Monday Musings: My Philosophy for Literacy Teaching

Okay so I am knackered. Yesterday I rushed from one Christmas holiday job (uploading content onto a council website) to another (at Marks and Spencer) and didn't get home until 8.30pm last night. I am really tired, and today I'm back in the council offices...My goal today is to get there at 10:30 (it's a flexi-time thing) so that I can have a bit of a morning chill-out. Tomorrow I re-live yesterday all over again so I may as well make the most of just having one job today.

So, onto my little bit of procrastination for the morning. 

Last week I handed in my English assignment which means all being well I have now just one more module and a placement until I have finished my teacher training. I thought I would upload my philosophy for Literacy teaching as a nice little way to round off the semester's learning. 

As a Literacy teacher I believe I have a responsibility to inspire and motivate children to want to learn. I am passionate about encouraging a classroom of readers and writers that are engaged with and enjoy their Literacy learning. My approach to the teaching of Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening would include the following 10 commandments of good Literacy teaching:

1.     Modelling passion and enthusiasm – Our attitude equips children to use the English language with ‘confidence and flair’ (Brien, J (2012:15-15) Teaching Primary English. London: Sage Publications Ltd) and I believe that emotional engagement is the key to all-powerful learning. As with all subjects, if we teach literacy with passion and enthusiasm, students will respond with mirrored passion and enthusiasm.

2.     Inspiring children’s love of reading and enthusiasm for writing – I will value and seek to develop children’s early reading behaviours and emergent mark making skills further through stimulating and developmentally appropriate activities. I hope to provide children with motivating, imaginative and engaging writing activities and will teach multisensory phonics strategies that accelerate sound and symbol knowledge so that children can learn powerful decoding skills and understand how the reading process works.

3.     High expectations and a strong belief in the young learners I teach - As a teacher, I love the challenge of building success for each individual learner. I am constantly learning and open to new insights from educational research and teaching colleagues. My high expectations for children’s literacy development, thinking skills, and love of learning keep me challenged and reflective.

4.     A multisensory and differentiated literacy curriculum within a busy, caring classroom community - I am committed to nurturing a love of the written and spoken word through planning engaging lessons with clear learning intentions and communicating effectively with the children so that they understand what they are learning and why. I believe literacy is the foundation for all learning and future opportunities.

5.     A respectful, caring partnership between the classroom and home to be nurtured where possible - I have a shared responsibility with parents for teaching their child and it is my philosophy that ‘children are made readers on the laps of their parents’ (Emilie Buchwold). I hope that through celebrating books and reading, and encouraging parents to do the same at home, we can support readers who can and do read for pleasure and for their own purposes.

6.     Continually develop my knowledge of a range of engaging texts for different purposes - I believe we must carefully choose the literature, songs, poems, and rhymes we give our children, because these language models are the seeds that inspire children who love using language and grow them into powerful writers and thinkers. I want imaginative language, poetic phrases, and metaphors to become a part of my children’s thinking, speaking and writing.

7.     A supportive environment for speaking and listening. - Developing the childrens’ capacity for language and thought will underlie everything I do. Literacy should be a social endeavour in which children can memorise, recite, and perform many wonderful pieces of language, turning print into sound and the pleasures of sound over to an appreciative audience. I believe that we must provide children with speaking and listening activities that engage and motivate and which ensure all children are involved.

8.     A print-rich environment – I want my classroom to provide children with countless opportunities to learn about letters, letter sounds and the concept of print so that they can build on their knowledge that printed words hold meaning.

9.     Sensitivity – A classroom is a diverse place and learning is a personal thing.  I believe that each child has unique strengths, varied prior language learning experiences, and preferred learning styles. My teaching must be differentiated to provide enough challenge and support for all children to build on successfully and to develop positive attitudes towards learning.

10.  The essential nature of assessment - In planning for children’s development in Literacy I will use my assessment to form links, ensuring learners have sufficient knowledge and understanding to enable them to learn new things and I will make these links explicit for my learners.