EDUC06025 2022 Early Years Language, Literacy and Numeracy

The early childhood educator plays a key role in encouraging and supporting language acquisition as well as in identifying potential difficulties children in ECEC settings may be experiencing. This module will introduce students to the acquisition of language and numeracy in early childhood and assist the student in understanding their role as an educator in relation to language acquisition and special developmental needs from birth to 6 years and to their families. The following pedagogies will support this learning; oral language and emergent literacy i.e., rhyme, rhythm, repetition, phonological and phonemic awareness, alphabet awareness, print awareness i.e., print and picture awareness and mark making. Critical skills in story and oral language comprehension will be modelled in relation to; ability to recall sentences and key details from stories, reasoning and inferring, predicting, comprehension of key sequence of events in stories, and understanding question words i.e., 5W-1H questions, who, what, where when, why and how. In identifying the children’s varied uses of language in social situations for a variety of purposes and how children learn to communicate,  students will be equipped with the knowledge to ensure that quality criteria are understood and employed when planning and implementing the appropriate corresponding activities. Students will be supported in how to nurture children’s emerging skills, particularly; digital literacies, early numeracy and creating communication friendly spaces creativity and problem-solving skills, and STEAM. These methodologies will be enhanced through tailored strategies underpinned by theory.

An innovative course designed for groups of children aged 2 to 4. Each group session is planned around a theme such as "The Farm" or "The Zoo." The themes provide an anchor for the children to gain meaning from the listening activities, games and songs that will help them learn good listening skills.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Rachel M. Heydon and Luigi Iannacci shed light on the ways in which joint notions of normality and abnormality are used to pathologize childhood.

This fully revised fourth edition outlines seven strands of practice for three to six-year old children, designed to develop the skills, concepts and knowledge underpinning literacy in the early years. Accompanying each strand are clear explanations of the research and reasoning on which they are based. Practical advice on helping children transfer their learning into their own child-initiated activities, to build a genuine and solid foundation for literacy, is integral to the book.

Our image-rich, media-dominated culture prompts critical thinking about how we educate young children. In response, this volume provides a rich and provocative synthesis of theory, research, and practice that pushes beyond monomodal constructs of teaching and learning. It is a book about bringing sense to 21st century early childhood education, with sense as related to modalities (sight, hearing), and sense in terms of making meaning. It reveals how multimodal perspectives emphasize the creative, transformative process of learning by broadening the modes for understanding and by encouraging critical analysis, problem solving, and decision-making. The volumes explicit focus on childrens visual texts (art) facilitates understanding of multimodal approaches to language, literacy, and learning. Authentic examples feature diverse contexts, including classrooms, homes, museums, and intergenerational spaces, and illustrate childrens sense-making of life experiences such as birth, identity, environmental phenomena, immigration, social justice, and homelessness. This timely book provokes readers to examine understandings of language, literacy, and learning through a multimodal lens; provides a starting point for constructing broader, multimodal views of what it might mean to make meaning; and underscores the production and interpretation of visual texts as meaning making processes that are especially critical to early childhood education in the 21st century.

Recommended Reading

Harvard Style
Tabors, O., (2008). One Child, Two Languages. Brookes Pub.

Practical, engaging guide to helping early childhood educators understand and address the needs of English language learners.

Recommended Reading
2018-08-14 Storymaking
ISBN 1605546038 ISBN-13 9781605546032

This first to market book introduces StoryMaking and the Makers Movement--a creative and technological revolution in education--young children through play to move them forward in their literacy learning.

Recommended Reading
2008-11-21 Making Meaning Springer
ISBN 0387876901 ISBN-13 9780387876900

Making Meaning is a synthesis of theory, research, and practice that explicitly presents art as a meaning making process. This book provokes readers to examine their current understandings of language, literacy and learning through the lens of the various arts-based perspectives offered in this volume; provides a starting point for constructing broader, multimodal views of what it might mean to make meaning; and underscores why understanding arts-based learning as a meaning-making process is especially critical to early childhood education in the face of narrowly-focused, test-driven curricular reforms. Each contributor integrates this theory and research with stories of how passionate teachers, teacher-educators, and pre-service teachers, along with administrators, artists, and professionals from a variety of fields have transcended disciplinary boundaries to engage the arts as a meaning-making process for young children and for themselves.

