In semester 2 of year one I participated in Praxis Inquiry at Melton Primary School. At Melton I was to construct, organise and implement a 3-lesson literacy program for a grade prep student. This student was at a low level in literacy and my aim was to improve their skills with a variety of techniques and engaging lessons. By the end of the 3-week experience I was able to gain a better understanding on how to teach early years literacy and greater knowledge on the different techniques and process to teach early literacy.
For a pre-service teacher in their first year of studying this was a great experience. It allowed me to try new and different approaches, which assisted me to get the best work out of my grade prep student and achieve their full potential. On the first visit to Melton West I met my student Jade and gained some information about the type of activities she likes and some of her interests. I gathered this information to create and implement lesson that were engaging and interesting for her while achieving the aims and objectives that I set for the lesson.
The first lesson looked at VELS level 1 working towards level 2. My aim was to see if she would be able to understand what a book was about by looking at the front page. I aim to assist her understand the book by looking at both pictures and words. After we read the book and talked about what she thought the pictures meant to the book she was to complete a work sheet.
Using the same process of guided, modeling and shared, the next lesson followed a similar approach. After last lesson Jade would have an idea of what the book was about by looking at the front page. My aim for this lesson was for her to read the book and understand what it was about by looking at the words only. I wanted her to understand the book by just reading the words and not relying on the pictures all the time. After we read through the book together I asked her to complete a worksheet where she was to ask questions about the book. This would assist me to find out if she understood what she was reading.
Our final lesson focused on sentence construction. My aim was to read the book first and construct sentences using cards and prompts. We read the book to together a few time and I would stop each page to ask her what happened on that page just to assess if she understood what she was reading. She would then read the book alone and recap what it was about to me. Once she completed this she would need to construct sentences using words that were from the book and read and recap what the sentences mean.