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Singaporean English Language Curriculum and Pedagogy 

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Singaporean English Language Curriculum and Pedagogy 

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This resource can be seen as an example for educators or policymakers to use for later formulation of curriculum. It recognises the impact of effective pedagogy and systematic instruction on language learning. In regards to writing as an expressive language, it provides an overview of focus areas of writing and representing as well as ideal learning outcomes for primary and secondary students. The highlight here is, compared to Australian Curriculum, it includes a chart that can be used by teachers to plan, considering students' needs and abilities and teachers' expectation. This is supported by socio-cultural contexts that writing can be shaped by culture such as belief and practices in community (Cheung, 2016). Meanwhile, readers' expectations should also be acknowledged before and during writing (Cheung, 2016).

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This storybook comes along with a pack of printouts including vocabulary cards and responding sheets that allow children to answer question by either writing or drawing. It can support children with learning to understand the meaning of text and respond to questions in their own written language (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016). Besides, through visualising their thinking, they will be able to understand that presentation of writing can be varied (Bearne & Wolstencroft, 2007).

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This pin contains several videos about how to teach sounds of alphabets and their written forms. It is based on Froebel's theory of learning through play and provide families with ideas of helping children to learn with different materials and games (DET, 2016). Here, concepts of zone of proximal development and scaffolding are also demonstrated (Everson, 1991).

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Alphabet Games for Kids - English Phonetics Sounds

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This pin provides children with a series of moves to get a kinaesthetic awareness of what punctuation is and how it works. This is supported by play-based learning (DET, 2016) and experimental theory as the quality of personal involvement is addressed including their feeling and cognitive aspects being in this learning event (Mollaei & Rahnama, 2012). Consequently, students are supported to achieve better outcomes in relation to constructing sentences and meaning-making by building on their strength (Scull & Mackenzie, 2018).

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This Youtube video aims at educating young children on proper use of nouns including proper and common nouns through a song with catchy melody and repeated rhythm. This provides an idea for educators to use an innovative way to teach young children grammar. Paquette and Rieg (2008) pointed out that song as a fascinating technique creates a more meaningful and enjoyable way to develop children’s literacy skills. It is also beneficial for non-English speakers’ literacy development.

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NOUN SONG | LEARN ENGLISH | CHILDREN'S SONGS | FunKiddzTV

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This pin offers a website with broad practices of writing techniques such as punctuation and grammar. Practices are categorised according to their level of difficulties. Young children should be supervised by adults when they are using device  while the elder students can access individually without the limitation of place and time. This is supported by Rogow (2015) which stated that media literacy with technical devices is valuable and effective today as it increases students’ creativity, curiosity, collaboration during learning.

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Welcome to IXL's year 1 English page. Practise English online with unlimited questions in 156 year 1 English skills.

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This activity is re-created based on our placement experience. Each child is asked to find a partner to exchange their writing work by using different colouring pens and highlighters. They can find out and modify the errors from their partner’s work such as grammatical and punctuation mistakes. Also, they can highlight some words or sentences from other’s work and write comments. Therefore, children know the right and wrong by learning from peers’ experience. Sato (2013) stated that peer interaction between young children contributes to better grammatical knowledge.

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This Chapter in Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product (7th ed.) offers teachers an overview of classroom assessment including its purposes, procedures and effective approaches and tools. Piaget's cognitive developmental theory and Vygotsky's sociocultural theory are reflected which enables educators to develop a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of diverse writing abilities (Arthur, Beecher, Death, Dockett & Farmer, 2018). Information collected through assessment can be used for reflection and further planning which is supported by Kolb's experimental learning cycle (Arthur et al., 2018)

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Gaps in Australia's Indigenous Language Policy

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Gaps in Australia's Indigenous Language Policy

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This resource offers a view of the gap between the formulation of bilingual education policy and its implementation. The importance of explicit teachers for monolingual students is addressed. It emphasised the significance of critically engaging with policy discourse by thinking around how different aspects of the policy can be applied in different contexts to ensure that children’s interests and needs are met and make adjustments when necessary (Waniganayake, Cheeseman, Fenech, Hadley & Shepherd, 2017).  Here, policymakers should consider a child-centred, inclusive approach to promote emergent language and literacy (Unicef, 2019).

