Narrator 1

Welcome to Literacy in early childhood.

Acknowledgment of Country

We would like to acknowledge the Aboriginal people who have for thousands of years been the custodians of the lands where you are listening to this presentation from and acknowledge their strong continuing connections to lands and waterways across New South Wales. We pay respect to Aboriginal Elders past, present, and emerging and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are who joining this presentation.

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers

This professional learning has been linked to the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. It addresses the standards 2.5.2, Apply knowledge and understanding of effective teaching strategies to support students' literacy and numeracy development.

Session outcomes

The session outcomes today are; learners will deepen the understanding of foundational literacy skills developed in early childhood, apply teaching strategies and tools that support the foundation of children's literacy development.

Defining literacy

Literacy is defined in the Early Years Learning Framework as the capacity, confidence and disposition to use language in all its forms. Literacy incorporates a range of modes of communication including music, movement, dance, storytelling, visual arts, media, and drama, as well as talking, listening, viewing, reading, and writing. Contemporary texts include electronic and print-based media. In an increasingly technological world, the ability to critically analyse texts is a key component of literacy. Children benefit from opportunities to explore their world using technologies and to develop confidence in using digital media.

Early literacy is learning about sounds, words and language. You can support early literacy development by communicating with children, reading, and playing with rhyme. Children develop and learn best through everyday fun activities like singing, talking, and games.

Components of literacy

Broadly speaking, literacy in early childhood can be thought of as speaking and listening, writing and reading with some smaller components that we will discuss later in the professional learning. Speaking and listening refers to the various formal and informal ways oral language is used to convey and receive meaning. It involves the development and demonstration of knowledge about the appropriate oral language for particular audiences and occasions, including body language and voice.

Listening to other people speaking enables children to develop vocabulary, comprehension and language skills. These important communication skills are the building bricks of literacy and learning.

Writing means providing tools for children to express themselves via drawing and varying children's mark making, scribbling and drawing as communicating a message. Pre-writing skills are the fundamental skills children need to develop before they are able to write. These skills contribute to the child's ability to hold and use a pencil and the ability to draw, write, copy, and colour.

Reading is important for babies and young children as it helps the child get to know sounds, words and language and develop early literacy skills. Children learn to value books and stories and encourages ability to focus, concentrate, and develop social and communication skills.

The big six with Deslea Konza

Deslea Konza explains that early childhood experiences are the foundation of oral language development. In her big six components of reading, she explains this further. We are now going to view an animation where Deslea explains the big six components of reading.

The big six

Deslea Konza

Oral language and early literacy experiences provide the underlying foundation for all literacy. Phonological awareness depends on the young child tuning into the sounds of the English language. Once children are aware of the separate sounds and can manipulate the phonemes, no further development in this area is required. Letter-sound knowledge allows the developing reader to relate letters to sounds. There are nearly 80 letters or letter combinations that commonly represent the 44 phonemes of Australian English, and over 1,000 default combinations are included.

Vocabulary is part of oral language and contributes greatly to reading comprehension. Vocabulary can continue to develop throughout our lives. It is not a closed set. Fluency requires accurate reading at a relatively rapid rate and expression to help the writer's message come alive. It can also continue to develop as we learn more vocabulary and read more complex and sophisticated text. Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal, but depends on the development of all the previous elements.

Speaking and listening

Narrator 1

We will now explore speaking and listening. Literacy begins with exposure to oral language at birth and social experiences with family members. Early language play includes making sounds and babbling games such as peekaboo, songs, playing finger games and rhymes. Oral language is the way children communicate their views, learn to understand others and to make discoveries.

Listening is a core component of oral language. Active listening requires selective and sustained attention, working memory, cognitive processing and information storage and recall mechanisms. Oral language creates an important foundation for reading comprehension. Oral language is a system through which we use spoken words to express knowledge, ideas and feelings. The Early Years Learning Framework contains prompts for educators to be deliberate, purposeful, and thoughtful in their approach to literacy in a holistic way.

