Emotional Connections: Deepening Learning

A Literacy Learning Story, by Jess

Caeden recently we have been looking at the nursery rhyme posters, ebooks and little books. Caeden you have really enjoyed this and I've seen you getting into the music too. You really enjoy the  "Hey Diddle Diddle" ebook as the characters giggle at the end which makes you roar with laughter and stamp your feet. "Again" you would ask just so you could hear the giggle again. 
You noticed Humpty Dumpty and how "He break!" This caused you much distress. You were very concerned for Humpty Dumpty and the fact that he had broken. One day you even woke up from your sleep pointing to the Humpty dumpty poster and saying "He break" Over time we have talked you through that it is okay that Humpty is just an egg and its okay to break an egg. Caeden you are so caring, even for Humpty Dumpty.

Caeden we have noticed that you have connected to the nursery rhymes through your emotions. You really feel for the characters and what they might be going through, especially Humpty Dumpty. You have been able to identify other emotions and express them to your teachers. By using the nursery rhymes you have been able to communicate and connect to these emotions and through a range of media; books, posters, ebooks, music, dance, and  art, express these feelings. We have had such fun.


What is happening here?
The teachers recognise the significance of the importance emotional connection in learning to communicate and to become literate. The giggles of the children in "Hey Diddle Diddle", the sadness of Humpty Dumpty's demise, have an impact. This impact deepens the curiosity, the desire to relive the experience and to find out more about these powerful emotions.
The teachers here recognise this unfolding exploration. They recognise that the exploration is enabling the child to experience the fullness of communication and come to a place of deeper connection with literacy now and to search for it in text in the future.
Noeline Anderson
Director of Pixelhouse
www.pixelhouse.co.nz
www.pixelhouseonline.com

Generative Literacy: The Basket

Helen from Miramar Kidz Corner, Wellington, shared this story.
Sam began collecting things. Collecting treasures in his basket that had meaning to him.


The nursery rhymes were of great interest to Sam, so treasures related to the nursery rhymes became part of the basket collection; favourite books, Incy Wincy handmade creatures... anything that reminded him of his favourite books.


The basket belongs to Sam. It must go in a safe place when he goes to sleep and when he leaves for the day.

What is happening here?

The basket is the physical representation of the ownership Sam has for his learning. Sam is building learning links or memory links, associations that will help him remember abstract things like images and text. Text which, at present, are squiggles on the page. He is using other sensory experiences and tactile objects that will prompt his memory. All this happens naturally and happily. All the teacher needs to do is help with the housekeeping and extend the experiences. He will have lots of ideas. He just needs help to grow his collection from these experiences and help to keep his memories and basket safe.

A literacy experience can be finite or infinite. It can happen once as a nursery rhyme is chanted from a poster. Or the experience can be infinite and happen over and over as the same nursery rhyme is read from a poster, book or ebook. But more than this, it can be acted out, props can be added, like the Hickory Dickory clock, allowing further dramatisation. It can be sung and the Hickory Dickory mice can be made and everyone can dance to the rhythm  of the rhyme. Imagination, now too, is aiding memory.

With each action the literacy experience  deepens. The chance of remembering the rhyme and the patterns of the language is greater. The literacy experience has become generative. A foundation has been laid down for future learning and the evolving literacy.

Noeline Anderson,
Director of Pixelhouse
www.pixelhouse.co.nz
www.pixelhouseonline.com
027 472 9193

Embedding Literacy: Creating Our Clock

This Learning Story was written by Helen, a teacher at Miramar Kidz Corner, Wellington.

Our interest in nursery rhymes at the centre is getting more and more exciting. Today we made a huge clock so that we could act out Hickory, Dickory Dock. This is one of the favourites at the moment.

Here we are painting busily painting.
It was a big job, but what fun we had.



While the children were all sleeping the teachers taped the boxes together and added a clock face to the front. Jasmine got busy making mice to run up and down the clock. We were so excited and had to wait
for everybody to wake up and come and play.


Oscar and Sam were the first to wake up.They looked and pointed at the clock. They were quiet for a while until Sam finally said, “ Hickey, Dickey Dock."

Then they tried out the new mice and ran them up and down the clock.









Oscar carried on playing with the clock for a long time. “Tick, tock, tick, tock.” Oscar chanted to himself as he played. Sam sang "Hickory Dickory Dock" as he ran his mouse up and down the clock. Then he ran to get his book so he could read his story too.

 The mice and the clock look amazing. We hung the mice from the top of the clock for safe keeping. Everyone had a great time and we will leave the clock out so we can keep playing.


Pixelhouse came across this story on a follow-up visit to the centre. We were wanting to know how our Nursery Rhyme resource was going. We are so excited by these outcomes for Sam and the possibilities for others to develop literacy skills, using this resource.

Sam's Story: A Literacy Learning Story

We were so lucky. We got some new nursery rhyme books. Sam you just loved them. You wanted to read them over and over again. There were lots for you to choose from but you soon found your favourite ones.

After a while of reading your favourites you were able to identify the books by their  pictures and tell us their titles.You would bring the book to me and say “Humpy Dumpy ”or “Hickey, Dickey Dock”. You are so clever Sam. I can’t believe how fast and how keen you are with your learning.

After a couple of days you discover that all the rhymes are pictured on the back of each book. Sam you show me what you have noticed and are able to name most of the rhymes and point them out to me.“There was a Crooked Man” was the only rhyme you were not sure of. When you found this picture you said “Oh no.”  I laughed, you were not happy that you didn’t know that one. Sam I gave you the title and you now call this one “Man”.  Great job Sam, you now know all the nursery rhyme titles.

