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It was a fruitful session, listening to and learning about the various centres' different ways of delivering L&L practices. It was highlighted that L&L activities should be catered to meet the diverse needs of the individual children’s L&L development. I agree that it is crucial to provide differentiated activities to help children learn effectively.

However, many teachers did share that ‘time’ was a challenge for them. I could not agree more as we have so many activities to be implemented each day. It can be overwhelming for many teachers. The struggle to effectively deliver all activities on the same day to a large group of children posed a challenge for many teachers, and differentiated activities require more effort in planning and execution. It also requires consistent practice to ensure that the children are used to the system and that the teachers are comfortable and adept at delivering differentiated activities.

Learning takes place when the activities are fun and engaging. My centre uses a literacy programme that engages the children through fun activities, games and a digital platform. It has shown that the children participate more actively when using their different senses during hands-on activities. L&L should be made lively and engaging and target children of varying learning styles to learn effectively.

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It was very interesting to see the different approaches taken by different schools to promote LL.

Some schools prefer for LL to be more organic and relax while some have taken a very systematic approach.

I especially like how teachers and centres' management try to meet both parents' and children's needs.

Parents wants to prepare their children for primary school therefore they might be "pushy" while we as professional must advice them that our curriculum is based on child first concept.

If schools work together with parents (something which my centre is focusing on), we will be able to optimize children's potential.

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I enjoyed the sharing from the different centres and it made me have a better understanding on how other organization or centre implement their language and literacy programme. Even there were different structure implemented or programme used, I feel that as educators, we had a common goal which was to improve the children's language and literacy capability.

In my centre, we felt that children should be engaged in fun and interactive way to build on their knowledge. Activities should be differentiated to cater to children's different ability. We used books, games and digital media to engaged children in language activities. We also started to focus more on small group teaching for literacy activity as it was believe that teacher could give closer facilitation to each individual child of their learning.

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The discussion that we had was very fruitful even though we were from the same company, each of us had different types of practices and ways to execute learning literacy to children.

There are many ways to get children to love  reading and writing. Even though our company had the same phonics programme but the way we execute the lesson plays a vital role. It has to be a daily practice  in children life and not only during the literacy time. This will help children to have a better understanding of the environment around them.

Learning literacy could also take place at home where we provide  take home activities for children to do together with their parents. It could be done at the supermarket where children are able to identify iconic places which are common to them, like bakery , supermarket, Wet market, Toy shop, places which are common for children to learn.

Parents also play a vital role in children’s learning therefore involving parents will be an essential way to build home school partnership and the benefits for children are really great.

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Nina’s Reflections from 2nd LL LC session

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Nina’s Reflections from 2nd LL LC session

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From the sharing in our second session, it was clear that all centres have access to a range of resources, with some offering differentiated learning too.

In the photo attached, a parent was accompanying a child in a supermarket take home activity where families had to search for ingredients to make their child’s favourite breakfast.

Like the photo of this child choosing her favourite breakfast cereal, teachers too have the liberty to choose the lessons and resources to use for their L&L lessons. Like the child in this photo who can choose anything she prefers but must keep in mind that it has to be something suitable for breakfast, teachers too need to be aware of two areas - accountability and the five components of language learning.

In terms of accountability, there are some planning and evaluation of implementation that the teachers must be able to complete for the period of implementation. The modifications or change in use of resources would usually need to be supported with evidences of child’s learning observation/assessment logs or portfolio checklists. With the accountability in mind, it may be stressful for teachers (especially beginning teachers) to plan and implement. However, these are important in truly helping the child develop his or her language skills according to the milestones.

In terms of the five components of language learning, teachers need to be aware and skilled in knowing which components there are working on with the children. The weekly plans for the lessons and activities must cover different components. For example, one day could be dedicated to phonemic awareness activities, another day could be on letter name formation, while another day could be on comprehension of stories read. The variety and consistency of language learning on a daily basis would be ideal for the children.

While everyone loves the idea of going to the buffet and trying out different food options, moderation is key to healthy eating. We need to know what is good and what should be avoided. Likewise, teachers may be overwhelmed by the range of activities and resources, but they need to know their group of children well enough to know what is good and what could be avoided.

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In my centre, as mentioned before we focus on 1 to 1 weekly reading with individual children where the text comprises of intitially phonics and eventually sights words. The books are colour coded based on difficulty level and the books are brought home to be read with the parents as well (fostring parent teacher partneship).

