Transcript Teaching through topics

Helen Barker
Introduction
1. Daily routines and assembly
2. Teaching through topics
3. Literacy: phonics and stories
4. Resources
Daily routines
Classes taught at different times of the day.
• children become familiar with language.
• acceptance of English.
• sometimes helps topic development.
Daily routines
• Snack time (Can you help me, please?)
• Bathroom (bathroom, please; soap, please)
(This is the way we wash are hands, wash our hands,
wash our hands, this is the way we wash our hands all
day long)
• Going home (coats on, line up)
• Classroom (tissue, please; criss-cross) (It’s time
to pack up now, it’s time to pack up now, hi-ho just
watch us go, it’s time to pack up now)
Assembly
• Greetings
• Group activities
(games, songs and working
phonological awareness)
• Unit
work
• Maths?
on
development
Assembly
• Songs (good morning, tidying up, be quiet, goodbye etc.)
• Weather (what’s the weather, what’s the weather, what’s the
weather like?)
• How are you feeling?
• Calendar (days of the week, months)
• Number line
• Memory game
Teaching through topics
Topics give an ideal context from which to work as they merge
different curricular areas providing children with an
opportunity to:
• develop their knowledge and understanding of the world.
• understand new concepts in a meaningful context.
• develop socially, emotionally, physically and cognitively
through the teaching of all curricular areas.
• acquire language in a natural way.
Teaching through topics
Should the same topic be taught in Spanish
and English at the same time?
Should teachers use translation?
Teaching through topics
Some topics are easier to teach in English than others. Typical
topics worked on in Infants include:
Myself
School
Homes and
families
Community
helpers
Shopping
Seasons
Festivals
Lifecycles
Space
Toys
Teaching through topics
Many topics can be easily combined
to create integrated topic webs.
Topics should not be taught in isolation. Links
ought to be made when and where appropriate.
Community helpers
-Transport: Learn about different modes of transport in they city.
- My town: different places in my town. Reasons for going to those places.
- School: look at how people help us at school.
- Myself: learn about how doctors, nurses and dentists help us stay healthy.
Teaching through topics
Join in with the
reading and retelling
of the book.
Recognise the
impact of the
behaviour of the
animals in the book.
Phonics
Literacy
Social
skills
Show an awareness
of the importance of
a balanced diet
Understand the basic
needs of plants
The Little
Red Hen
KUW
Identify domestic and
farm animals
Understand some
basic characteristics
of certain animals
Match numbers to
different
quantities.
Numeracy
Understand and
respond to ‘how
many’ questions.
Show an awareness
of some community
helpers (baker)
Literacy
What is it?
It is much more than just teaching the mechanics of reading
and writing.
Enables access to
stories and other
materials that shape
and develop thinking
and help children to
develop concepts.
Gives
access
to
different and varied
social and cultural
worlds.
Literacy
The five elements of Literacy
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Phonemic awareness
Decoding
Vocabulary
Fluency
Comprehension
Students need to master all these skills in order to become
proficient readers.
Phonological Awareness
It is the ability to identify that spoken language is made up of smaller parts.
It is the ability to detect and manipulate the sound structure of words
independent of their meaning.
It refers to the sensitivity to any size unit of sound.
Indications of phonological awareness include:
• generate and recognise rhyming words
• count syllables
• separate the beginning of a word from its ending
• identify each of the phonemes in a word
Phonemic Awareness
It is the understanding that words are made up of phonemes or
individual units of sound that influence the meaning of words.
It is the ability to discriminate and manipulate individual speech sounds.
It is an essential skill in order to be able to read in an alphabetic system
because letters represent sounds of spoken language.
Decoding
The ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound
relationships to correctly pronounce written words.
How would a Spanish child pronounce the following words?
Van
1.
2.
3.
4.
Hot
Two-letter blending
CVC blending through word families
Introduce tricky words
Build up word length
Big
Vocabulary
Vocabulary development is an ongoing process.
