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LEARNING UNIT 4
RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT TO SUPPORT TEACHING AND LEARNING
ACTIVITIES
The approximate time you should take to work through Learning Unit 4, is 23 hours. 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Learning outcomes 4.3 Resource development to support culturally responsive learning activities 4.4 Resource development to support Language 4.5 Resource development to support Mathematics 4.6 Resource development to support Life Skills 4.7 Self-assessment questions 4.8 Conclusion 4.1 Introduction This learning unit looks at how to integrate the vast majority of resources available, into meaningful learning activities. If you can recall, we discussed the importance of resources in facilitating and supporting teaching and learning in a previous learning unit. However, we have not yet investigated what teaching and learning entail in the Foundation Phase. The Continuous Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) (DBE 2011), which reflects the national curriculum, helps shape and direct the teaching and learning that need to be covered in an academic year. CAPS clearly defines the subjects, content areas, as well as topics and focus points that need to be addressed per term, per grade. These focus points are then translated into specific learning outcomes (LOs), when planning your lesson, to guide you in your choice of resources to support your learners in achieving the set LOs. Furthermore, CAPS also outlines recommended resources that can be used for each specific content area, per term. Table 4.1, taken from CAPS Life Skills (Gr R–3) (DBE 2011), indicates this: Table 4.1: CAPS Life Skills (Gr R–3)
Source: DBE (2011:15) My advice is that you download the CAPS documents for Language, Mathematics and Life Skills (Gr R–3) for Foundation Phase (DBE 2011), and use them in conjunction with this module guide (RDF2601). This will allow you to refer to the relevant sections mentioned, while working through the module content of this learning unit. 4.2 Learning outcomes When you have completed this unit, you should be able to
- design and create learning activities that are culturally responsive
- design and create learning activities according to the relevant subjects – Language, Mathematics and Life Skills for the Foundation Phase – using appropriate resources
- present learning activities in the Foundation Phase using appropriate resources to support teaching and learning
- develop lesson plans that reflect the ability to design, create and use appropriate resources
- discuss how observed lessons reflect the ability of the student teacher to effectively use resources to enhance learning in the Foundation Phase. Key concepts These key concepts and terms also appear in the Multilingual Glossary under Additional Resources :
- culturally responsive creating learning content relevant to your learners, by incorporating their values, attitudes and indigenous knowledge into the delivery of your learning activities
and no one person will belong to just a single group. As you read this now, most of you belong to a peer group and a family, both of which represent distinctive ways of looking at the world. The word “responsive”, as defined by Merriam Webster (2019), involves “reacting appropriately or sympathetically” and offers the word “sensitive” as an alternative. Therefore, we can assume that to be culturally responsive is to respond to the diverse cultures your learners represent, in an appropriate and sensitive manner. The view of Hollins and Oliver (1999 in Mafuwane & Mahlangu
- is that “culturally responsive teaching practices recognise, respect and use learners’ identities and backgrounds as meaningful sources for creating optimal leaning environments”. In the case of this module and the content we are discussing, it can be said that your learners are your resources for developing and selecting support material, and their cultural backgrounds should always be taken into consideration when planning learning activities. As indicated, culture defines who we are and therefore affects what, how and why we learn. Mafuwane and Mahlangu (2015:560) explain it well in their article when they state that “the process of teaching cross-border learners, their cultural backgrounds and the manner in which they are being taught need[ ] to be taken into consideration to ensure that what is taught becomes meaningful and the innate potential of these learners is exposed and developed”. In other words, it is your task as a teacher to make the learning content relevant to your learners, by incorporating their values, attitudes and indigenous knowledge into the delivery of your learning activities, in order to “speak to” and “reach” each and every one. 4.3.2 Resources that support culturally responsive learning activities The Foundation Phase of education lays the cornerstone for a child's lifelong learning journey, making it a critical period for fostering culturally responsive teaching practices. In this formative stage, children are not only acquiring foundational academic skills, but also developing their sense of identity, belonging, and understanding of the world around them. In recognising the significance of this developmental stage, educators must harness resources that support culturally responsive learning activities tailored to the unique needs and backgrounds of young learners. These resources encompass a diverse range of materials, strategies, and approaches which are specifically designed to engage learners in meaningful ways that honour their cultural identities,