Recommended Reading
2011 Playing Their Way Into Literacies
ISBN 0807752606 ISBN-13 9780807752609

Karen Wohlwend provides a new framework for rethinking the boundaries between literacy and play, so that play itself is viewed as a literacy practice along with reading, writing, and design. Through a variety of theoretical lenses, the author presents a portrait of literacy play that connects three play groups: the girls and, importantly, boys, who played with Disney Princess media; ''Just Guys'' who used design and sports media to make a boys-only space; and a group of children who played teacher with big books and other school texts. These young children ''play by design''--using play as a literacy to transform the texts that they read, write, and draw--but also as a tactic to transform their relational identities in the social spaces of peer and school cultures.

Recommended Reading
2021 Family Literacies Literacies
ISBN 113848847X ISBN-13 9781138488472

Family Literacies demonstrates, through reference to empirical research, how shared reading practices operate in a wide range of families, with a view to supporting families in reading with their pre-school children. At the heart of this book, written by two highly experienced experts in the field, is a fascinating project that captured diverse voices, and experiences by parents, children and other family members. Rachael Levy and Mel Hall deploy a rich and distinctive theoretical framework, drawing on insights from literacy studies, education and sociology. Family Literacies presents an account of shared reading practices in homes, focusing attention on what motivates parents to read with their children as well as revealing what parents may need if they are to begin and sustain shared reading activity. The authors show the many ways in which reading is centrally embedded in many aspects of family life, arguing that this has particular implications for children as they start school. Situated within a socio-cultural discourse, this book explains why it is important to understand how and why shared reading takes place in homes so that all families can be supported in reading with their children. Family Literacies is essential reading for all those who are studying and researching literacy practices, especially those involving young children. The book will also be of value to students, practitioners and researchers in education and applied linguistics who are working with families and have an interest in the study of family practices. The authors' findings have major implications for how parents can be encouraged to develop positive reading relationships with their children.

Carr, M., & Lee, W. (2019). Learning stories in Practice. Sage Publications. Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education.

Síolta. (2006) The national quality framework for early childhood education. Full and part-time daycare user manual. Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education.

Department of Education and Skills (2011). Literacy and Numeracy for Learning And Life. https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Policy- reports/lit_num_strategy_full.pdf

French, G. (2013a). Early speech and language matters: Enriching the communication environment and language development in early childhood. Barnardos Training and Resource Service.

French, G. (2013b). Early literacy and numeracy matters. An Leanbh Óg: The OMEP Ireland Journal of Early Childhood Studies, 7(31-45).

French. G. (2012a). Early literacy and numeracy matters: Enriching literacy and numeracy experiences in early childhood. Barnardos.

French, G. (2008). Supporting quality: Book 1 Policy and governance. Barnardos Training and Resource Service.

French, G. (2008). Supporting quality: Book 2 Enhancing children’s learning and development. Barnardos Training and Resource Service.

French, G. (2007). Children’s early learning and development. Background paper to Aistear. Commissioned by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (www.ncca.ie).

French, G. & Murphy, P. (2005). Once in a lifetime: Child care and education for children from birth to three. National Children's Resource Centre, Barnardos.

MacNaughton. G. & Williams, G. (2009). Teaching young children: Choices in theory and practice (2nd Ed). Open University Press.

Mhic Mhathúna, M. (2012). Child language in the early years. In Mhic Mhathúna, M. & Taylor, M. (Eds), Early childhood education and care: An introduction for students in Ireland (pp.214-228). Gill & MacMillan.

National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. (2009). Aistear: The early childhood curriculum framework. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment.

Worthington, M. (2007). Multi-modality play and children’s mark-making in maths. In J. Moyles (Ed.), Early years foundations: Meeting the challenges. Maidenhead: Open University Press. (pp. 253-269)

Journal of Early Childhood Literacy

literacytrust.org.uk

www.ican.org.uk

hello.org.uk

storyphones.co.uk

bbc.co.uk/schoolradio

www.cecde.ie: website of the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Care

www.childcareonline.ie: website of Dublin City Childcare Committee

www.highscope.org: website of HighScope Foundation, USA

www.ncca.ie: website of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment

Goouch, K (2008) Understanding Playful Pedagogies, Play Narratives and Play Spaces. Early Years, Vol. 28, No.1, pp. 93-102

Van Oers, B. (1996) Are You Sure? The Promotion of Mathematical Thinking in the Play Activities of Young Children, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, Vol. 4, pp. 71-89.

Van Oers, B. (2003) Learning Resources in the Context of Play: Promoting Effective Learning in Early Childhood. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 7-26.