A whole host of literacy activities

Kapka Literacy | 02/25/2009 | 1.5 hours field work | Present: Kapka students, teachers and myself


Background

For the Reading: Methods and Practices course, I am observing basic literacy instruction at Kapka in their Kindergarten room.

Key Observations and Methods

I got to observe a large variety of literacy activities, all of which will contribute to learners' reading abilities —

• Sorting objects by letter: Learners sorted a pile of objects based on whether their names started with a particular letter.
  Potential learning outcomes: Spelling, Sound-letter correlation, Vocabulary

• Shape search: Learners searched for the numbers of a specific shape in a picture.
  Potential learning outcomes: Counting, Shape recognition, Pattern recognition, Shape transformations

• Writing: Learners traced the shapes of specific letters in sand/salt. They also wrote the letter out in handmade books.
  Potential learning outcomes: Letter recognition, spelling, letter-word association, writing dexterity

• Shape painting: Learners painted in basic shapes.
  Potential learning outcomes: Writing dexterity, Shape recognition

• Sharing circle: The learners each shared something personal in a circle setting.
  Potential learning outcomes: Communication in a group — learning to be respectful, taking turns, listening skills, dialoging, language comprehension.

• Listening exercise: The teacher's version of Simon says.
  Potential learning outcomes: Listening skills, language comprehension.

• Read Aloud — Learning outcomes: Listening skills, language comprehension, reading skills

• Calendar: Two different students took turns in stating the day's date and counting up to the number of days they had been in school.
  Potential learning outcomes: Number literacy, reading, counting, protocols for formats.

• Signing: The teacher signed her last set of instructions to the learners.
  Potential learning outcomes: Communication happens in various ways and the brain gets to be trained in as many ways as possible, listening, observation skills, decoding.

Other activities

A group of students talked about their experiments with water which led to a mini discussion on the water cycle. The sharing circle can lead to all kinds of learning opportunities.

Questions for teacher

I asked the teacher the following questions after the lesson. Her responses will be included soon.

1. What made you choose the specific activities you did?

2. Where did you find these activities or how did they come about?

3. What is the 'expected' literacy level for this age?

4. Why do have such a large variety of activities?

5. Why do you have the drawing station?

6. How do you know that students are learning? I noticed there was no evaluation of the students' work. How do you know what they are learing?

7. Why did you pick The Shape of Things for the read aloud?

8. What helps you reflect on your teaching?

Favorite quote

"A trapezoid traps everything" — 5 year old

Takeaways

Reading is a complex process that involves many different brain capabilities. Early literacy methods should include a large variety of activities that develop the various brain capabilities.