Assignment+1.+Part+B.

**Assessment B**
 * ECL210 Leah Moloney **
 * Assignment 1 700176578 **

The two hour literacy block observed was conducted from the beginning of the day at nine o’clock. This literacy block, followed a strict routine throughout the two hours. This routine ensured that the young students were aware of the structure of the morning period, allowing them greater focus upon the learning tasks and to become intrinsically motivated to develop their learning. Through this routine, students were aware of what was expected from them behaviorally and academically, this encouraged them to become responsible for their own learning experiences. This responsibility acts as a reward for the individual learner, ensuring that they become intrinsically motivated to complete the task (Bennett & Maclean, 2008). Throughout the literacy block observed, the class moved constantly between individual, group and whole class learning tasks, ensuring that a variety of different topics were addressed and individual learning styles were catered for.

The teacher provided the students with direction as they entered the classroom initially by instructing them to read their books to themselves and to look-cover-say-write-check their individual spelling words once they had finished their texts. However, the majority of the students did not need this reinforcement of class instructions, as most of the students were aware of the routine and went straight to their seats and started reading their own reading book, changing texts if needed. The teacher roamed the room while the students read to themselves, trying to hear as many students read as possible. While she listened to them read, she scaffolded their reading by sounding out the correct sounding of words, or encouraged the individual to re-check their pronunciation of word or phase. During this first half hour, two parents roamed around the room, also listening to students read, this ensured that every child’s reading was listened to and were able to be assisted with any difficulties.

Once every student’s reading had been listened to critically, the teacher instructed the whole class to sit on the floor in-front of the whiteboard. The teacher waits silently until she has the attention of every student, she gains their attention quickly using this technique, as the students appear interested in what the next learning outcome is. While introducing the handwriting topic, which is focused upon the formation of the letter A, the teacher relates the importance of this task to the students individually by stating that they will need to form these letters correctly for when they begin to join their handwriting in grade three. By relating this skill to the student’s academic future the teacher gains their attention and interest. The teacher models the correct technique for how to form the letter A to the whole class, emphasizing the importance of thinking about the hand movements. Once the correct technique has been modeled to the students, the teacher then handed out different worksheets to each student. There were three different worksheets, all ranging in levels of difficulty, this ensured that every student’s learning needs were being met and they were being taught within their zone of proximal development (Hill, 2006). While the teacher roamed the room, she gave student’s praise and encouragement for their work. The student’s paid particular attention to their presentation after the teacher told them that they will be sticking these sheets into their presentation book and showing them to the Principal. This acted as a positive reinforcer, to increase student’s attention to detail throughout the task (Bennett & Maclean, 2008).

Throughout the observations, the teacher never raised her voice in order to control classroom behavior. Once the students had finished their handwriting task, the faster workers started to become unfocused and vocal. The teacher controlled this noise by simply stating “I can only see (two students) doing the right thing and sitting properly in-front of the whiteboard, I think a few more people should take a leaf out of their book”. With this simple statement, the group of children who were causing the distraction took a seat in-front of the whiteboard. By praising the good behaving students and making them become models for their peers to follow, the teacher is able to control the behavior and once again focus her students (Bennett & Maclean, 2008). Once all the children are seated on the floor as a whole class, the teacher then introduces a non-fiction big book based upon the human body (Rice & Rice, 1995). She focuses the distracted children by reinforcing their need to improve their listening skills. She turns to the content page of the big book and describes the need for a content page and explains how to use a content page effectively. Using the content page, the students are then asked what pages they think they will be interested in. The teacher turns to these pages as students take in turns to express their interests. This technique gains the students attention effectively, as they stand to get a better look at some of the pictures that particularly interest them. One all students have been able to gather an interesting piece of information from the text, the teacher then instructs the class to pick two facts about the body and to write it on a sheet which has the outline of a human body. She relates this task back to the previous task by stating that they need to have neat handwriting. The constructivist approach is used throughout this topic, as students help each other with spelling and ideas. While the teacher roams the room, she shapes some students work. One student only wrote the word heart on his page, the teacher shapes the student to slowly construct a sentence, encouraging each step as he gets closer to the full sentence structure (Bennett & Maclean, 2008).

For the last half hour of the literacy component, the teacher breaks the class into groups of four or five students. These groups remain open to change depending on individual development, for students with similar learning needs are grouped together. These groups and their activities are displayed through a ‘weekly learning grid’ which is displayed on the interactive whiteboard. There are four separate groups, one group creates skeletons by following written instruction, another group uses ‘getting words’ card, finding similar word structures and sounds, another group follows written instructions on how to draw a plate of food and the other group plays literacy games on the computers. This group work allows students to interact with each other, comparing ideas and ensuring that they work upon their verbal language skills as they are encouraged to verbalize their thoughts on the topic. All students need to interact with peers and teacher in order to test their higher order thinking processes, to receive feedback and to be mentally challenged, this can sometimes lead to a change in thinking abilities (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2007, pg. 55).

The two hour literacy block observed, followed a strict but effective routine. The teacher structured the literacy block to enable constant change between whole class learning, group learning and individual learning. This routine is similar to the “To-with-by” teaching approach in Hill (2006), as the teacher initially provides maximum support while introducing the learning task by modeling and demonstrating the task to the children. As the students begin to build an understanding of the task, the teacher takes away some of the support until the student is able to conduct the task independently (Hill, 2006). This was particularly displayed throughout the big body book task, as the teacher initially modeled and demonstrated how to read a non-fiction text, pointing out the important aspects, such as how to use a content page. While reading the text, the students were encouraged to read along with her and read the content page to find out what interested them, displaying a form of shared and guided reading. As the students reread the book to find two of their favourite facts and then write them down, they began independent reading and writing, gaining full control over their learning (Hill, 2006)

Through the teacher’s ability to address every learning style, whether the students learn more effectively through a whole class focus, group, shared or individual work, every students needs and abilities were addressed. Similar to what Hill (2006) states about an effective literacy program, the observed lesson moved from a teacher focused pedagogy which incorporated a number of different teaching strategies such as modeling, shaping and demonstrating to a child focused pedagogy, where the student was able to gain control over their learning.