What to teach? When to screen? How to cater for the range in ability?

This course will provide you with the structure and tools to improve the literacy outcomes of your early years students.
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About the Pre-Literacy in the Early Years Course

Recommended for - staff working within Kindergarten (WA, QLD, SA, TAS) and Pre-school (ACT, NT, NSW, VIC)
Course presenter - Diana Rigg BA(Ed), BEd, CPP(UK), MEd, MSc(SpPath)
Course length - 3 hours viewing plus quiz
Access to course - 90 days
Certificate - Awarded upon completion
Supporting materials - Reference material available for download


Pre-Literacy in the Early Years Course Description

The EARLY YEARS are a period of significant potential learning. It is essential that balanced within an early childhood framework key skills (for later literacy and learning) are developed. The explicit instruction of phonological awareness, alphabet sounds, and oral language is imperative. Within this course 'age appropriate' (i.e. fun, engaging but rich and clear) learning experiences will be demonstrated with PLD programs and also with general resources.

How much explicit instruction is required? Three or four three-minute explicit instruction sessions each day, in addition to short one-minute progress checks.

PLD supports play, socialisation, inquiry, activities, child-centered approaches, and some direct development of key skills that set up young children for success within the education system.

This cost effective short course is comprised of 4 installments

Follow the links in the detailed course description below for a FREE PREVIEW of Installment 1.
Note: You'll be asked to create an account prior to the preview but you will not be charged at this point.

Installment 1: A start to the year with oral language & phonological awareness (PREVIEW)

  • Explore theoretical themes from 'meta-analysis' review on how to prepare children for literacy.
  • Explore the need to balance 'early childhood' with some explicit teaching of key pre-literacy skills.
  • Cover the impact of oral language on pre-literacy, early literacy, and later literacy development.
  • Outline how to start the year with oral language activities and phonological awareness.
  • Presentation of simple time-efficient processes to track skill acquisition.

Installment 2: Establishing the beginnings of phonemic awareness

  • Explore further theoretical themes from 'meta-analysis' reviews on how to prepare children for literacy.
  • Clarification of the difference between phonological awareness and phonemic awareness.
  • Provide tips for working with children with speech, language, and attention difficulties, while continuing to extend vocabulary and initial sound awareness.
  • Presentation of the next tool for checking on progress.

Installment 3: Teaching the alphabet in a manner that will support early readers.

  • Introduce the basic principles of synthetic phonics, which underlies the PLD approach to teaching the alphabet.
  • Demonstrations on how to explicitly teach the alphabet using PLD's 'Alphabet and early phonics, the multi-sensory way' or a set of generic alphabet cards.
  • Present the next tool for checking on progress.
  • Guidelines for alphabet for reading and spelling.
  • Tips for when children are slow to acquire the alphabet.
  • Presentation of two screening tools track the rate of alphabet acquisition.

Installment 4: The beginnings of blending and establishing a full-year plan.

  • Explanation of how it takes time to develop strong, consistent, and independent alphabet skills.
  • Recommend that blending is introduced while continuing to develop alphabet skills.
  • Further explanations of synthetic phonics.
  • Demonstrations on how to explicitly introduce blending.
  • The presentation of two screening tools track the rate of blending skill acquisition.
  • Tips - when children are experiencing difficulty with blending.
  • Investigate how to create a schedule over a year to sequence the primary pre-literacy skills.

Interested in this training for more of your team?

We offer discounts for group sign ups. Click on the links below for more information.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Diana Rigg

Founder of PLD Literacy and Learning

Diana Rigg founded PLD Organisation because she recognised a large gap in the time it took for research findings to make it into practice in the classroom. With a Master’s degree in Education and Speech Pathology, Diana was convinced she could help close that gap, offering assistance to parents, teachers, and school systems looking for help in promoting literacy to the young people in their lives. With extensive experience as a Classroom Teacher, Specialist Literacy Teacher and Speech Pathologist, Diana understood what was needed. Drawing on over 15 years as a Professional Educational Consultant, Diana assembled a passionate team of Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists and Designers to help her translate the latest research and best practices from around the world into attractive, easy to use resources for both the home and classroom setting. Diana is active in both consultancy and publishing. Understanding the challenges of a classroom puts Diana in the perfect positions to deliver quality products aligned with school learning systems. Extensive experience in consultancy allows her to develop products suitable for use in the home either as supplemental lessons or as part of a homeschooling curriculum. In February 2010, Diana was recognised as one of Western Australia’s top “40 under 40” by the WA Business News. For more information on Diana’s work, you can Contact Diana or connect via Facebook or LinkedIn

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