Introduction
Humpty Dumpty is a fictional character, a subject of a nursery rhyme with a relationship theme. It started as a riddle where the answer was an egg and is known as a personified egg. The language in the verse is right for it enhances the pre-reading skills of children. It teaches children how language works, encourages literacy in children, and builds more skills. The characterization of Humpty Dumpty is that it is a big egg with human features.
Print awareness
With the rhyme of Humpty and dumpty, the nursery pupils can get print awareness, which makes them understand the forms and convection of printed material. The children are supposed to read the rhyme from left to right. Reading the written verse facilitates literacy, reach the environment, exposure to print, real-life experience, and meaning literacy in the children. To teach the children on print awareness of this rhyme, I should read to the children with large print, use a relatively large printed paper that the attention of the children is drawn by copy and letter. I would also label several pictures of Humpty Dumpty and place them at the centers of the class. The children should then use a pointer or their fingers to point the words as I read the words. I should later look the words for them as they read.
For instance, the rhyme is in a book; I would take them through the cover page, the print, and the back of the book. I would also show the children the difference in the papers of a book because there are those with thin sleeves, and other has thick sleeves. They later can understand the title of the book” Humpty Dumpty,” the author and the publisher of the book. They are not aware of handling the text properly and the direction they need to follow, so as a teacher, I should show them all that. Show the children the relationship between the print and the pictures in the book. Tell the children what the story is about; ask them to show you the bottom and top of the book, divide them into groups or teach them individually depending on their capabilities. To increase the love of books in children as a teacher, I would tell them those books can take people to new places and thus, they should handle them properly.
Poetry
In poetry, I will teach my children how to analyze the poem. I will let them understand the different elements or features of a poem, such as metaphor, simile, rhyme, repetition, imegaery, and rhyme. Humpty dumpty poems would help me point out all these features. When analysing poems I would want them to understand the necessary information, meaning, forms, and poetic techniques.
| LESSON PLAN
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Theme: Enhancing Children literacy development
Prior knowledge: The children already know how to read books
| Major Learning Domain: | o | Physical Fitness and Health | þ | Language | o | Early Mathematics | |||
| o | Science | o | Self and Society | o | Arts |
| Other Learning Domains: | o | Physical Fitness and Health | o | Language | ¨ | Early Mathematics | |||
| o | Science | o | Self and Society | o | Arts |
| Content | |||
| Name of Activity : | Can an egg sit on a wall? | ||
| Date : | 24th/11/2019 | Venue : | Classroom |
| No. of Children : | 20 | Class/ Age Group : | K2 (4-5)b years |
| Time of Activity : | / am | Duration : | 30mins |
| Objectives : | Knowledge: Children are able to sit the egg on the wall
Skill: children can observe the falling of the egg Attitude: children can sit an egg on the wall |
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| Step by Step : Procedures 1. Introduction |
1. During the school rhyme week, my children are supposed to recite a Humpty dumpty poem.
2. We will then carry out an activity on Humpty dumpty. We will sit an egg on a wall and find out if it can sit there.
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| 2. Process | 3. I will pick a piece of egg, use a marker pen to add a mouth, nose, and eyes that it looks like a human
4. I will then place the egg on the wall.
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| 3. Conclusion | 5. The egg will fall and break into pieces
6. I will ask the children to collect it for me and return it to its original state. 7. It would be possible, and thus, they will understand that an egg can break, and once broken, no one can return it to its original state.
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Activity to Enhance Children’s Literacy Development
The class has 20 pupils with their ages ranging from 4-5 years old. About a third of the course has the average ability, and some and about three of them have low capabilities. Teachers try to put more attention on the kids will low skills mostly when doing class activities so that they may understand and that they don’t lag behind. We understand their skills by assessing the children.
Assessing children Literacy Development
The reason why I assess my children is to understand their special learning needs as early as possible, and it also enables me to know what to consider when creating an activity for them. I also want to understand their strenghths and weaknesses so that I can remember how to help each and lastly inform parents on the learning of the children that they may help them back at home.
Principles of Assessment
As a teacher, there are certain tenets I am required to follow to assess my students. We assess children to show their curriculum objectives and development needs. We don’t do it alone but with some other teachers to get good results . When carrying out assessments, we observe the child, recording data than analyzing the data we have collected in the learning environment but not exams. We assess throughout the year that the results are best. I recognize my children and appreciate them when they do well to motivate them, identify their potential, and make developments, and other times, guide and support them. The assessments we do are close to activities our students do in school e.g. can an egg sit on a wall, and it is suitable for student development level. We assess them concerning authentic classroom writing and tasks and any other kind of learning as per the curriculum. By so doing, we will be able to know what the children can do and what they know.
Children show signs of emergent literacy development when they show interest in literacy related events, focus on print, when they read and write for personal purposes, have competence in oral language competencies and they have phonological awareness. The later are the signs I would want to see in my children when we are done on our activity of sitting Humpty Dumpty on the wall.
There is much fun to explore nursery rhythms with children. They will explore Humpty Dumpty in Pre School during nursery rhymes week, and children will have a blast. When designing the activity, I need to consider the safety of the children, if the event will build the memory of the children understand if they have capabilities of performing the task and can it enhance their literacy development.
