A Long Absence

First I must apologize for my long absence from this blog. The work I need to do for my university course, as well as the work I need to do for Peter Pan class, has left me tired and drained. As my university course is becoming busier, I cannot see the situation improving.

A very big thank you to those of you who promptly return my survey. Although for the moment that is the end of my data gathering for this project, it is possible that I will need your assistance in the future. In fact, for another course, I need to interview some parents about attitudes to play in the kindergarten classroom. If anyone is interested in participating in an hour long interview, please let me know.

Regarding our class, I feel everything is going very well. All children are showing great signs of improvement and you must all feel proud as it is your hard work at home that has made this possible. I would also like to thank you for your feedback, as this helps me focus the class so that the students can receive the greatest benefits.

For example, the parents of two of the boys replied to my comments about their writing. I noted that these two boys did not enjoy writing, and their parents explained that they are not too worried, as they are young and writing will come with time. I agree totally. In our class there are a number of students who are writing well. I do not force them (or anyone) to write and they write well because they enjoy writing. When the others enjoy writing, then they will write well too. I will share a post that another of my university classmates posted on a bulletin board,

In terms of early literacy children will learn at their own rate, some will need more help than others and will learn in different ways, but they will all get there eventually. My daughter had a lot of trouble with literacy up until about Grade 6 when she could finally start reading books that actually interested her (they were quite political in content) and now in Grade 9 is reading far above her expected level and excelling in English. The major factor in this was engagement and what she percieved as relevance. (I'd read to her from about 2 weeks of age). She is a perfect example of allowing children to use a variety of modes (she did a lot of drama, some dance, could instantly read music even when she couldn't read words well, and would write enormous numbers of very creative and complex stories on the computer which were chapters long, - she just didn't pay any attention to the spelling!) She also drew a lot of plans and maps as a way of organising herself. I think an important issue is to trust in the child and not to panic and impose your own perceptions of what you think they should be doing and when.

Obviously this is my own personal opinion, but it may be of interest if you have children at the beginning of the literacy journey.