Exploring spoken language

Children explore spoken language when they:

• initiate conversations, share ideas, feelings, and experiences
• modulate voice to match the situation, for example, use a quieter a voice indoors
• listen and respond to others, texts, questions, and basic instructions
• speak in sentences and use many different words
• answer and ask simple questions
• enjoy jokes, stories, and rhymes, and can talk about them
• tell stories and talks with no prompting
• use adult forms of speech and takes part in conversations.

Learning Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Children initiate interactions and conversations with trusted educators.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Children:

• Respond verbally and non-verbally to what they see, hear, touch, feel, and taste.
• Contribute their ideas and experiences in play small and large group discussions.
• Children engage in enjoyable interactions using verbal and nonverbal language.
• Children are independent communicators who initiate standard australian english and home language conversations and demonstrate the ability to meet the listeners’ needs.
• Children use language and engage in play to imagine and create roles, scripts, and ideas.
• Children share the stories and symbols of their own culture and re-enact well-known stories.

Promoting spoken language

Educators promote spoken language when they:

• Use strategies such as sustained shared thinking to promote oral language with the child.
• Provide lots of experiences to play games, finger paint, make dough, cook and garden, talking as you do this.
• Provide time to play with materials that have lots of textures and smells discussing these with the child.
• Go on little adventure walks and hunts in the playground so that you can chat with the child about shared, real and pretend experiences.
• Chat and ask questions, for example, what are you doing? What's this called? How does it feel? So that you both gain a shared experience; be curious and have fun.
• Talk about experiences, prompting the child to describe what they have done seen or heard.
• Use simple board games and or barrier games to promote, talk and discuss the game.

Learning Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Educators model explicit communication strategies to support children to initiate interactions and join in play and social experiences in ways that sustain productive relationships with other children.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Educators:

• Are attuned and respond sensitively and appropriately to children's efforts to communicate.
• Educators listen to and respond to children's approximations of words.
• Educators value children's linguistic heritage and with family and community members encourage the use of an acquisition of home languages and standard Australian English.
• Educators model language and encourage children to express themselves through language in a range of contexts and for a range of purposes.

Exploring listening

Children explore listening when they:

• listen and look at the speaker
• show interest in what is being said and or read and ask questions
• follow instructions
• respond appropriately to jokes, riddles and songs
• show an interest in stories and conversations and respond
• ask other children questions and listen to the response.

Learning Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Children listen to other's ideas and respect different ways of being and doing.

Learning Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing. Children view and listen to printed visual and multimedia texts and respond with relevant gestures, actions, comments, and or questions.

Learning Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners. Children apply a wide variety of thinking strategies to engage with situations and solve problems and adapt these strategies to new situations.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Children:

• Respond verbally and non-verbally to what they see, hear touch feel and taste.
• Children are independent communicators who initiate standard Australian English and home language conversations and demonstrate the ability to meet the listener's needs.
• Children respond through movement to traditional and contemporary music, dance and storytelling.

Promoting listening

Educators promote listening when they:

• play games that focus on listing instructions like Simon Says, use chants to explain active listening such as eyes looking, ears listening, lips closed, legs crossed and brains engaged
• play barrier games with children
• converse with children individually and share books and activities to promote listening
• talk about visual routines each day with the children
• build up oral instructions with children by introducing one step at a time
• model instructions and questioning.

Learning Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world. Educators encourage children to listen to others and to respect diverse perspectives.

Learning Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing. Educators engage children in experiences, conversations and routines that promote healthy lifestyles and good nutrition.

Learning Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.

Educators:

• Listen carefully to children's ideas and discuss with them how these ideas might be developed.
• Listen carefully to children's attempts to hypothesise and expand on their thinking through conversation and questioning.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators. Educators listen to and respond to children's approximation of words.

