Literacy for Early Learners

Former Headmistress, The American School, Delhi, Ms. Peggy Sood, conducted a workshop on Literacy for Early Learners at our School on 12th January 2016. The workshop was attended by teachers of the pre-primary and the primary classes. Ms. Sood focused on the development of vocabulary, reading and phonics at early stages. The session began with a power point presentation, which highlighted the differences between long and short vowel sounds. She demonstrated how these vowels are pronounced and then shared methods to teach these vowels effectively. She also showcased some of the teaching aids she used and which could be conveniently prepared with resources available in the classroom or at home. Ms.Sood stressed the necessity to plan lessons in great detail, with activities, to engage the children and strengthen learning. She demonstrated this with the following example. To teach the letter B or b, she first outlined the shape of the letter and then distributed three different activities to the children to reinforce the formation and keep them engaged with a process of self-learning. The children then carved a B/ b from a mound of plasticine, coloured the same and later matched pictures of common objects with the alphabet. She used various common resources like clay, storybooks, slate and chalk, paints, colouring sheets, memory games, picture card games etc. to keep the little students engaged all the time. She also shared techniques to develop LSRW ( listening, speaking, reading and writing) skills. She suggested reading stories aloud with voice modulation, laying of stress on certain phonics and blends, as a time-tested and effective method. She suggested word-study and read- aloud by the teacher, guided reading, independent reading, shared reading and writing followed by independent writing, as other techniques to embed these skills. She also shared worksheets and early reading material to help equip the teachers better. Following from the workshop, the teachers decided to incorporate the following: 1. Develop more aids to facilitate reading with phonics.

2. Create multiple activity corners to engage students when they finish assigned work.

3. Develop a structured reading programme for class 1.

4. Modify the classroom seating arrangement to better facilitate learning.

5. Plan more innovative homework to strengthen what has been taught in the class.

6. Focus on voice modulation and enactment.

Ms. Jagrati Kapoor, Primary.