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Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

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Young children learn best when taught through their mother tongue. This commonsense principle has been supported by decades of research on bilingual education for children who don't speak the dominant language. The research has also shown that there are positive effects on children's cognitive development if they are encouraged to become strong bilinguals. For Indigenous communities, bilingual education has been highly valued not only because it helps children maintain Indigenous languages, but also because it provides an honoured place for Indigenous languages in the curriculum and an honoured place for Indigenous teachers. However, in the Northern Territory bilingual education has been a controversial issue since its inception in the 1970s. In part this is due to the failure of policymakers to recognise that children who are monolingual in a language other than English need explicit teaching of the English language, by trained English as a Second Language (ESL) or English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, before they can learn through English as the medium of instruction. Consequently, there has been much political debate on the issue and frequent moves against bilingual education.

At the end of 2008 the Northern Territory Government, supported by the Commonwealth Government, all but closed bilingual education in remote Indigenous schools by determining that the language of instruction for the first four hours of school must be English. This decision could spell the death of the remaining endangered Indigenous languages in Australia. Yet it was taken without apparent regard for the evidence from research on how monolingual children learn a second language, or on the positive value of bilingual education, or the language rights of Indigenous peoples, or the evidence from schools which had abandoned bilingual education.

Here we argue that the policy gap revealed by this event should be filled by a national commitment to serious consideration of evidence, and recognition of Indigenous language rights. Through national and international evidence this discussion paper outlines the cognitive, societal and education benefits of bilingual education for children whose first language is not English. It is anticipated that this paper will stimulate political discussion on using evidence-based research to improve education for Australia's Indigenous children.

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Gaps in Australia's Indigenous language policy: dismantling bilingual education in the Northern Territory

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Young children learn best when taught through their mother tongue. This commonsense principle has been supported by decades of research on bilingual education for children who don't speak the dominant language. The research has also shown that there are positive effects on children's cognitive development if they are encouraged to become strong bilinguals.

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Discontinuities in Pedagogical Approaches to Writing Across Preschools and Schools

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Discontinuities in Pedagogical Approaches to Writing Across Preschools and Schools

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This article suggested a metaphorical ‘gate’ between preschools and schools with approaches to early writing. As supported by the Early Years Learning Framework (Department of Education and Training, 2016) and the Australian Curriculum of English (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, 2016), extending and enriching children’s learning through transitioning to school is critical. Therefore, policymakers as well as educators need to develop a sense of cross-sectorial awareness and embed strategies such as intentional teaching, scaffolding and sharing experiences (Mackenzie & Petriwskyj, 2017).

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This pin, based on different stages in children's writing (Hill, 2012, pp.283), offers parents tips to understand the writing process, assess children's writing skills at home and plan their daily routines of activities for children's writing development. According to Bronfenbrenner's social ecology model, families can influence children's learning through physical features, activities and beliefs (Grace, Hayes & Wise, 2017).

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Building Children's Writing Skills by Learning through Play

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Building Children's Writing Skills by Learning through Play

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This resource offers an idea of developing children’s writing abilities through playing LEGOs, creating a story about it and recording and sharing their story to others. It provides a literacy-rich play environment which contributes to students’ intrinsic motivation of writing (Department of Education and Training, 2019). Moreover, James (2013) stated that Lego assists children in understanding writing in a creative, visualised and enjoyable manner.

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This Youtube video inspires educators to teach children to explore a word with texts and messages. Learners will be given a key word while working as a group. They can create four labels and then discuss some words which can be categorised into each label. Children participating in this open-question activity can extend their knowledge of writing by using written forms in each word. Machenzie and Veresov (2013) explained that children’s writing abilities improve when they are allowed to create more complex meaning for texts and words.

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Our library provides teachers with effective, research-based classroom strategies to help build and strengthen literacy skills in phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.

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This pin offers educators ideas about how to conduct journal writing without having ready made prompts for students. Such writing activity can build on children’s unique interests and provide experiences that support their growing awareness of forms and purposes of writing (Raban, 2018). Subsequently, according to Vygotsky's perspective, with drawing embedded in this resource, young children will become confident writer as they can explore more complex possibilities (Machenzie & Veresov, 2013).

