3.1 Offers a careful interpretation & analysis of children’s early literacy/numeracy skills & interests 

Emergent literacy in making play dough

For my month long placement, I had the opportunity to work at a community children’s centre.  On this particular day the group I was observing were asked to sit in a circle while they listened to their educator. The children were between the ages 3-5.  That morning they would be making play dough, the educator held a piece of laminated paper.

 “Can anyone tell me what this is?” she asked. 

“It’s a recipe!” the children answered

“And what does a recipe do?”

“It tells us how to make something.”

“How?”

“You read the recipe and it tells us what to do.”

The students were fully engaged and eagerly participated in making the play dough. Referring to their recipe they took turns to add the ingredients and then mixed them together to make the dough. The children all agreed that the play dough would be colored yellow.

Most of the children in this group exhibited signs of emergent literacy. They showed understanding of key literacy and numeracy concepts and processes by identifying the function of a recipe as a means of instruction on how to make play dough. They used measuring cups and spoons to measure the exact amount of ingredients needed. They were able to identify a recipe and know its function.

This clip shows how the little girls' emergent reading is taking shape. She reads (pretends to) though the book "Cat the cat Who is that".  Most of the texts used are rhymes words and she looks to the illustrations to help her identify the words.  There are instances where she has memorized the text and she finished the sentences when she asks for help.