LGA 3101 Childrens Literature ______________________________________________________________________________________

Task 1: 1.0

Justification of Selected Materials Based on Pedagogical Principles

Introduction When children discover enjoyment in reading literature, time is enriched, not wasted

and they can even imagine themselves in new places. They began to develop favourable attitudes towards reading and became appreciative at the same time. My seven years of teaching experience has taught me a wide range of reading materials that is used to monitor and respond to my pupils different learning needs, social needs and cultural perspectives. These are used to accommodate the range of abilities and interests, and to encourage diversity and autonomy in their own learning. As required for this project task, I have identified useful materials for the three genres of literature that are applicable in promoting a childs language development, building cognitive skills and also their social development. I will also briefly justify my selections based on the pedagogical principles that are relatively suitable to a group of year 3 pupils. 2.0 Nursery Rhymes I have selected five nursery rhymes that I believed are suitable to be used for my year 3 pupils. These nursery rhymes are intended as teaching aids for Unit 10 Razin At The Park as in the textbook. The selected nursery rhymes are Old Mc Donald, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Horsey Horsey and Mary Had A Little Lamb. I chose these particular simple songs so that I can fully utilise the pupils particular strengths and previous knowledge in supporting the lesson and thus make it more meaningful and have a great impact. I also hoped to build a concrete fundamental learning concept on the pupils prior learning, which may have taken place outside the school. The rhythms presented in these nursery rhymes are simple and repeated. They can be helpful for the year 3 pupils to remember the words while exercising their auditory memory skills. The rhymes can act as a springboard to increase their interest to sing and learn more about the animal world.

LGA 3101 Childrens Literature ______________________________________________________________________________________

Another reason is that, these rhymes use some words or phrases that are not used in everyday speech or concepts. For example, in Horsey Horsey the phrase clippetty clop and swish are used. Although they have no clear definition but they do mimic the sound of the horse itself. Other than that, in Mary Had A Little Lamb the word lingered and patiently are used. Although Malaysian pupils are not expose to these kind of words everyday, but they are undeniably beneficial for them to know as it would increase their vocabularies. In the future, these nursery rhymes will help the children to know how to read and spell a word when the time comes. 3.0 Children Stories In this genre, I have selected four simple stories. I prefer to choose a one page length of stories because pedagogically speaking, they are easier to read and I could actively seek a way to increase my pupils knowledge and interest through them. Giving them a lengthy one would spoil the enjoyment of reading and the sense of appreciations towards a good piece of literature. My selections of stories are The Ants and The Grasshopper, The Fox and The Crow, The Tortoise and The Hare and The Princess and The Pea. These stories will be given as enrichments or additional readings for theme world of stories as they could be used in a few subunits which available in the textbook. Personally, I see children stories as a medium to teach the pupils about moral lessons which will be planted in their young minds and that they can ponder upon as they grow older. At a tender age of 9 years old, the pupils at this point are starting to make connections between what they read to the real world. Through reading, the pupils can freely provide their feedbacks or expressing ideas in the while-reading activities that challenges them to review, reflect on and refine their understandings at various points in the lesson. What I hope to achieve through these literatures is to set extensions to tasks that favour lateral thinking by asking them to guess the ending part. For example, in The Princess and The Pea, the pupils must guess what happen to the princess before I continue reading the story for them. Such adaptations also call for me to devise tasks that ask for a variety of solutions from my pupils. Having said that, I should expect various

LGA 3101 Childrens Literature ______________________________________________________________________________________