This Learning Story was written by Helen who is a teacher at Miramar Kidz Corner, Wellington, an Early Childhood Centre.

Pixelhouse came across this story on a follow-up visit to the centre. We were wanting to know how our Nursery Rhyme resource was going. We are so excited by these outcomes for Sam and the possibilities for others to develop literacy skills, using this resource.

Interactivity:Too Much Sugar

For a few years now I’ve been making IT resources for education and trained teachers to use them on a range of platforms PC, Macs and IWBs etc. All too often the potential of this material is lost.
Abandonment is the major cause.

The common idea, and practice, that once the computer is all fired up and the kids are away they require no further input. Somehow the programme will do it all and the software developer is now the teacher. Even more of a worry, that the programme is so well made that the child will be entertained maybe even educated and the adults can get on with more important stuff.

Interactivity is required. The interactivity is required because the teachers says this is what captures the children's interest. Then more and more interactivity is demanded. There is a strange idea that interactivity means the child will press a button and zap, excitement and interactivity happens. Does it? Actually often for the child no activity happens. The child is left glazed and still, and just like eating too much sugar, is left unsatisfied and desperate for more and sadly the developers are left competing with each other to make more and more interactivity, more zap.The child becomes numb.

Let’s stop this depleting spiral.
Let's slow down and see what's there.

Let’s make slow food for the mind.

How?

By looking deeper into the software resource and finding ways to integrate this material across the curriculum. How could this resource motivate work in art, drama, literacy, science or social studies? Once these questions are answered, in a practical hands-on way, we the adults can engage with the child again. We can engage in IT learning in the same way we engage in an art lesson or a science lesson, meaning and motivation will return. The child is no longer abandoned. The teacher teaches. The programmes will be truly interactive and hey some learning may happen too

A Beginners Guide to Literacy and Nursery Rhymes

Nursery Rhymes work as a foundation to literacy.
There is good reason for this. The rhymes have been polished over time and the patterns form the basis for English. If we learn these patterns we come to anticipate and replicate these patterns as we read and write.
The Pixelhouse www.pixelhouse.co.nz nursery rhyme resource can begin the process of becoming literate for a child from very young age, from babies. Teachers and parents can use this simple structure to give their child/children foundation literacy skills.
When using the Pixelhouse Nursery Rhyme resource it's best to begin with the posters and songs on the music CD, learning the whole rhyme. Repeating these wherever possible in everyday activities, going on walks, swinging, rocking a child to sleep etc...
The next step is to introduce the books. We have made them small for small hands. The children will recognise the illustrations as being similar to the poster artwork.  They will choose their favourite and a teacher or parent can model the reading of these with individual or groups of children.
At this stage the children then take ownership of the material. They carry the books around with them, read the stories to their teddy and take them home to share with their family and friends. The stories of the rhymes become the action in their imaginary play as they retell the rhyme and invent their personalised version,
Once the rhymes are well established the ebooks can be introduced. The children will be excited to see their nursery rhymes in a new medium. This is integration at work. We have added open ended creative eActivities as follow up to the ebooks. There is no one right way, the software developer is not in control the child is, so the child's creativity is encouraged not squashed by an error button. The observant teacher will extend and enrich these experiences by making hands on activities available near by the computer. The child can then extend their own thinking through artwork and dramatic play.
I have been asked to take workshops on this literacy process and for some early childhood centers it has become the framework for language acquisition and literacy development. Please feel free to share this blog with others and contact me if you would like this workshop at your center, parent group or school

Language Aquisition and Nursery Rhymes

I thought I'd begin my working year by reviewing our Pixelhouse Nursery Rhyme resource in action. That is, how have the people who have purchased this resource found it....did it work?
So I headed off to Miramar, to the Kidz Corner Early Childhood Centre http://www.kidzcorner.org.nz/. This switched on centre was the first in Wellington to purchase and use this resource. So for me....living and publishing in Wellington their feedback is pivotal.
Well what a gift. It couldn't have been better. The kids love the books, the songs, the posters, the ebooks...everything... Wow.
It gets better.
Gillian, the headteacher had given the books, posters etc., to the under twos and they loved it so much no other age group has had a chance to use it. Helen, the teacher with this age group, had done a terrific job. First she introduced the books, one at a time, beginning with the most familiar, Twinkle Twinkle and Baa Baa Black Sheep.  A visiting singing/music teacher extended this and and included the rhymes in her programme and next came the nursery rhyme themed dramatic play with puppets and actors. dress-ups and props. All eggs are now Humpty Dumptys and all spiders Incy Wincy. And the sad ending of Humpty Dumpty has had a new resolution as the children adapt the events to their world view...let's just say a bungy is involved and everyone feels much better for Humpty.
I couldn't have scripted the programme better. The teachers noticed the acquisition of language, the independent reading of the books, the increase in dramatic play and storytelling. Many children carrying their favourite "one" around with them or taking it home to share with their family and friends.
There are ebooks and eActivities with this resource as well. Helen very cleverly didn't introduce these until the children were familiar with the books.The moment children saw them on screen they recognised them  instantly and rushed off to find the matching print version. Again this was how I as the publisher/educator had envisioned things unfolding but for it to happen without my instruction or "how to guide" was exciting. It is the integration of media that excites me. The possibilities that integration gives the repeating and extending  learning experience for a child. We don't all get it in one go or in one way. This is integration at work.
Where to from here?
I'm inspired. I'm motivated and I am grateful to the teachers at The Miramar Kidz Corner, and their professional practice that is leading the way for literacy in an early childhood setting.
On the 10th of February, next month, I'm returning to Miramar for photos and learning stories of all of this in action ....so watch this space for more.