Readers connect their oral vocabularies (words they know
when they are spoken) to their reading vocabularies (the
words they know when they are used in print.)
Readers also strengthen both areas by adding new words to
their repertoires.
Focus on oral.
Whole word approach (Dolch words – high-frequency words)
Fluency and Comprehension
Fluency is a reader’s ability to read with speed, accuracy
and expression.
Reading comprehension is understanding what a text is all
about. It is more than just understanding words in isolation.
It is putting them together and using prior knowledge to
develop meaning.
Synthetic Phonics
What is it?
A systematic, synthetic method of instruction that teaches children the
relationship between the sounds in spoken words, and their associated
symbols in print.
Children are taught the letter sounds, how to blend them to read words,
and how to cope with some tricky keywords.
There are five main elements:
1. Learning the letter sounds
2. Learning letter formation
3. Blending
4. Segmenting
5. Tricky words
Synthetic Phonics
Starting phonics in Infants
• Upper and lower case
• Teach concepts of big and small
• Teach sound with an action • Do not use ‘snake’ for S
• Make a phonics box.
• Use objects that begin with the target sound.
• Use plasticine/ skipping rope to make the letter.
• Play when the music stops, do the action for...
• Flashcards: if you have got ..., stand up or clap your hands.
Do not teach the letter names!
Synthetic Phonics
Starting blending in Infants
• Blend two sounds
• Patience needed!
• Magic finger
• Useful later on when tricky
words are introduced.
• Let’s go fishing – fish two sounds and blend them
• Blending bowl – pick out two sounds and blend them
• Splat!
• Blending train
Criteria for selecting a storybook
Appropriate language level:
vocabulary, structures, notions/ functions.
Content:
Interesting, fun, motivating, memorable, encourages
participation.
Visuals:
Attractive, potential to work with, size.
Pronunciation:
Intonation, rhythm, repetition.
Motivation:
vocabulary, structures, notions/ functions.
Language learning potential:
Language practice, recycling, prediction, cross curricular,
culture.
Exploiting a storybook
1. Story Map
• Title
• Author
• Characters
• Main Idea
• Beginning
• Middle
• End
2. Vocabulary to
be learnt
3. Sight words from
the story, for
example ‘I’, ‘he’,
‘the’ and ‘to’.
4. Cross curricular
connections:
• Science
• Geography
• Maths
• Art
• P.E.
• Music
Exploiting a storybook
Include vocabulary from
the pictures.
1. Story Map
• Jasper’s Beanstalk
• Nick Butterworth
and Mick Inkpen
• Jasper the cat
• Growing a plant
• He plants a bean.
• He looks after it
• It eventually grows
into a plant.
2. Vocabulary:
Days of the week
Bean
Beanstalk
3. Sight words:
he
4. Cross curricular
connections:
•
•
•
•
•
Science: basic needs and parts
of a plant.
Maths: counting beans
Art: wall display
P.E.: climbing activities
Music: the jelly bean song
Games
1. Hot potato
2. What’s the time, Mr Wolf?
3. Please, Mr Crocodile
4. Simon says
5. Run to the...
6. Bring me...
7. The washing line
8. If you’re holding...
9. Descriptions
10. Bingo
11. Hot or cold
12. Memory
13. Games with a ball/dice
14. What’s missing?
15. Where’s Daddy?
16. Snap
17. Splat!
18. Go fishing!
19. Musical statues
20. Guess the object (feely bag)
21. One potato, two ...
22. Move like a...
Phonics games
Maths games
Useful resources
Websites
• www.sparklebox.co.uk
•www.tes.com resources
• www.tpet.co.uk
• www.starfall.com
• www.readingrockets.org reading
• www.toolsforeducators.com
• www.letters-and-sounds.com
• www.youtube.com – Super Simple Songs
• www.teacherspayteachers.com
Resources
...