Make moments matter

To support the development of speaking and listening skills educators should consider their interactions with children. Did you know that pauses in educated child interactions can create spaces where children initiate talk? Pauses are powerful because they slow down the interaction, provide a child with time to think, to process and construct a response, allow other children to initiate turns to talk, enable educators to plan their follow-up in response to a child's talk. It is important to allow wait time when talking with children and ensure that talk is encouraged throughout the day. These are opportunities to create spaces for children's talk and can occur at any time during the day. It's about making the most of everyday moments.

Task – Reflect on speaking and listening

Now it's time to reflect on what strategies and resources you use to support and extend children's learning of speaking and listening skills. How else could you support and extend children's learning of speaking and listening in your context?

When writing examples consider how interactions, experiences and flexible learning environments promote speaking and listening. Consider how you ensure your program is culturally responsive, inclusive, and differentiated for diverse learners. You might like to pause the video to complete this reflection.

Speaking and listening

In early childhood it is important to develop the skills of phonological awareness and a deep and wide spoken vocabulary to support children's development of all literacy skills. We will now delve into two aspects of literacy development, phonological awareness, and vocabulary.

Phonological awareness

We will now explore phonological awareness. Sounds and words that are spoken and heard. It is oral and aural. An awareness and understanding of the sounds and patterns in speech stories, songs, and poems. The ability to recognise and work with sounds in spoken language. A critical skill for all children's literacy development and a predictor of later reading and spelling success. Phonological awareness must be well-developed before we introduced the abstract symbols. Phonological awareness is an individual's awareness of the phonological structure or sound structure of words.

Exploring phonological awareness

Children explore phonological awareness when they:

• say and enjoy nursery rhymes
• sing rhyming songs and repeat chants
• play musical instruments to count syllables
• engage in play with words and sounds
• talk about rhyme and letters and sounds when sharing texts
• enjoy riddles and jokes.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Children:

• sing and chant rhymes, jingles and songs
• engage in play with words and sounds
• talk explicitly about concepts such as rhyme and letters and sounds when sharing texts.

Promoting phonological awareness

Educators promote phonological awareness when they:

• play rhyming games for body parts with children
• play rhyming games with words, for example, Claire, bare, rare, stare
• read books with repetitive rhyme and rhythm
• pick out words from a quality text and talk about words that rhyme
• sing and tap rhyming songs and chants using musical instruments, such as tapping sticks or by clapping hands
• emphasise sound repetition, for example, Susie sold six salami sandwiches.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Educators:

• listen and respond to sounds and patterns in speech stories and rhymes and context
• sing and chat rhymes, jingles and songs
• use language and representations from playing music and art to share and project meaning
• engage children with a range of texts and gain meaning from these texts.

Vocabulary

Narrator 2

We will now explore vocabulary. Pikulski and Templeton found in their research that perhaps the greatest tool we can give children for succeeding, not only in their education, but more generally in life is a large rich vocabulary and the skills for using those words. Vocabulary is the most important component of language. Vocabulary is an early literacy skill that is important for children to have in order to learn, to read, write and communicate effectively. Vocabulary is a lifelong learning pursuit for children and adults. Words are the gateway to understanding meaning in communication. Vocabulary must be well-developed before we introduce the abstract symbol of the alphabetic code. Children need to have continual opportunities to learn and rehearse a wider range of vocabulary in meaningful context.

Children who develop a larger vocabulary generally become better readers and communicators in life. It is important for educators to extend the children's vocabulary in the preschool setting. Children arrive at preschool with varying levels of vocabulary development and direct instruction supports them all to further develop their vocabulary skills.

Three-tiered model of vocabulary development

The three-tiered model of vocabulary development described by Beck, McKeown and Kucan is a framework to classify words. Tier 1 words are the most common words. They are easily explained and understood. For example, come, see, happy, table, clock. Tier 2 words are uncommon in everyday language. They are precise, sophisticated words common in text, for example, hilarious, endure, despise, arrange. Tier 3 words are low frequency. They are domain or content specific. For example, rectangle, continent, carnivore, metamorphic. Isabel Beck's distinction among three types or tiers of vocabulary words are very helpful in making choices of specific vocabulary to teach.

