Literacy All Morning Or Not? Really Confused

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

I am currently teaching a Yr/1 class. I have 5 Year 1 children and 20 Year R children. Two of my Year 1 children are SEN. I used to do a literacy and numeracy session each morning but felt it was really rushed and I only got chance to see maybe one focus group each session. I then changed it to doing either a whole literacy morning or a whole numeracy morning which I felt was great because I was able to do a focus session with every child but I then worried because I wasn't covering enough content for my Year 1's. Please could someone let me know what they do and how it works for them because I am sooo confused as to which is the best way to do it.

[Guest]

I have all reception however I have 2 gifted and talented and are ready for year 1 work.

 

I currently offer whole morning sessions of either lit or num, I think aslong as you have differentiated and your year1s are being pushed it shouldn't matter if its an hour a day or 2mornings etc a week!! I feel the children give me better quality work this way as we always spent our time tidying etc and setting up for the next hour...they can develop and get really involved if its whole mornings, I would however make sure you have lit and num out for free choice or maybe even a 'must-do' job as extra for your year ones?! I aldo do a 10min maths input a day and obv daily phonics just to keep their brains ticking in both areas!!

 

Hope it offers you some help?!

 

Claire x

[Guest]

I would agree with Claire, if you do 10-15(ish) mins of phonics and maths mental/oral a day it shouldn't make any difference whether you do a maths/literacy session everyday or 2/3 times a week for a whole morning. My personal feeling is that it's quality teaching not quantity anyway. Some activities they are given in maths/english can just be 'holding' activities and don't actually teach them anything anyway! If some are SEN anyway they are not really ready for year 1 curriculum and the others just need work that is appropriate for their level. I hope this helps. xx

[Guest]

Thanks ladies, to be honest I was hoping people would say that whole mornings for either lit or num would be fine. I felt the quality of work was much better when we did this, but was worried we weren't covering everything we needed to.

[KST]

Just wanted to say that I totally agree. Again I just have reception and am currently running CLL or PSRN all morning and like you, think it works really well. I am going to introduce a daily task that they have to complete during their choosing time.

[Knoksk]

I got told today 80 / 20 80 % independant and 10% teacher input.

[Guest]

I had this problem a couple of years ago, 20 reception and 6 SEN Y1s. I did several short whole class phonics/mental maths sessions during the day and had adult led activities that were 'must dos' for the Y1s. I found fitting in science, geography, history etc curriculum that they were expected to do more difficult to cover.

[Guest]

the 80/ 20% refers to your observations ie 80% of your observations should be child initiated and 20% from adult led activities.

you should have a balance of child led and adult led actvities x