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I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and exchanges that we had during the 2nd session. It was eye-opening experience to learn and understand the different literacy structures that are practised across different centres.
While I shared that my centre's Literacy structure seems 'underdeveloped', I am proud to share that we have been able to engage children in authentic language acquisition experiences without much use of conventional strategies (e.g. workbooks, worksheets, spelling lists). Children undergo numerous lived experiences before they are encouraged to document their learnings in drawing and/or writing, using relevant and familiar words that they have learnt or used. However, it is important to understand that while such a method might be idealistic, it is equally important for the school to remain accountable for what the children learn. Hence, we are constantly working towards closing the gaps that might be present in our literacy structure (or lack thereof? 😬)
Nonetheless, I am going to relish this joyful way of learning while it last or before we start to scale up and require alot more accountability.

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It was a very fruitful 2nd session and I love the awareness of the L&L approaches adopted by other centres in Singapore.

I believe most/all centres would have adopted at least one LL programme. So did my centre. Although the centre that I’m working in used one extensive literacy programme, I felt that it was up to the teacher to ‘interestingly’ execute the lesson plans to the children. While at it, the children needed and were also expected to learn what they needed to learn based on the objectives. I believe, Teachers needed to be passionate, dedicated and creative in order to / integrate the LL programme into the daily schedule. Being a kindergarten setup, each kindergarten class last 4 hours daily which included all other learning subjects. Hence, proper planning and preparation is critical in delivering a successful daily LL programme.

While a programme had already been prepared for the Teachers to use, Teachers often created learning centre activities and additional resources to support children with different abilities within the same classroom. Readers, big books and activity sheets were provided to give children opportunities to be involved with a variety of self learning during LL programme time. Teacher would work with smaller group of children at a time (4-5 children) to assess what  children learn or if they would require further support.

Teachers would follow-up with parents so that parents would be aware of their child’s LL development and to maintain positive home-school partnership. From time to time, during curriculum discussions/ meetings, Teachers would share information and strategies with each other about their processes in their own classroom to encourage on-going peer learning and good practices.

Indeed, it does takes a village to raise and cultivate an awareness and love for Language & Literacy for all children.

😊

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In my Centre, we focus on fun learning for language and literacy.
We use props，puppets and teacher-made stick puppets to tell stories. These materials are made readily available for children as well for children to manipulate and retell stories of their own.
We also provide activities for children to take home to complete with their family and bring them back for story telling.
As a leader, I coach, mentor and support teachers, creating platforms so that teachers can share their ideas and how these are implemented.

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Thank you so much for the fruitful sharing and discussion. It was great hearing and having a better understanding on how different centres carried out their literacy programme so different. What draws my attention was the use of learning centre activities to reinforce what was thought during literacy lesson time. The activities shared are mostly teacher made, which is great because early childhood Teachers do have magical fingers in creating such creative activities.

It also got me thinking if as an industry, will we be able to identify commercial literacy activities that are readily available for Teachers to use and place in the classroom. This will definitely help novice Teachers or even experience Teachers focus their time to help lower ability group children even more. Which also got me thinking about differentiated teaching for children of different abilities.

In my centre, I do support my Teachers through mentoring to help them assess, identify and group children into their ability group when it comes to literacy lesson. I then unpack the lessons with the Teachers and guide them to modify the lessons to meet differentiated teaching.

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Hi PASTELS! Again...we had a fruitful discussion about our good practices we have in our centres with regards to our Reading program. It was really interesting to know how we fellow educators provide the skills required for early Literacy for our children. It was also a relief to know most of us are doing the right thing. It is very important for us Language educators to establish the skills the children need and focus on them. Alot of effort and time is put in by our teachers however we must always ensure the Quality of learning and not the Quantity. As for parents, being our stakeholders...we also need to support them through conducting workshops as we discuss about the framework for preschoolers and again the needs of their children. Thank you...

Best Regards
Nisa...

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The language & literacy programme conducted in different preschools aims to improve children’s language and literacy skills in reading. Children learn and pick up reading skills through learning phonic skills in a systematic and explicit manner. Children could acquire the reading skill when exposed to different readers or storybook as they learn the phonemic vocabulary and sight words when reading these books. Language and literacy skills could also be taught through fun and interactive manners such as games and hands-on activities.

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You may view your past padlet entries on your 1st Learning Community here.

Please use this padlet space to share your innovative practices on LL, any new ideas that you have recently been inspired to try or reflections about LL from your 2nd LC session!