Exploring vocabulary

Children, explore vocabulary when they:

• listen to and learn new words from books, songs and experiences
• use new words in play experiences
• talk with a more experienced language user
• learn a new word and use it in their talk and explain the word to others
• identify unknown words and investigate their meanings.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Children:

• Convey and construct messages with purpose and confidence building on home, family and community literacies.
• Respond verbally to what they see, hear, touch, feel, and taste.
• Show increasing knowledge, understanding and skill in conveying meaning in at least one language.
• Interact with others to explore ideas and concepts, clarify and challenge thinking, negotiate and share new understandings.

Promoting vocabulary

Educators promote vocabulary when they:

• Engage children in discussions about words from books, images, ideas, and interests.
• Provide opportunities to experiment with vocabulary and wordplay.
• Draw children's attention to words in context and expose children to a range of vocabulary.
• Highlight vocabulary used to describe feelings, ideas, and interest.
• Build vocabulary lists to display in the environment to support extension of new vocabulary.
• Develop synonyms, for example, big, large, huge, massive, enormous, and also word clines, for example, bad, terrible, shocking, appalling.
• Explicitly teach vocabulary from all three tiers.

Learning Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Educators teach children's skills and techniques that will enhance their capacity for self-expression and communication.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Educators:

• Engage in sustained communication with children about ideas and experiences and extend their vocabulary.
• Educators actively support children's home language and cultural vocabulary and extend on children's prior knowledge.
• Educators spend time interacting and conversing with each child every day, adding new vocabulary where applicable.
• Educators join in children's play and engage children in conversation about words in books, songs, the environment, and more.

Task – Reflect on phonological awareness and vocabulary

It is time to reflect on phonological awareness and vocabulary. What strategies and resources do you use to support and extend children's learning of phonological awareness and vocabulary? How else could you support and extend children's learning of phonological awareness and vocabulary in your context?

When writing examples consider how:

• Phonological awareness and vocabulary support children's development of reading and writing skills.
• You plan for explicit teaching of the three tiers of vocabulary.
• Interactions, experiences, and flexible learning environments promote phonological awareness and vocabulary.
• You ensure your program is culturally responsive, inclusive, and differentiated for diverse learners.

Pause the recording to complete the task.

Writing

We will now explore writing. Emergent writing is children's first attempt at the writing process. Children began to imitate the act of writing by creating drawings and symbolic markings that represent their thoughts and ideas. Scribbles and drawings are an important first step to writing and should be encouraged. Written expression can be facilitated through the developmental progression from mark making, scribbling and drawing. Writing and creating texts is an important avenue for self-expression in early childhood. Drawing and writing attempts further develop oral language.

Exploring writing

Children explore writing when they:

• draw pictures using a variety of materials including crayons, textas, pencils, paper and cardboard
• paint, draw, write, and explain the meaning of the images to someone else
• draw in the natural environment using sticks in the dirt
• build fine motor muscle strength by playing with play dough
• use iPads, Smart Boards and other technologies to experiment with drawing and writing.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Children:

• use information and communication technologies as tools for designing, drawing, editing, reflecting, and composing
• draw on their experiences in constructing meaning using symbols
• use symbols in play to represent and make meaning
• begin to use images and approximation of letters and words to convey meaning.

Promoting writing

Educators promote writing when they:

• set up multiple spaces for drawing and writing materials to experiment with indoors and outdoors
• are present when children are drawing and writing to talk with children about their symbols and images
• model drawing and writing and explain the process
• create some way to store and display the drawing and writing
• display children's names and common words for writing prompts.

