Date : February 21, 2020
Foundation Year is known by a few names across Australia. Prep, kindergarten, transition. Whatever name it’s known by in your area, there is no disputing the fact that it is a year that asks a lot of our littlest learners.
Many students will be faced with separation from the life that they previously knew and with this comes a whole slew of challenges. Students will be learning to follow rules and organise their own belongings while navigating the difficult world of playground politics. There is a lot ahead of them and their foundation year is supposed to work as a transitory time to start preparing them for their educational future.
The Australian Curriculum dictates the way that learning should take shape in classrooms across the country. While it does not act as a strict template, and there is room for movement within individual schools and classrooms, it provides us with a framework to better understand what is being asked of children and what teachers should strive to teach.
Here is our guide to understanding what your child will be learning and doing in their literacy classes in their first year of school. Better yet? We’ll provide you with some ideas that will help your child thrive.
The English Curriculum – The First Year
Throughout their time at school, English studies will focus on language, literature and literacy. This will help to build knowledge and understanding as well as skills in the areas of listening, reading, viewing, speaking and creating.
Students in their foundation year will communicate with those around them as they take enjoyment from a variety of texts designed to fill them with curiosity and wonder as they dip their toes into the lake of learning.
These texts will include:
· Oral texts
· Picture books
· Types of stories
· Rhyming verses
· Poetry
· Non-fiction texts
· Multimodal texts
· Film texts
· Dramatic performances
You can see here that they will be exposed to any number of excellent texts, many of them with Australian and Indigenous voices, in order to fuel their love of learning.
Learning to Read
A lot of learning to read is about decoding and predicting texts. You can assist here by working with your child through the readers that they are sent home with as well as exposing them to a wide variety of texts. May Gibbs stories are an excellent resource for parents as they work with their children to develop a love of reading and tap into that gorgeous sense of wonder that children of this age have.
Start your child’s learning journey today! Peruse our range of May Gibbs tales and characters.
Contributed By Miss Louise
Miss Louise is a qualified teacher and here to help educators and teachers bring the magic of May Gibbs works to life for young minds
