them and then followed on by listening to each student in the group read.

Others observations...

Molly's Observation: Having experience within an early years class allowed me to see the importance of //literacy learning stations//. Grouping children aimed at ability can be a highly valuable for student learning.

Through my observations I noticed that rotating literacy stations enabled all levels to be engage in productive learning. The teacher would have a ‘focus’ group at different times within the block. Whistle the teacher was with one group the other groups were independently working on their station.

This allowed the teacher to focus on particular individuals more easily and track the progressing on students more accurately. Whistle participating in the teachers ‘focus’ group, the students were able to feel successful and positive, knowing the teacher is their to help.

Madi's Observation: -In my 2 hour early years literacy block I observed the reading block only. The teacher used the teaching approaches of shared reading. He read the book to his students encouraging them to participate while focusing on punctuation. -The students then split up into their literacy groups, each group was working on punctuation but in a different way. -Guided reading was part of one of the groups literacy rotation, this was valuable as it helped the teacher work with a smaller group of students and he was able to give each one of those students more attention as the other groups were working independently. -Independent reading, the class aims for 15 minutes of independent reading each day working their way towards 30 minutes.

Wendy's Observation: Hill states it should be every teachers aim for their students to read independently. Many students need their teacher to scaffold their reading to reach this aim. I observed in the classroom that the children started their literacy block sitting at their desks and reading independently. The teacher uses this time to have conferences with children, to listen to their reading, provide encouragement, suggest ways of improving and set reading goals together. Another observation was the children were in groups of 5-6 children based on their abilities and worked on different literacy activities that are rotated each literacy block. The teacher takes a guided reading group as one of the activities. The literacy block I observed kept the activities moving from independent reading to rotation groups then shared reading and show and tell so the children stayed focussed, engaged and sensitive to their concentration spans. There was a lot of activities so being organised would be essential.

Jamie's Experience: Mandama had a rotational literacy block called CAFE which stands for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Extending. The groups had from 3 - 6 children in them and their activities depended on what level they were at. Every morning in our reading block, guided reading would be taken with at least one of the groups. When working with the groups, she would give each student a learning goal that they had to work towards. They sat this in front of them as they would read. During the daily five, some groups would do independent reading. Both guided reading and independent reading are an important approach for children to practice their reading. Guided reading is valuable to scaffold their learning because it gives the teacher opportunities to assist the child's learning within their zone of proximal development. Before CAFE took place, the teacher would do modeled reading and throughout the week, as the children became more familiar with the book, they would join in reading it with the children, therefore, shared reading.

Hannahs Experience: When observing a 2 hour literacy block, the children were broken up in to their different groups based on their appropriate literacy level and were given set tasks to do. Their was a guided reading group on the floor with the teacher, a group on the computers doing independent writing, another group doing a listening post activity and the last group were doing an activity linked to CAFE, then went on to independent reading. Half way through the lesson the teacher went around to each group and checked where they were up to and made sure they were on the right track. At the end of the lesson he got one student from each group to share with the class what they had done today.