Literacy ultimately means the ability to read and write; however

literacy is accountable for much more, such as the ability to

communicate with others, to interpret information and to make
meaning. Upon a students journey through school, they are faced
with endless tasks that may improve their literacy skills, wether its
a specific task designed to develop their writing abilities, or an
unrestricting activity allowing them to independently develop their
communication and oral language skills. As a future teacher, it is
important to be aware of the extensive ways to effectively teach
literacy in this current day and age; subsequently, as addressed by
Louden The literacy research indicated that a balanced literacy
curriculum that is explicitly taught and which includes word and text
level knowledge and skills, particularly phonemic awareness,
phonics, fluency, comprehension and oral language in addition to
varied classroom practice, leads to improved literacy outcomes.
(Louden, W. In Teachers Hands: Effective Literacy Teaching Practices
in the Early Years of Schooling, pg 2. 2005). In essence, Loudens
research through ACER (Australian Council of Educational Research)
looks at the effective literacy teaching practices in the early years
of schooling, and upon this research it is ultimately suggested that
appropriate ways to develop a students literacy skills is learning
through play, shared reading, modeled writing and phonics.
According to Louden and the CLOS (Classroom Literacy Observation
Schedule) study, in order it be successful in teaching students
sufficient literacy skills it is important to have Strong knowledge
base, planning instruction to meet diverse needs, creating a literate
environment with access to a variety of reading and writing
materials, providing explicit instruction in reading and writing in
authentic and isolated practice, creating multiple opportunities
for sustained reading practice, choosing a variety of texts at
childrens instructional level; especially childrens literature,
including Big Books and Masterful management of the
classroom (Louden, W. In Teachers Hands: Effective Literacy
Teaching Practices in the Early Years of Schooling, pg 26. 2005).
Furthermore, upon the CLOS study, findings further revealed, the
more effective and effective teachers had highly developed
classroom management skills, a variety of strategies for motivating
children to participate in literacy activities they persistently
scaffolded learning, differentiated levels of challenge, instructions
and tasks for individual needs and created a socially supportive
classroom environment in which children demonstrated pleasure in
learning there were also qualitative differences between the
groups in the ways in which they implemented the practices. For
example, when using the practice of modelling the more effective
and effective teachers metacognitive explanations were at more
sophisticated levels than those of the less effective teachers.
(Louden, W. In Teachers Hands: Effective Literacy Teaching Practices

in the Early Years of Schooling, pg 26. 2005) Again, as a teacher of

early literacy learning it is important to expose students to a range
of different activities whilst also upholding the sophistication and
relevance of materials and information within the classroom.

Play:
Learning through play is a significant way of developing early
learners literacy skills, although some may disagree and see it as
informal, it is an essential part of a students progress as it allows
them to practice their communication skills, develop their ability to
interpret meaning and build relationships with their classmates in a
range of relevant settings and natural surroundings. Moreover, as
supported by Luke Touhill (Early Childhood Australia, 2013) the
early childhood classroom much literacy learning is incidental
meaning it happens as a result of being in environments rich in
language without the need for direct instruction. When children
see language and number concepts used around them in
meaningful ways and as part of their everyday experience they
begin to internalize them. They begin to recognize words, letters
and numbers and use language and ideas that they have seen
educators or other children use. An environment that is rich in
literacy and numeracy possibilities is therefore an important starting
point. (Touhill, L. Early Childhood Australia, 2013)
Therefore, it is crucial that teachers enable students to have the
opportunity to participate in learning through play, it doesnt need
to take up the entire lesson, only and hour or so of play each day
would assist young learners in improving their literacy skills by
allowing them to thrive in an environment where they feel familiar,
motivated and interested. The term play encapsulates all kinds of
interactive materials within the school environment, as seen on the
video Learning Through Play at Malvern Primary School, the
children in the video can be seen setting up a make-believe
restaurant setting where they are encouraged to write lists, record
recipes, take orders and communicate with customers. The
restaurant/shop setting acts as a clear example of literacy
development through play as children a subconsciously improving
their reading, writing and communications skills whilst participating
in something fun and more interesting then writing blatantly on a
worksheet.
In addition, although learning through play may seem like a very
students based learning approach with little teacher input, this is
not the case, the teacher should have immense contribution in
regards to guiding the students; setting up entertaining yet
educational activities, persuading students to tackle new activities
and monitoring students to highlight any areas that might need