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One of the things that is THE hardest going DOWN to first grade from upper grades is how to do writing...especially since I've ever taught the basics of writing.. like what a sentence is, what each sentence needs to have, all that jazz. It was stressing me out. No lie. I LOVE to teach writing. It's really one of my favorite things. Not like 4th grade writing, with the state writing test. Nope. But 2nd and 3rd grade writing? I love it! You can do so much with the writing.

But beginning year of 1st grade? That was a total shock to me. It really was stressing me out. So I decided to beg for help! haha!

I asked a group of 1st grade friends what they do for writing and some of them had mentioned daily journal writing. That got me thinking. I used to do daily journal writing many years ago. And then for some reason, I got away from it.

Well, I decided to put it back in my routine.

I love it! I had forgotten how much I LOVE doing journal writing. I gave it a go for a little over a week, and decided that it was staying.

So, here is how I do it!

I do not have ready made prompts for my kids. Meaning I don't copy off pages for the month for them to use as writing prompts. For one, I'm not allowed that many copies - ha! And for two, I generally "don't like" some of the prompts in any book or pack I find.. just because it doesn't fit my kids..especially the seasonal prompts since FL kids don't have seasons - ha!

I just take a big piece of paper and fold it in half and staple some "storybook paper" in it - about 20 sheets. I actually have them all made already and stored in my calendar bins (thanks to some fabulous volunteers!). I also copied off the cover sheets for each month and have them stored in the bins for the rest of the year.

I let the kids color in their journal covers for that month's journal and then they glued them on the cover. We also do that for our poetry journals that you can check out { HERE}

Then we get to writing! I don't print up prompts for them because I have their topics relate to a lot of what we do in the classroom...which means I don't make the prompts up until we sit down to do the writing - ha! It's not because I'm a bad planner. I just like for the prompts to relate to something we read or did in class and sometimes that means I want to use something from that day. Then I post the question and the entry starter, teaching them to "steal and slide." I do make them get out their Spelling Journal though,because I have built in word lists for some of our topics. Not that I really care if they spell every word correctly in their journal writing, but they can also use these word banks to help them with ideas to writ about too.

So this one below was on why Firefighters were important. So on the fall page, there is a section on firefighters they could have used to help them write.

This topic was what their favorite thing about October was. She chose Halloween, so she turned to the Halloween page of the journal.

You might have seen in my Organizing Calendar Bins post that I had a writing menu in each month's file. I did. And I copy that at a shrinked sized (see how HERE) and have the kids glue it in the front cover of their journal. and that is actually more for me than for them. Most of the time I will have a prompt for them... but there are days where I just can't think of one. So those are the days I'll look on the menu and pick one for them to do. I'll have them color it in though, that way it'll keep me in check on which ones I've already done. You can see they already colored one in. That is the one that says "Free." That was the day I told them to look in their Spelling Journals on the Fall and Halloween pages and just to find some words and use them to help them write.

Now, how long does this last? Well, I give them about 12-15 minutes to write and then I pull sticks to choose 3 people to read. Then we put them away and then we start into our REAL writing for the day... what some call writer's workshop maybe? I don't know. I just do it. lol

Some students don't have enough time to color their illustration, but those are the kids that generally want to go back when they have free time to finish coloring or drawing about their writing when they finish work or centers.

I plan to keep these ALL year long and then give them to their parents at the end of the year. This can also be a good example to show at data meetings or parent conferences, right?

So, that's my daily journal writing. What do you do?? I'd love to get some more ideas!

You can see what else I have in my Calendar Bins if you missed that post { HERE}

My post that explains my Spelling Journals is { HERE} or you can check them out at my TpT Store.

If you want the Writing Journal Covers, you can download the freebie { HERE}

And make sure you check out my poetry post - I have the poetry Journal Covers freebie download on that post { HERE}

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One of the things that is THE hardest going DOWN to first grade from upper grades is how to do writing...especially since I've ever taught the basics of writing.. like what a sentence is, what each sentence needs to have, all that jazz. It was stressing me out. No lie.

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This Video is for parents to encourage their children to write at home. Children can make a personal, creative and colourful book to complete many interesting tasks by writing. Raban (2018) discussed that it is beneficial when children are provided with different experiences of writing as it increases children’s learning interests which can enhance children’s writing skills in many forms.

