Lit and Num Flashcards
Emergent Literacy and numeracy definitions
Emergent literacy: skills that lay the groundwork for reading and writing. Early language skills can predict educational success.
Emergent numeracy: early stages of mathematical understanding
Literacy development 5 stages
Stage 1 - Emergent literacy -> preliterate, preschool stage
Stage 2 – Alphabetic Fluency -> from the beginning to school to around age 8, children start recognising the relationship between sounds and letters
Stage 3 – Learning words and patterns -> age 7 to 9, children now start to comprehend syllables and phonemes, they can read up to 3000 words.
Stage 4 - Intermediate reading -> age 9 to 15, new ideas are acquired through learning, reading comprehension develops
Stage 5 – advanced reading -> end of secondary school, learners can now understand longer, complex texts
Emergent Literacy Skills
Phonological awareness: recognising and manipulating sounds while speaking, such as rhyming, syllable segmentation
Listening and speaking: developing vocabulary and spoken language
Print awareness: Awareness of the fact that print has meaning and understanding the directionality of text
Alphabet knowledge: recognising letters and understanding that they represent sounds.
Two types of programs to teach phonics
Synthetic phonics: in these programs children are taught the 44 sounds in English language and the can focus on how they are represented (what written letters make these sounds up: for example, /f/ can be made by ph, gh and ff), and then learn to synthesise, which means blend, them together to read words. Every sound in the word is important. It is agreed amongst practitioners that synthetic phonics is the best way to teach reading. Sounds are not taught in alphabetic order, but instead they start with the most commonly used, so that they can get to read a higher number of words (SATPIN)
Analytic Phonics: in this method, you start from the whole word and it is broken down to analyse the various sounds they are made from, for example reading many words beginning with M to make children realise that the letter ‘m’ represents the /m/ sound. The analytic phonics approach looks for graphic (written letters) syntactic (position in a phrase), semantic (meaning) and initial sound cues: what do letters tell me about what the word could be? Could it be a noun, a verb? Based on context, what word could it be, what would make sense? Emphasis on the initial letter
6 phonics phases
Phase 1: developing key listening, vocabulary and speaking skills, environmental sounds, rhyming and action songs and adult modelling of segmenting and blending (ex. ‘M-A-T’)
Phase 2: The first 19 sounds and their corresponding graphemes (written letters) are introduced then they start segmenting words) + first tricky words (that cannot be sounded out)
Phase 3: the remaining 7 letter sounds are introduced, + digraphs ex. ‘th and trigraphs ex. ‘igh’, learning letter names and more tricky words.
Phase 4: children are asked to segment more words, ex. CVCC like ‘milk’. They start spelling words.
Phase 5: introduction to alternative graphemes, ex. ‘ai’ – ‘ay’ and different sounds for the same grapheme ( ‘tEAm – hEAd). More tricky words.
Phase 6: focuses on more accurate reading and spelling and improve previously acquired skills.
Promoting Literacy in the EYFS
- hearing and playing with sounds and emphasising children’s phonological awareness (ex. Alliteration, rhymes, first letter of name)
- developing awareness of sounds (for example with sound walks, focusing on environmental sounds, animal sounds, body percussions, breaking words down e.g. clapping the rhythms of their names. Children are given time to listen, process, understand.
- Singing rhymes
- Embed language and new words/expressions in every activity, ex. Reading books, role play.
- Language skills are time sensitive, meaning that it is easier to acquire them early on and if they aren’t it is harder to acquire them later. Therefore early years are a crucial stage and practitioners should provide a language-rich environment with songs, stories, rhymes, signs, talk and imaginative play. Language development in the first years of life is critical to later educational success.
- Don’t rush through routine
5 Stages of numeracy development
Stage 1: Emergent numeracy -> children start recognising number and basic mathematical concepts, for example the relationship between numbers and quantities.
Stage 2: Perceptual stage->children start to perceive numbers, understanding the concept of counting and start to recognise patterns.
Stage 3: Figurative stage -> children begin to understand numbers in a more abstract way, they start to use numbers to represent quantities, and to perform basic operations
Stage 4: Counting on stage -> children acquire more advanced numerical skills, for example counting on (from a number different than one)
Stage 5: Facile stage -> children become more comfortable with numbers, they can perform more complex mathematical operation and easily solve problems
Emergent Numeracy skills
Number sense: understanding quantities and relationship between numbers
Counting: counting objects and understanding the order of numbers
Basic operations: beginning to understand simple addition and subtraction
Spatial awareness: recognising shapes, patterns and spatial relationships
Promoting Mathematics in the EYFS
- numbers need to be real, and meaningful, acquired by first hand experiences and they should be given the opportunity to repeat and revisit to consolidate their learning.
- Using stimulating resources to motivate them to explore and stay focused, so using a variety of materials and resources, for example using balance scales or electric scales, clipboards with pens, rulers, visual prompt
- With 3 or 4 year old having a range of clocks to show that numbers can be used to measure time, use it to support turn taking with sand times…
- model use of numbers, incorporate numbers in everyday conversations, ex. During daily routine and answering children questions about numbers
- offer a stimulating, inspiring and challenging environment to spark their interest and keep them motivated to learn, to find out more.
- Introduce patterns, for example through loose parts and music
- Introducing concepts of shapes, sizes and quantity.
Multisensory learning approach to literacy and maths
Children actively learn through the engagement of their senses: Visual, Auditory, kinaesthetic, tactile. Particularly effective for children with learning impairment such as ADHD, Dyslexia or learning disabilities.
* Writing the alphabet and singing it
* Moving around the room to find an object beginning with a sound
* Using visuals such as real-life objects to touch and feel
* Using nature, e.g. collecting and counting vegetables, learning names of new vegetables by tasting them, move around to find pebbles and counting them.
ShREC Approach
Sh = Share attention. Being at the child level pay attention to what they focus on. Tune into their interest
R = Respond. Follow the child’s lead, comment, respond to their verbal/non-verbal communication
E = Expand. Repeat what the child is saying but add more words into the sentence
C = Conversation. Having back and forth interaction, where children are given time to listen, process and reply.
Pre-literacy meaning
the basic skills that a child learns before school which include oral language, phonological and phonemic awareness.
Phoneme meaning
smallest unit of sound in a language
Decoding meaning
matching a letter to their sound
Phonemic awareness meaning
being able to use phonemes in spoken language, e.g. blending phonemes into a word.
Language acquisition theory: Skinner
Skinner, the father of behaviourism, believes that language development is influenced by the environment, through imitation, reinforcement and conditioning. Children mimic the speech they hear and then are motivated to continue to use it if they receive positive feedback. (or receive what they ask for e.g. ‘milk’)
Language acquisition theory: Noam Chomsky
Nativist theory of language development: highlighted that humans have innate structure and mechanisms that allow them to acquire language
Language acquisition device (LAD): humans’ inborn capacity, predisposition for language.
Universal grammar: all the languages have a shared structure of rules and categories, which is understood intuitively by all humans.
Poverty of the stimulus: Children receive language input from adults that is not complex enough to explain how rapidly their language ability evolve, therefore there need to be inherent cognitive structures that allow this = language development does not rely solely on environmental input
Critical period: Children have a critical period for language acquisition in which their brain in particularly receptive to language input; during this period children can learn language more efficiently.
Attainment gap
By age three, a gap begins to form between children from different backgrounds: children from disadvantaged backgrounds will be behind in terms of cognitive development and emotional wellbeing. The A. gap is linked to socioeconomic status.
There is also a gender ap and lower attainment since pandemic.