responses which would indicate how well they understood the first half of the text. At the end, it is also encouraging the pupils to be discoverers, explorers and creators in a variety of ways Other than that, short stories help in the enhancement of children's imaginative thinking which leads to creativity. By reflecting on my teaching experiences, I noticed that children are being trained to think imaginatively even while listening or reading stories in accordance to how the story describes the setting, characters, and events that took place in the story. For example, in The Tortoise and The Hare the pupils could tell other animals in the audience which witnessing the race or how fast the hare could run as well as how slow the tortoise could be at the beginning of the story. 4.0 Short Play The short play that I have chosen is the classic fairytale Cinderella which I adopted from the playscripts from KIDSINCO.com. I strongly believed that conducting a short play in the classroom could explicitly help my year 3 pupils to link new ideas that are useful in producing a creative end product. To me, this is a good teaching strategy as in having them to brainstorm or to generate ideas, then listing them out to encourage flexible and coherent thoughts. Slowly, the pupils will develop the simple playscript of Cinderella into a play that they completely understand and will whole-heartedly participate in. What makes the Cinderella in a different league to me as compared to any other children short plays is that the script is light, easy going and supported with a very interesting storyline, plots that are easy to understand, simpler choice of words as well as strong characters that most children are familiar with. This play will help to broaden their perspective about activities, chores or affairs happening in other families in different parts of the world beside their own. I also prefer to go with this play as it will give the pupils some timely feedback throughout making the simple props and while in rehearsal sessions. This is also a good communicate approach to organize response from both players and the audience or the rest of the class who are not involved directly in the play. Based on their feedbacks, I could restructure the areas well or weakly handled in each of the stages to support further learning and thus implement any necessary steps for improvement.

LGA 3101 Childrens Literature ______________________________________________________________________________________

Task 2 1.0 Teaching Activity : : : Children Stories World of Stories The fox and The Crow 1. Name the animals shown in the video correctly. 2. Retell the story heard correctly. Set Induction : Pre Reading : While Reading: Post Reading: Teacher distributes worksheet. Pupils write the correct number in each blank to sequence the story. Whole class discussion. Pupils name the moral values and teacher justifies briefly. Choral reading. Closure : Enrichment : Pupils share their feelings. Worksheet- Comprehension Questions (without guidance and clues) Teacher reads the story, pauses a few times and asks the Pupils respond accordingly. Pupils take turns to read aloud. Teacher distributes worksheet about true or false statement to Pupils read again and tick their answers. Discussion about the characters and the storyline. pupils to predict what happen next. Teacher focuses only on two animal sounds. Pupils guess the name of the animals. Teacher introduces and briefly explains the characteristics of the animals by using pictures. Teacher displays the pictures on the blackboard to assist reading. Audio cues about a few familiar animal sounds including fox and crow. Activity Theme Title Objective:

check on the pupils comprehension level.

LGA 3101 Childrens Literature ______________________________________________________________________________________

Remedial 2.0

Worksheet- Fill in the blanks.

Bibliotheraphy By definition, bibliotherapy is an expressive therapy that uses an individual's

relationship to the content of books and poetry and other written words as therapy. In the above lesson, I have identified three bibliotheraphy elements that I believe to be appropriate and suitable with the story. They are: To motivate the pupils in exercising good moral values. To assist them in the development of perspective-taking. To understand of the problems faced by the both animal characters in the story. The following discussion is based on my bibliotheraphic emphasis in the lesson and not according to the order of the lesson development. In my lesson, the major bibliotherapic element is emphasized in the post-reading stage. After conducting the discussion on sequencing the sentences, I will divert their attention into discussing the moral values that they think are suitable with the story. Here, I will provide guidance so that they are able to list more than one value. Based on these values, I will try to instil the benefits of being good to others so that their sense of motivation is uplifted to do so. The second and third bibliotheraphic elements are inserted during the discussion which done in the while-reading activity. In my opinion, conducting a discussion of the characters will help my pupils to understand the story better and also to know the relationship between them. At this point, the pupils should be able to construct their own perspective about the good and bad characters and will be able to express their feelings towards these characters. The same discussion also allows me to help the pupils view the story from both sides of the characters. First, they will try to see the story through the foxs side and later diverted their focus to the crows and thus understanding the problems that faced by them.

LGA 3101 Childrens Literature ______________________________________________________________________________________

In short, those are all three bibliotheraphic elements that I have identified from the story. I hope these elements will be useful in attracting my pupils interest to attentively read the story throughout the lesson and also to build up their sense of appreciation towards any piece of literature in the future.