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The Usborne Creative Writing Book🖊 Usborne Books & More

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Interactive Writing: A Powerful Teaching Strategy

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Interactive Writing: A Powerful Teaching Strategy

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This article offers educators a thought of the importance of interactive activity. An example was given where the educator and students work together to complete a text based on one single word. As claimed by Mackenzie (2015), using interactive strategy to teach writing, educator will discover each student’s potentials and become able to fully utilise their abilities to improve their authorial skills and proofing skills in writing.

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This pin contains possible activities for the whole hand and "tripod fingers" that both families and educators can implement at home and centres to improve children‘s fine motor skills which facilitates their handwriting. Small muscle movements in the hand such as fine motor control, in-hand manipulation and sensory awareness of fingers are strengthened throughout these activities (Feder & Majnemer, 2007; Huffman & Fortenberry, 2011).

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Kindergarten Hand Exercises and Finger Activities

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Try these kindergarten hand exercises to help develop your child’s fine motor skills and get them ready for handwriting!

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This pin offers parents an overview of fine motor skills and a list of fine motor training. Skills included in this resource contribute to children's development of hand and finger dexterity (Bruni, 1998). Underpinned by Vygotsky’s belief that learning is socially, culturally and environmentally defined (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2016), this handout resourced families (DET, 2016) and constructed family-centred practices to provide home learning experiences. Through extending or changing materials, parents can develop more efficient and affordable resources.

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How to Improve Your Child's Writing Skills

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How to Improve Your Child's Writing Skills

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This video gives parents some ideas of applying daily activities, aiming at developing children’s writing skills through daily routine such as writing letters. Nutbrown, Clough, Levy, Little, Bishop, Lamb and Yamada-Rice (2017) suggested that parents play important roles in children's learning. Here, they can help children to understand the concept of writing and motivate them through communicating in written language.

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How To Improve Your Child's Writing Skills

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This pin offers a range of writing criteria for students including authorial and secretarial dimensions of writing for educators to analyse children’s writing abilities. Samples of different levels in each dimension are also provided to aid educators' understandings. As stated by Mackenzie and Scull (2016), the complexity of writing requires educators to record students’ writing progress and identifies professional and focus practices, while monitoring children’s improvement. Having this resource, educators get ideas of profiling children's learning and progress from different dimensions and build on their different strength to support their writing (Dockrell, Connelly, Walter & Critten, 2015).

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Everyday vocabulary, for example Oxford first 307 word list plus proper nouns (particular to the child's cultural context e.g Fruit Fly Circus, Sydney Opera House).

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This strategy encourages educators to use letters or words to teach phonemic awareness and increase the complexity when necessary. Here, children not only learn how written symbols works (DET, 2016), but also develop awareness of words and of the spaces between them which is helpful for their future spelling and writing (Hill, 2012, chapter 6).

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How to Teach Children Handwriting Easily

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How to Teach Children Handwriting Easily

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This Youtube video offers a range of activities about improving young children’s handwriting from scrawling to writing letters in relation to their fine motor skills. Portfolio as a strategy reflects constructivist theory (Bada, 2015) that children gain new knowledge based upon previous experience. It records children’s learning process for assessment, providing ideas about further planning to meet children’s individual learning abilities and needs (Khiabani & Nafissi, 2010).

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How to teach a toddler handwriting easily

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This pin offers a rubric sheet for students to make a self-evaluation. Children can use this rubric to assess themselves in handwriting. Self-assessment helps students to increase their quality and effectiveness of writing, whilst improving their self-efficacy in learning (Andrade, Wang, Du & Akawi, 2009). Moreover, handwriting plays an important role in learning writing for young leaners (Graham, Harris, Mason, Fink-Chorzempa, Moran & Saddler, 2007).

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This pin offers an activity which encourages students to use comprehension strategy to retell the story. It improves learners’ understanding of what they read, while fostering a greater understanding of a summary’s structural features. Scull and Mackenzie (2018) described that children improve their comprehension skills when they are asked to organise ideas and make meanings of words. In addition, we think this Summary Map activity can be extended by RAFT writing strategy for higher level of writing practice, the link of RAFT are attached below: http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/raft

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Summary Map: Scaffolding Summary Writing

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Students build essential skills in comprehension and develop a greater understanding of the structural features of a summary by creating a poster of a summary map. For more information go to full lesson plan at http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/balancedliteracydiet/Recipe/00094/.