Learning Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity. Educators teach children skills and techniques that will enhance their capacity for self-expression and communication.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Educators:

• Provide resources that encourage children to experiment with images and print
• Join in children's play and co-construct.
• Respond to children's images and symbols talking about the elements, principles, skills, and techniques they have used in order to convey meaning.
• Support children to become sophisticated communicators of their ideas through enabling diverse and purposeful drawing and writing experiences.
• Enabling drawing and writing experiments for the inherent potential of aesthetic joy through the creative expression.

Task – Reflect on writing

It is time to reflect on writing. What strategies and resources do you use to support and extend children's writing? How could you support and extend children's writing in your context?

When writing examples, consider how:

• Interactions, experiences and flexible learning environments promote writing.
• You ensure your program is culturally responsive, inclusive, and differentiated for diverse learners. Pause the recording to complete the task.

Reading

We will now explore reading. Young children are getting ready to read long before they understand that letters stand for sounds. Foundational reading skills include concepts of print, knowing the front and back of the book, how to turn pages, and in standard Australian English we read from top to bottom, left to right.

Reading with children is an opportunity to support them to make meaning from text and to learn how texts work. Children engage with reading through storytelling, listening to and retelling tales. Quality texts are important to engage children in early reading skills. Reading to and with children at preschool supports a lifelong love of reading.

Exploring reading

Children explore reading when they:

• notice words are all around them
• read signs, logos and common print in the environment
• identify and read their own names or known names, for example, their family names
• pick up known story books and read back to a friend or educator
• retell their own stories
• read the meaning of their paintings, scribbles, and drawings to other children, families, or educators
• listen to others, read and tell stories.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Children:

• View and listen to printed visual and multimedia texts and respond with relevant gestures, actions, comments, and questions.
• Recognise and engage with written and oral culturally constructed texts.
• Actively use, engage with and share the enjoyment of language and texts in a range of ways.
• Begin to understand key literacy concepts and processes, concepts of print, and the way texts are structured.

Promoting reading

Educators promote reading when they:

• point to the words and pictures in the book as you read with children
• talk about the book before, during and after reading and encourage children to talk about their ideas and ask questions
• read expressively and regularly with groups and individual children
• read culturally relevant and contextual texts for children
• predict outcomes of stories
• look at the different purposes of texts and the way they are structured
• read and share a range of books and other texts with children
• show children how to hold books and turn pages
• provide a print rich environment, including children's names and other words to read with children
• identify preferred characters and emotions in books
• explore different perspectives in stories
• discuss abstract concepts from stories.

Learning Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.

Educators:

• Provide a literacy rich environment including display print in home languages and standard Australian English.
• Read and share a range of books and other texts with children, including familiar and unfamiliar culturally constructed texts.
• Join in children's play and engage in conversations about the meaning of images and print.

Task – Reflect on reading

It is time to reflect on reading. What strategies and resources do you use to support and extend children's reading? How else could you support and extend children's reading in your own context?

When writing examples consider how:

• interactions, experiences and flexible learning environments promote reading
• ensure your program is culturally responsive, inclusive, and differentiated for diverse learners.

Pause the recording to complete the task.

Key messages

The key messages from today's session.

Literacy is the capacity, confidence and disposition to use language in all its forms. Literacy in early childhood can be explored through different components:

• Speaking and listening is the way children communicate their views, learn to understand others and make discoveries.
• Phonological awareness is hearing and understanding the different sounds of spoken language.
• Vocabulary supports children to become better readers and communicators in life.
• Writing experiences allow children to understand that print carries a message
• Reading texts with adults is the start of reading development.

Literacy development is facilitated by quality texts, rich environments, and intentional teaching to build oral language, phonological awareness and vocabulary knowledge.

References

This brings us to the end of our session today. Here are the references we've used in this professional learning. You might like to pause the recording and note down any you are interested in.

For more information, professional learning and resources, visit the early learning website, https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/curriculum/early-learning.

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