1.3

SPECIFIES THE LEARNING APPROACHES YOU’LL USE & THE LEARNING ENVIRONS YOU’LL CREATE TO SUPPORT THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF EARLY LITERACY / NUMERACY.

Tags: Teaching philosophy, inclusiveness, disability, phonics, Vygotsky’s theory, Zone of Proximal Development, lessons, literacy, numeracy.

My personal teaching philosophy is to work as an Early Childhood Special Education Teacher in an inclusive and supportive environment where all children feel safe, happy, have the chance to explore, their world around them, create, be themselves, have fun and are provided with exciting learning opportunities in which to learn and practice new skills and for these skills to form the basis to build strong academic success in the future.

I hope that if I have a student or students with disabilities within a class that had any form of disability I could integrate and teach the rest of the children in the class to be accepting of differences and that they would all get along well together.  The child or children with the disability would not be teased, but accepted by the rest of their classmates.

I hope to provide fun interactive lessons that focus on a variety of different learning areas, which include literacy, numeracy, science, art, music, drama, digital media, and dance.  I know and understand that each child learns differently.  In the future I hope to be able to individually tailor a curriculum to the individual needs of the student.  I also hope to get to know the students, their families and involve them in all areas of the curriculum, I believe by working together everyone can achieve success.

I am aware of Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development and with little steps children learn from each other, as well as from their families, peers and wider community.  I look forward to students teaching each other new and exciting things.  I will facilitate this to the best of my ability.

My kindergarten classroom would have smaller areas set up which include a library, story mat, where the children could sit for story time that would occur daily and focus on books that featured literacy and numeracy principles.  Home corner, music corner, cubby house, sandpit, writing area, science / nature area, an outdoor grass shady area where I could read picture books to children, under a big tree during summer, making table, play dough/ plasticine where children could express their creative abilities, water play, garden including having the children grow flowers and vegetables and an area to cook.  All of these areas would encourage opportunities for learning and discovery using principles of literacy and numeracy.

I have enjoyed making the Animal phonic set of cards in Learning outcome 2.3 and look forward to using this within a kindergarten or preschool environment.  I also hope to explore other exciting ways I can incorporate the numbers set into my teaching in the future.  

My final wish is for me to help every child in my class to know they each have unique and special gifts, that they all have unique abilities.  If they have a wish to be something in the future, I hope I have the ability to nurture that wish and one day hope I was the inspiration for that wish or dream to come true, whatever that may be. 

As I am half way through my degree, I am sure my personal philosophy will continue to grow I acknowledge that it may change slightly in the future to incorporate new learning and knowledge.