Literacy Learning Across Diverse Contexts: Digestive System Research Paper

Introduction

The subject discipline on which the present curriculum planning assignment focuses is science. The topic is the digestive system (poop), which is rather suitable for children aged four having different backgrounds. This issue is universal, which allows developing learners’ language and literacy skills through engagement in reading, observation, and writing activities. Thus, the specific skills to be enhanced during these activities will be oral and visual ones.

The plan is related to the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF). This framework centralizes diversity as one of the core principles of teaching and learning (“Victorian Early Years,” 2017). The suggested activities comply with several learning outcomes of the VEYLDF. First of all, outcome three will be pursued since it involves cultivating the sense of health and physical wellbeing in children under five.

Teaching children about hygiene practices will promote their capabilities and independence, which are ingrained in the principles of outcome three. Next, special prominence will be given to outcome five, which aims at encouraging children to be effective communicators (“Belonging, being & becoming,” n.d.). Particularly, this outcome contains the goal of instructing preschoolers to understand how systems work, engage with texts, and obtain meaning from the texts.

Curriculum Planning

The topic area and educational context is the digestive system (poop). Focus students are kindergarten children aged four who come from families with diverse backgrounds. The educational setting in the classroom, so learners will be engaged in indoor activities, such as sitting in a circle and performing some tasks together. There are several reasons for selecting this topic, the major of them being its universality. Every individual poops and breaks wind, and this theme is specifically pertinent to young children who only start learning how to do the hygienic procedures by themselves. At the age of three to five years old, children are trained in toileting and related activities.

Since preschoolers love animals, it will be useful to employ the latter in the teaching process. For instance, animals can be used to show why one wants to eat and what happens after the food has been consumed. Despite coming from different backgrounds, all children will be actively engaged in the lesson since the topic pertains to each of them.

Implications for Teaching and Learning

Planning for literacy learning incorporates several crucial elements. First of all, when planning for the selected teaching area, one needs to take into consideration the children’s age and diversity of their backgrounds. By doing so, the teacher will comply with the VEYLDF guidelines and outcomes. Secondly, a critical aspect regarding this planning activity is including a sufficient amount of new information but not overwhelming children with it. That is, the number and variety of activities should be enough not to get preschoolers tired or bored but, at the same time, to make them excited about the learning process. Thirdly, one should take into account scholarly research and experience described in studies where the authors identify and explain the best practice approaches.

All of the four activities described in curriculum planning can be justified on the basis of their connection to the children’s age and experience. Activities one and three focus on storybook reading as a powerful tool for teaching young learners. A variety of skills can be promoted with the help of reading, listening to the teacher, repeating words and phrases, and answering questions (Reese et al., 2010). Researchers emphasize the benefits of reading on preschoolers’ vocabulary skills (Aram, 2006).

Activity two, which involves a song as the core teaching and learning tool, also presents a number of advantages for the teaching process. Music has been acknowledged as a powerful tool for promoting children’s vocabulary, as well as enhancing their attention and the sense of rhythm (Gan & Chong, 1998). Additionally, learning through music improves young learners’ writing and prereading skills (Standley & Hughes, 1997). Finally, activity four was used both as a teaching tool and as an assessment method.

Oral skills are highly important for children aged four, so each of the suggested activities was aimed at promoting this dimension of knowledge. Without appropriate oral skills development, children will not be able to succeed in language acquisition in the subsequent stages of learning. The selection of the topic was motivated by the fact that daily life activities increase children’s interest in studying. Thus, by selecting the digestive system as the topic, the teacher would fulfil two goals. Firstly, it will be possible to enlarge children’s vocabulary and enhance other skills. Secondly, the alignment with the VEYLDF will be attained (“Victorian Early Years,” 2017). Specifically, promoting children’s independence (VEYLF outcome three) and encouraging them to communicate (outcome five) will improve.

Conclusion

Planning for literacy learning across diverse context requires thorough preparation and the analysis of children’s basic literacy needs at a given developmental period. For four-year-olds, the most urgent set of skills to promote is the oral one. When a child has an extensive vocabulary and knows how to operate it, he or she will be able to learn to read and write without much difficulty. Therefore, the activities included in the plan are focused on enhancing preschoolers’ oral language skills and training their communication abilities. The connection of each activity to the VEYLDF allows considering them as beneficial for young learners.

References

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