Literacy Learning in the First Year

This morning I have been writing reports. I went back into the Literacy Progressions to look at next steps etc for the reports and then had a bit of a look at the "The First Year" section. This outlines the sorts of things students should be doing before the "After 1 year" standard.
This reminded me of a few things and I felt it was good to bring back into the front of my mind, particularly for those student's who have taken a while to get cracking.

"Children’s oral language provides a foundation for their reading and writing at school. Their oral language knowledge, skills, and attitudes will continue to be extended by the oral language practices of the classroom as well as by the children’s developing expertise in reading and writing.

The oral language foundation that supports children’s school reading and writing includes:

• curiosity about oral language and a willingness to experiment with it, for example, by playing with rhyme and alliteration
• a wide oral vocabulary of nouns and verbs and also many adjectives and prepositions
• a willingness, and the confidence, to talk about things happening now, in the past, and in the future
• the ability to retell an experience, an event, or a known text
• an awareness of rhyme and of words that start with the same sound, along with the ability to hear and distinguish some other phonemes in spoken words."

Many of our kids do not start with much of the above at all. After almost 1 year at school our lowest student is just beginning to be able to retell a small part of an experience, hear and distinguish some phonemes etc. This highlighted to me the importance of going back to basics and trying hard to fit in some more opportunities to develop oral language. I'm still not sure where to fit that into our day!


In regards to writing, our same low students certainly did not come to school with the skills that are assumed by many of the ministry documents.

"When they start school, children enjoy “writing” for a variety of purposes and they can “read” their story or text to another person. They may “write” by making purposeful marks that are not recognisable as letters or words. When children “read” their own “written” stories, they demonstrate that they know what writing is and that they can hold an idea in their head long enough to retell the story.

Many children will also have mastered specific skills that support writing, for example:

• they write their own name using the correct letters in the correct order
• they form some other letters correctly
• they can securely hold a pencil, crayon, or other writing and drawing tool."

They are only now beginning to write their own name correctly, form some other letters correctly, "read" their own stories. Some of these students have been at school for almost 12months.  This provides a huge challenge for us as teachers. The children who do come to school with these skills jump straight into learning to read and write successfully. Leaving those that don't behind. We now have a huge gap in our class of students who are progressing well with a good understanding of written language to those who are only just gaining the understandings that the others started school with. These "poor" readers and writers are constantly being overtaken by other new students who have come with these good understandings.

Of course once they are at school it's up to us as teachers to do everything we can to support them. 

"Students begin reading and writing from their first day at school. Effective teachers build on the literacy knowledge, skills, and attitudes that students bring to their school learning.

Much of the school day revolves around literacy. In addition to shared and guided reading and writing, teachers support their students’ literacy learning with a rich mix of approaches, including language experience and frequent reading to students. They provide many opportunities for students to read and write independently and to engage in purposeful literacy tasks."

This is very much in the philosophy of my teaching practise. Students are included in reading and writing groups from their first day at school. Any attempt and success is celebrated. We spend a large part of our day focused specifically on literacy and literacy is integrated through most other parts of the day as well. 

All quotes are from the Literacy Learning Progressions on TKI