improvement. In summary, learning through play is a fantastic way

to improve the literacy skills of an early learner as it allows students
to interact with students and teachers, whilst advancing their
reading, writing and communication skills, but permits them to do so
in an attention-capturing and motivational environment. As the
common thought goes, one will learn better if they are having fun.
In my own past experiences, I have witnessed many accounts of
learning through play within the school setting, a memorable one
being my recent university placement within a prep class, where
students participated in a hour of play, usually at within the middle
of the school day. Known as discovery time amongst the students,
they were undoubtedly very excited when it came time to begin, it
was amazing to see all the students part off into different sections of
the classroom, drawn to activities in which took their interest. A few
of the little boys were playing with building blocks and
communicating with each other trying to build a structure, whilst
many of the girls had set up a shop and were writing down peoples
orders the telephoning them through to the chef. I believe the
learning through play approach is fantastic as each students found
an individual role to play within the classroom, their independence
shone through as they participated in a task of their choosing, whilst
were incidentally improving their reading, writing, communication
and overall literacy skills.
Shared Reading:
Shared reading is another useful way to improve the literacy skills of
early learners, as it allows students to visualize, interpret and read
the pages of a book with the help of a teacher or peer. As affirmed
by author of Reading Horizons Kathryn Button, Shared reading is a
part of a balanced early literacy framework. The shared reading
experience offers a way teachers can use engaging texts and
authentic literacy experiences to help children develop the
strategies necessary for effective, independent reading. (Button, K.
Reading Horizons: The Role of Shared Reading. 1997) Subsequently,
shared reading produces the opportunity for students to be
introduced to texts that may deem more difficult than their current
reading abilities, therefore, shared reading is an appropriate solution
as it allows students to expands their reading capacity to new limits,
whilst having the teacher there to support them with any hiccups
along the way. In addition, shared reading can almost be labeled as
a kind of scaffolding effect where students are able to expand their
literacy abilities to new capacities, receiving potential help from
teachers with elements such as word decoding strategies,
vocabulary and meanings in order to allow students to progress to
new heights of reading, writing and communication. Additionally, as
further explained by the online program for literacy Reading
Rocket, useful materials that can be used for shared reading are
big books and lap books, wall charts/stories, poetry, songs,

classroom news A shared reading session may be conducted in

many ways, depending on the needs of the students and the
teaching objectives determined by the teacher. Shared reading with
strong teacher support and guided reading with less teacher support
are two ways the teacher can give students practice and immediate
feedback, as they develop the skills and strategies necessary for
successful decoding and comprehension. (Reading Rockets: Shared
Reading, An Instructional Strategy for Teachers Grades K3. 2010)
In my past experience, shared reading is commonly seen in the
school setting, usually on an everyday basis, even when I was a
young student in primary school I can remember the teacher up the
front of the class reading a big book of Michael Ronsens Were
Going On A Bear Hunt, all of us being captivated by the pictures
and the storyline, pointing out the tricky words that were soon
clarified by the teacher. I believe it is important for teachers to
implement lots of shared reading into their programs, as it
essentially allows students lots of practice; the more familiar and
confident the students become with reading, the more progress they
are going to make with reading additional literacy components such
as writing and communication.
Modeled Writing:
Learning through modeled writing is another beneficial way of
improving an early learners literacy skills as Modeled writing refers,
on the one hand, to the selection of models to show students how
writing works and, on the other hand, to the teachers practice of
modeling or demonstrating writing to students in modeled writing,
teachers provide students with examples of the type of text they will
be composing, explanations of how these texts work and structured
demonstrations of what efficient writers know and do. (NSW State
Literacy and Numeracy Plan: Writing and Spelling Strategies. 2007)
Incidentally, Modeled writing also acts as a type of scaffolding
technique where teachers may demonstrate the task ahead, and
students may approach it to the best of their abilities, receiving
immediate assistance if they require it. Modeled writing is suitable
for students who may need to improve their writing skills, especially
in the younger year levels, where students are not only still learning
how to write, but how to form letters and basic writing etiquette.
Additionally, a teacher can include modeled writing into their
lessons in a variety of ways, such as demonstrating the sequence of
writing a narrative, giving the students ideas or examples which
encourage them to have a go independently, or for the younger
students, teachers may write a letter from the alphabet up on the
whiteboard, and encourage students to copy and practice their
writing technique.
Phonics:

Phonics is the method of learning how to read and pronounce words

by learning the sounds of letters, letter groups and syllables. A
fitting quote stated by the NSW department of Education and
Training is teachers provide systematic, direct and explicit phonics
instruction so that children master the essential alphabetic codebreaking skills required for foundational reading proficiency. Equally,
teachers provide an integrated approach to reading that supports
the development of oral language, vocabulary, grammar, reading
fluency, comprehension and the literacies of new technologies.
(NSW Department of Education and Training: Literacy Teaching
Guide. 2005) This statement supports the importance of phonics in
early learning as it basically equips students with the ability to
pronounce, read and write words and letters sufficiently.
Subsequently, once a child has acquired a phonemic awareness of
letter and their syllables, it ultimately improves their quality of life
by not only improving their spelling, writing and reading, but
permitting them to have proper conversations with others,
developing substantial relationships.
During my own past-experience in placement schools, I have
witnessed phonics being taught, especially to the younger grades.
Additionally, an excellent method of teaching I observed whilst on
university placement was the use of Jolly Phonics, a computer
software program that displays the letters of the alphabet, along
with their sounds and an accompanying image relating to that
sound; for example, the letter a will be shown as both lower and
upper case, along with an audio clip of the sound and a picture of an
apple to aid in comprehension. Upon observation of this program
within the prep classroom for a couple of days, I found it to be very
beneficial as the children had seemed to retain memory of the
sounds and became able to move on to more complex sounds such
as a pair of letters like ch or ck. My mentor teacher placed the
Jolly Phonics chart up on the interactive whiteboard, whilst the
students all gather on the floor collaboratively practicing the letters
and sounds. To continue, my
When I think of a early years literacy learning classroom, two words
that come to mind are interactive and enlightening. Upon my future
practice as a teacher, I believe it is important to allow students to
have access to interesting hands-on activities that captivate their
attention and motivate further learning. I will most definitely be
incorporating the learning through play technique as I feel that it
would be beneficial for students to communicate with each other,
building relationships with their peers whilst subconsciously
improving their communication and literacy skills. Shared reading
and modeled writing will also most definitely be included in order to
provide structure within the classroom and refine any confusions
that students may have with specific literacy components.

Furthermore, upon teaching early years, phonics will definitely hold

a huge part; a variety of interactive and multimodal devices will be
used in order to allow students to retain information in a fun and
memorable way.
References:
Early Childhood Learning: National Quality Standard Professional
Learning Program. 2013. Retrieved from:
http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/nqsplp/wpcontent/uploads/2013/11/NQS_PLP_E-Newsletter_No66.pdf
Louden, W. Rohl, M. Barrat, C. Brown, C. Cairney, T. In Teachers'
Hands: Effective Literacy Teaching Practices in the Early Years of
Schooling. 2005. Retrieved from:
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Reading Rockets: An Instructional Strategy for Teachers. 2010.
Retrieved from:
http://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/SharedReading.pdf
NSW State Literacy and Numeracy Plan: Writing and Spelling
Strategies. 2007. Retrieved from:
http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/media/downloads/schoolsweb/studen
tsupport/programs/lrngdificulties/writespell.pdf
NSW Department of Education and Training: Literacy Teaching
Guide. 2005. Retrieved from:
https://my.vanderbilt.edu/specialeducationinduction/files/2011/09/1Literacy-teaching-guide-phonics.pdf