promote inclusivity, and foster a sense of belonging in the classroom. This exploration aims to delve into the various resources available to educators within the Foundation Phase, examining their role in promoting culturally responsive teaching, and enriching the educational experiences of young learners as they embark on their educational journey. The following guidelines for attaining and/or presenting culturally responsive materials have been adapted from Fox and Schirrmacher (2012:245):
- Look for themes that run across all cultures, for example, the body, play, family, homes, food, music and stories, and represent these through your resources. o Bring in photos of your learners’ families and use these on your theme table, when discussing families. o Try to incorporate traditional toys and games into your class and lessons. Examples include draadkarre (wire cars), pull toys made out of recycled parts, or South African cloth and bead dolls. An idea could even be to design stacking rings (an educational toy) that are representative of the Ndebele neck rings, or are covered in dress material found in the Xhosa tradition. Different-sized balls can be made out of plastic bags to play various games such as dibeke (a kick-and-run ball game) or soccer. Stones can be collected to play games such as diketo , an eye-hand coordination game similar to that played with marbles. Follow the link for a brief description of nine indigenous games that were played in South Africa for the Annual Indigenous Games Festival in 2015 (duration: 5 minutes): https://www.gov.za/speeches/sport-and-recreation-south-africa-hosts-annual- indigenous-games-festival- 20 - 24 - sept- 17 - sep / o See also Indigenous Games in SA have evolved (youtube.com) (Sport and Recreation South Africa, 2015). Otherwise, a brilliant resource can be found at the next link, or downloaded from the myUnisa: eReserves. It presenting various opportunities for play and focuses on South African children: http://www.a-chance-to- play.org.za/ downloads/MANUAL-REVISED-2017.pdf (Talbot & Thornton 2017). Figure 4.1 depicts toys made from recycled materials.
South African culture, have your learners tell their traditional stories to each other, and then illustrate these to create your own storybooks for the class. You could even go so far as to write stories in their home language, and then in the language of teaching and learning. 4.4 Resource development to support Language The CAPS (DBE 2011) document organises languages into two subjects – Home Language and First Additional Language (FAL). The document further defines the skills necessary for language acquisition under the following four categories: listening and speaking; reading and phonics; writing and handwriting; as well as thinking and reasoning. An integrated approach to teaching languages reminds us that the language programme is integrated into all other subject areas. Language is used across the curriculum in all oral work, reading and writing. Many of the Listening and Speaking Language skills will be developed within Mathematics and Life Skills, which is made up of many subjects such as Creative Arts and Beginning Knowledge including Personal and Social Well-being, Natural Sciences and Technology and the Social Sciences. Themes and topics can be selected from these subject areas to provide contexts for the teaching of language skills. (DBE 2011:8) To access further details about supporting language through resource development, follow the link to watch the video of 40 minutes in length. Resources and Strategies to Support Communication and Language Development 4.4.1 Listening and speaking Children are constantly developing their listening and speaking skills not only in each of the components of Language, but also in other subjects. Because listening and speaking are crucial to all learning, it is important that these skills are effectively developed early
on in a child’s academic life. In the Foundation Phase, time is specifically dedicated to the development of these two important skills. The time allocated for listening and speaking provides for (1) the time spent at the beginning of the day and (2) focused listening and speaking activities. Each morning should begin with a brief whole-class oral activity with the learners. Use this time to
- talk about the day, date, the weather chart, learners who have birthdays, and any special events for the day.
- check attendance: take roll call to identify which learners are present/absent.
- listen to a few learners share their news, ‘show and tell’ about a picture or object, talk about the day, sports, concerts, topical events and story-telling. Try to listen to every learner’s news at least once every two weeks. To deepen your understanding of this specific aspect of listening and speaking in the Foundation Phase, I encourage you to explore the following link to watch a video (duration: 35 minutes): English Listening and Speaking Practice | English Conversation Source: DBE (2011:10) The following resources may be valuable to you:
- A weather chart, for promoting the listening and speaking routine within CAPS. Weather charts can range from simple charts to more complex weather stations. When creating weather charts or downloading free printables from an online platform, remember to ensure that the images of the seasons or weather conditions are representative of South Africa. For example, for a cold day, a snowflake is not necessarily relevant and a picture with dry grass and bare trees would be more applicable to our climate.
