Enfoque 4: Problemáticas

● Review the provision of non-fictional texts in your settings – do they offer something for a range of interests for both boys and girls?

● Select a favourite fictional picture-book and consider the range of opportu-nities to lead into non-fiction study.

● Plan a local visit for a group of children. How could you develop a role-play area to help extend children’s understanding and experience of the visit?

● Plan an event to begin an imaginative correspondence in your setting.

Consider how you could capture the children’s imagination in order to engage the children in writing and reading letters, e-mails, cards, etc.

Consider how you might extend the scenario to engage the children in a non-fictional investigation.

To conclude this chapter, it is helpful to summarise the key areas related to ensuring young children engage creatively with non-fiction:

● Non-fictional texts are all around us and are often the first and most powerful texts encountered by young children.

● Play is the essential medium to explore and extend young children’s interests in, and interactions with, non-fiction.

● Shared reading and writing are useful tools to model searching for and disseminating information.

● Reading and writing non-fictional texts should be driven by the need to know and the desire to inform.

Developing your creative practice

In order to extend your creativity in the teaching of non-fiction in the Early Years, reflect on your current practice and have a go at the following activities:

DfEE (1998) The National Literacy Strategy Framework. London: DfEE.

DfEE (2000) Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage. London: DfEE/QCA.

DfES (2003) Speaking, Listening and Learning: Working with Children in KS1 and 2. London: DfES.

Featherstone, S. (2002) The Little Book of Cooking from Stories. Lutterworth: Featherstone Education Ltd.

Goodwin, P. (1999) The Literate Classroom. London: David Fulton Publishers.

Hall, N. (ed.) (1989) Writing with Reason: The Emergence of Authorship in Young Children. London:

Heinemann Educational Secondary Division.

Hall, N. (1999) ‘Young children, play and literacy: engagement in realistic uses of literacy’ in Marsh, J. and Hallet, E. (eds) Desirable Literacies. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Lewis M. and Wray, D. (1998) Writing across the Curriculum: Frames to Support Learning. Reading:

University of Reading.

Mosley, J. and Sonnet, H. (2001) Here We Go Round: Quality Circle Time for 3–5 Year Olds. Trowbridge:

Positive Press Limited.

Reggio Children (1996) The Hundred Languages of Children (exhibition catalogue). Municipality of Reggio Emilia.

Useful websites

The British Film Institute website is a great resource with some free downloadable materials and images for educational purposes:

www.bfi.org.uk/

A useful online encyclopaedia from the USA, which would need adult support to access.

http:encarta.msn.com/

The author of The Gruffalo gives plenty of information about herself here.

Unfortunately there is no link to e-mail her directly:

www.juliadonaldson.co.uk/

This is a useful website on children’s health designed for children to access:

www.childrenshealth.org.uk/

The Fire Brigade offers some helpful advice for children on fire safety:

www.staywise.co.uk/

Interflora offers some great visuals to enhance your role-play florist:

www.flowersdirect.co.uk/

This gives some useful information on Islam for children:

http:atschool.eduweb.co.uk/carolrb/islam/islamintro.html

The website for the UK Reading Association is particularly helpful on current research on critical literacies in the primary schools:

www.dfes.gov.uk/readwriteplus/teachingandlearning

Creative Teaching:English in the Early Years and Primary Classroom

This site contains some free downloadable resources to support circle time in the classroom:

www.circle-time.co.uk/site/home/

The MirandaNet website promotes international e-communication and offers a range of stimulating ideas for teachers:

www.worldecitizens.net/wecitizens/index.htm

This is a quirky site with very clear information on how to make and use a pinhole camera:

www.pinholephotography.org/

The official Teletubbies website:

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/teletubbies/

Children’s literature and other resources

Janet and Allan Ahlberg’s Peepo! (1981) Viking.

Pamela Allen’s Mr Archimedes’ Bath (1980) Bodley Head Children’s Books.

Nick Butterworth and Mick Inkpen’s Jasper’s Beanstalk (1992) Hodder Children’s Books.

Nick Butterworth’s Q Pootle 5 (2000) HarperCollins.

Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo (1985) Puffin Books.

Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1994) Hamish Hamilton.

Kathryn Cave (@ Oxfam) One Child One Seed (2003) Frances Lincoln Publishers.

Beatrice Hollyer’s Let’s Eat! Children and their Food Around the World (2003) Oxfam.

Tony Mitton and Ant Parker’s Roaring Rockets 5 (1997) Kingfisher.

Martin Waddell’s Owl Babies (1994) Walker Books.

Oxfam’s Discovery Flaps Series Come and Play with Us!

Arthur and Adrienne Yorinks’s Quack!: To the Moon and Home Again (2003) Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

Dorling Kindersley’s Amazing Animals DVD.

Teaching non-fiction creatively in the Early Years

Triceratops is a herbivore (that means he doesn’t eat animals) and he has three huge spikes on the top here and his skull is more than six feet long and he likes to eat trees and he is more than 65 million years old!

(Told very excitedly by Paul, aged 7)

Introduction

In this chapter we will look at how to develop the vital elements of functional non-fictional literacy from the Early Years, in order to support young children’s ability to discriminate, locate and record information effectively. We will look at how to continue to build on the vital non-fictional literary experiences and interests that the children are developing out of school in order to motivate and stimulate their enthusiasm and engagement in school. We will look at how to use the existing frameworks for English teaching as outlined in the National Curriculum(DfEE 2000) and the National Literacy Strategy Framework guidance for Y1 and Y2 (DfEE 1998) in a creative and innovative manner in order to main-tain and extend the children’s construction of, and interaction with, a range of non-fictional texts.