Term 1 - A Reflection

Term 1 started with a class of 8 New Entrant children and by the end there were 10. Not huge growth in numbers but it made for a good start. The remainder of my class will start in Term 2, mostly during May. Overall the children's  learning has progressed well, partly because of lower class numbers and partly due to their ability and attitude.

Literacy:
All but one of the children have good letter sound knowledge and they are starting to use this well in their writing and reading to help write and read unknown words. The same children have also begun to develop their knowledge of high frequency words. Apart from the one child all are reading at level 2 or 3 which is a good achievement for the short time some of them have had at school. The one child who is not making the same progress is having some difficulty learning letter names and sounds but has begun to learn some of the high frequency words. When reading he needs to focus carefully if he is read accurately. At present he is working daily in an early litetracy group. Early in the next term I will need to look at his learning and explore other ways to improve his progress. As for the rest of the class the focus will be not only on extending phonological and word knowledge but also on beginning to developing word solving and monitoring skills as well as greater understanding of what they read. 
Nost of the children are writing one or two sentences independently using known words and their letter sound knowledge. Most use spacing and some punctuation. The main focus for these children in term 2 will be on developing their ideas, exploring different ways of beginning their writing, extending the vocabularly they use and being focussed on the content/ideas in their writing.

Maths:
Most aprt from one child have a good knowledge of number to 10 easily and on to 20 and beyond. The one child who doesn't is not consistent counting 1-1 and does not know all the numbers to 10. Once again with this boy I will need to look at ways of improving this early in the term. The main numeracy focus in term2 now that their basic number knowledge is sound is to explore addition and subtraction. There are some in the class who have shown very good numeracy skills and these children will also need to be catered for.

Incoming Children:
Pre school visitors have been attending every Friday. Looking at some of the preliminary observations and how they work shows there may be some challenges here learning and behaviour wise. Most are coming from the same kindergarten and we have maintained a close relationship with them this term which hopefully helps the transition to school for these children.