The children are to explore if an egg can sit on a wall. I will ask the children to answer and record in their books. Then we will do the activity practically by trying to sit Humpty Dumpty on a brick wall. The children might find it so funny if I let the egg fall and crack. I should then repeat the same idea a few times as the kids repeat the rhyme. It will be a lot of fun and a great way to retell the nursery rhyme with live-action.
Authentic Assessment/Assessment of Children’s Performance
After the children are done with sitting the egg on the wall, I will then do an authentic assessment. This kind of assessment will enable me to reflect the actual learning, institutional activities, and represent the world. I will carry out anecdotal observations of the children where I will make forms that I will record their performances (Otto, 2015). The way will include the child’s name, purpose of observation, useful events in the observation, and the relative analysis. Views that I am to make I will focus on the oral reading of the children together with their dialogue. I would also use a portfolio to assess them authentically. I would pick the answers they had recorded in their books if an egg can sit on a wall, ask them to write a Humpty dumpty rhyme without referring anywhere and draw Humpty dumpty. I would later give them the feedback I would have collected. With all this, I would be able to record the kids writing ability and analyze it.
Portfolio
Video and Audio Recordings
Still assessing them using portfolio, I would decide to video record or audio record the children as they read the Humpty dumpty rhyme. That way, I would be able to analyze the language of the children with both audio and video. The video is most suitable for it enables me assess their body movements, facial expressions, which is a lot of information for evaluating the child. I can also use both of them to record myself while teaching that I would be in a position to access my performance.
Interviewing
Interviewing my students is also a portfolio assessment where I would ask my students both closed and open-ended question about Humpty dumpty rhyme e.g., what happened to Humpty dumpty? Where was Humpty dumpty seating? Who comes to assist Humpty dumpty? The use of interview will help me understand if my students were following the story and if they have understood the topic. I would later design a worksheet that matches the objectives of the institution. I would have different sheets, one for the parent, for an individual child than for a group of children. The main reason for this kind of assessment is that the child’s ability can be summarised in one worksheet, and the final results would be excellent for the kid and were assessed with different criteria (Sinclair, 2005).
Checklist
I would also use a checklist that would have the list of child skills and development that they have accomplished at the end of their study. The instructions I would give to them during the course work would also be included in the checklist. I would also include the objectives of our activity and that of reading rhyme that I would have before the original work. The later would enable me to determine how the language of my children would have developed literally and the development reach depending on the aged on their ages. Again I would have the checklist to assess the performance of my kids to match the objectives of our school.
Simple Test
As a teacher, I would also set simple tests for my students to know their understanding of rhyme. I would then give a norm referencing; give the overall performance of my students tested for students with 4-5 years old and at their particular grade level. What can stir my need to give my student a simple it is to get the parents n opinions about their children’s performance by calling them for a parent’s day, simple conversation, and asking them questions related to the child’s performance. Having done the test, this would be a source of information to evaluate the children’s performance. The result I give would, therefore, be clear information to show the position of a child among other children. The simple test would enable me to know the parent’s expectation on their child’s performance (Morrow & Dougherty, 2011). The questions I would ask the parents would also will allow me to understand the childs performance back at home. I would get additional information about the child’s performance in child’s meeting and informal conversation with other teachers. The later will help me understand the performance of the child as per the opinions of other teachers.
Running Record
To assess the reading of the rhyme by the children, I would also use a running record where I would want to know the errors made by the children as they go through the verse and their accuracy too. Ib children should read the rhyme loudly every kid alone. I will then record the words they read correctly and those that they make errors. Obvious errors, omission of words, meaning errors, insertion of words, refusal to pronounce a word, appeal for help, substituting words with another, and repeating words are errors I would consider. I would, therefore, ask the children to tell me what they read that mend sence to them and the meaning of various setences. Correction they made during the reading process is not considered as an error. I would, therefore, assess the suitable method for passing a book, nursery rhyme, a poem.
To generally promote literacy among kindergartens, I need to provide several opportunities that can promote literacy. Carrying out demonstrations, exploring and experimenting,functional use of language, and language-rich environment are some of the ample opportunities to promote literacy in children. Utilizing the resources in the institution, providing an appropriate development curriculum, and being flexible will help me develop the scholarship of the children. The use of procedural activities, informal conversation, and independent activities are specific activities for promoting emergent literacy development in my children.
References
Morrow, L. M., & Dougherty, S. (2011). Early Literacy Development: Merging Perspectives That Influence Practice. In Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts (pp. 51-57). Routledge.
Otto, B. (2015). Literacy development in early childhood: Reflective teaching for birth to age eight. Waveland Press.
Sinclair, J. P. (2005). The effects of explicit instruction on the structure of urban minority children’s academic writing. The Catholic University of America.
Appendix 1
Description of Literacy Development in Children
| ACTIVITY | DESCRIPTION
The purpose of this activity was to: |
| Print awareness |
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| Poetry | Promotes reading and writing |
| Authentic assessment | To evaluate the child’s performance in the activities they have done, reading and observation |
| portfolio
video and audio interviews checklist simple test |
Assess daily work performance
The teacher can analyze children’s language To assess children’s attitude towards their daily learning To determine a child’s performance according to school objectives The result is a piece of concrete information regarding the position of the child |
| Running record | Used to access the child’s accuracy as well as errors |