Teaching reading comprises the teaching of various skills through a range of approaches, methods and strategies. The skills necessary to learn to read are organised in CAPS in terms of the following four components: phonemic awareness, word recognition, comprehension, and vocabulary and fluency. CAPS further stresses the importance of each of these being “taught explicitly and practised on a daily basis” (DBE 2011:14). Before you embark on this activity, follow this link to watch the video (duration: 5 minutes) to enhance your understanding: Shared Reading: First Grade # Shared reading usually happens in the first 15 minutes of the Reading and Writing Focus Time. The teacher works with the whole class. Shared reading happens two to four days a week, using a single, enlarged text for the whole class, such as big books, posters and pictures, or a text on an overhead projector, or individual fiction and non-fiction texts for each learner. Although normally only one text is used per week, the texts selected for each grade should increase in length and complexity across the year and across the grades. Learners should be introduced to a range of stories, poems, rhymes and plays, as well as informational texts. ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1gBauKkbJs STATEMENT (CAPS) Each shared reading session will have a learning focus from the following: concepts of print, text features, phonics, language patterns, word identification strategies and comprehension at a range of levels (e.g., literal, reorganisation, inferential, evaluation and appreciation questions). The first session focuses on the enjoyment and first “look” at the text, with the learners giving a personal response to the text. In the next session the same text is used and the focus shifts to more involvement in the reading, with the teacher using the discussions that take place to develop vocabulary, comprehension, decoding skills and text structures (grammar, punctuation, etc.). On the third (and possibly the fourth) day, the learners read the text themselves and engage in oral, practical and written activities based on the text. Some texts might only be used over a day or two, especially in grades 2 and 3.
Paired and independent reading Paired and independent reading offers learners reading practice and encourages reading for enjoyment. They can reread their class or group readers, simple “fun” books, or supplementary readers. The text should be at a lower level than that used for Shared and Group Guided Reading. Paired reading can take place at anytime, anywhere, as a class reading activity. Leaners can sit in pairs in- or outside of the classroom to read together, take turns to read, or two learners who have completed their tasks can read together while the others complete their work. If learners read books on their own they also develop fluency, provided that the books are easy enough for them to read without help. Short, simple books with predictable text and colourful illustrations are ideal. Some teachers like to give learners individual reading to do at home. Home reading should consist of re- reading the group reading book, or reading simple, “fun” books. This extra reading practice, done on a daily basis, plays an important role in learning to read. Source: DBE (2011:11) Taking the above into account, it is vital that you obtain – through charitable donations, community partnerships, fundraising or resource procurement programmes – as much reading material as possible, which is as varied as possible. As indicated in the shared and ability-group reading strategies, different levels of reading material are vital: for example, moving from easy-to-follow books with short, simple sentences and large font, to more multifaceted stories with longer, more complex sentences and smaller font. With regard to independent reading, learners need to be able to choose something of interest to them, to read during this period. These requirements alone call for a selection of texts. In addition, CAPS (DBE 2011) states that these skills need to be practised every day and, to maintain learners’ interest and reflect their diversity, the types of texts available to them need to be wide-ranging. Consider obtaining big books, short stories, novels/chapter books, poems, nonsense rhymes, joke books, encyclopaedias, magazines, biographies, newspapers, instruction manuals, catalogues, travel brochures, recipe books, maps, brochures, pamphlets, etc. Anything which has print on it, can be incorporated into your lesson activities and integrated across the curriculum. The more variation you provide with your texts, the more differentiation you will be offering and, hence, the better the comprehension your learners can build. In cases where material
- Useful activities to develop basic skills such as listening include listening games, nursery rhymes, rhyming games and games using alliteration (words that begin with the same sound). Source: DBE (2011:14). As indicated, various activities for developing phonemic awareness appear in the curriculum, and most of them would benefit from the manipulation of certain learning and teaching support material. Games and resources that highlight the development of auditory and visual discrimination skills are necessary to achieve phonemic awareness. For example:
- Matching games could be made by tracing objects onto a piece of paper. Learners have to match the object to its silhouette. Pictures can be created by cutting out images from scrap paper/paint swatches and pasting them onto cardboard from used cereal boxes. Scrap material can be pasted onto cardboard, and learners can be asked to match the patterns (see Figure 4.4). Figure 4.4: Matching games
- Spot-the-difference activities can easily be printed offline, or if a printer and worksheets are not easy to come by, try setting up two identical trays with slight differences as a 3D spot the difference. Or, take a photo of the items, make slight changes, and display on a projector. For more advanced learners, images like the one in Figure 4.5 can be used or redrawn for them to complete.
Figure 4.5: Spot the difference
- Rhyming activities can be played or books read that highlight rhyming words (these can be nonsense or real words). The images in Figure 4.6 depict activities where learners need to select the rhyming word by means of a peg, build the puzzle by finding the rhyming words, find the two objects that rhyme, or build words on top of each other using the inner carboard tubes of toilet rolls. Lastly, you could use the cardboard core of a roll of toilet paper, cut in two, with the first letter written on one piece and the last part of the word on the other. Learners then spin the first letter and read the new word which forms once the roll has stopped spinning to form a new word which rhymes with the last. Figure 4.6: Rhyming activities
- “I spy” games
- Building puzzles
- Sorting activities, such as sorting objects/flashcards that start with a given letter (e.g., a
Figure 4.8) Figure 4.8: Additional ways of creating sight words o Tongue depressors (see Figure 4.9) Figure 4.9: Ice-cream sticks and tongue depressors may be used to create sight words o Bottle lids o A wall/floor, using chalk o Interlocking plastic or wooden blocks. Even if words are written in a permanent marker, they will easily come off with a wipe and some nail polish remover, so the blocks can be used again and thus retain their multipurpose functionality (see Figure 4.10) Figure 4.10: Words on blocks, images on a wall
- Words and sentences can be built using the following: o Letters cut out from a magazine or newspaper o Alphabetic fridge magnets
o Individual letters written on paint swatches, bottle lids, cardboard disks, tongue depressors, etc. (see Figure 4.11) Figure 4.11: Making words and sentences, using various materials o Cupcake cups can be used, with a letter written inside. To extend this, learners can use their letter pebbles or bottle lids to match letters to the correct cupcake cup (see Figure 4.12) Figure 4.12: Matching letters using cupcake cups, bottle tops and stones o Clothes pegs that have letters written on them, or foam letters glued onto them (see Figure 4.13).
their eyes need time to refocus from the board to the page in front of them, and their short- term visual memory may not be well developed. It helps to give [learners] in grades 1– 3 writing strips containing a row of letters for [them] to copy during Handwriting. Source: DBE (2011:19) Letter formation is the child or learner’s ability to correctly form or shape the letters of the alphabet, in such a way that s/he adheres to a cultural standard (e.g., as taught at a specific school, or in a certain region). Learners who receive the correct mediation while they are still learning to write, are able to become competent writers, which ultimately affects their success across the curriculum during their school career. When we discuss various writing activities to do with your learners, it is important to note that each letter formation must be taught first, and then practised. Before we begin with the various resources to use to teach and practise handwriting skills, follow the link below for a 13-minute video demonstrating how to form upper- and lowercase letters correctly when writing: Learn To Write ABC Alphabet Uppercase & Lowercase Letters! ABC Video For Preschool Kids, Toddlers. While watching the video, take note of starting points, directions and end points when forming letters. Use the alphabet provided below, to make your notes. Otherwise follow the next link to download lowercase letter tracing cards that you can print and laminate for various handwriting activities: https://www.kindergartenworksheetsandgames.com/2019/03/lowercase-letters-trace-erase.html This is only one of many free downloadable resources you can use. If you do further research, you will find ones you like or, better yet, design your own. When designing your own letter-tracing cards or making your own flashcards, it is important to use the correct font for Foundation Phase learners. Fonts that are too decorative or difficult to read will only hinder your learners’ ability in reading and writing skills. Go onto Additional Resources to download the ABC Junior Typing font to use for any worksheets, flashcards, posters, letter/numeral tracing cards, class labels, etc. Figure 4. shows an example of what the font looks like:
Aa Bb Cc
Dd Ee Ff
Gg Hh Ii
Jj Kk Ll
Mm Nn Oo
Pp Qq Rr
