6) The area which will be looked at in the nationally developed curriculum is Word Study and Proof Reading. This was researched and developed by the Education Department of Western Australia.
Learning about words through the use of publishing is an individual process and children would need to:
* accept responsibility for their own learning. This includes how to spell correctly
* be involved in open-ended activities and be able to work at their own level of competency
* have fun when learning how language works
* be given opportunities to explore language and play with words to increase their knowledge about words
* have easy access to correct spelling models
* know how to learn difficult words
Level 2 - Strand Information
Student Outcomes:
* Manipulate graphics, layout, print size and style
* Create a series of sequential pictures and present them in a flip book
* Use bright colours to decorate packaging so that it is
noticed
7) Off-computer based activities
Create a book based on the letter 'L'.
Firstly children brainstorm as many letters beginning with the letter 'L' as they can, exploring the different sounds that this particular letter may make
The children are then allocated a word which has begun with the letter L.
The children each create a sentence featuring the word beginning with the letter L.
Once the children have completed the sentence, they can then begin to create a picture to illustrate their particular sentence.
Once all the sentences and drawings have been completed, the
teacher would then construct an 'L' book.
8) Computer-based activities related to the topic
Using the SimpleText program the students would publish their sentence, changing the font, size and style to suit their purposes.
The students would also have the computer read out their sentence so that they can actually hear the 'L' word in a sentence.
SimpleText would also be beneficial to use in other sentence work in which the students were using particular sounds as they would then be able to hear those sounds in context.
Once the sentences have been completed and printed out the
sentences can be combined together to create a book based of the letter
'L'.
Magic Words
Using SimpleText change one letter at a time and then use the voice function to hear the changes
The rules:
Change on letter at a time
Make a real word each time you change a letter
You may change the order of the letters
Use block letters
Example:
BELL CAT
BELT BAT
BOLT BAD
9) Classroom management and evaluation strategies
While the children are typing the sentences, this should be based on a roster system so that no unnecessary disruption should occur. While the children are drawing , one should be typing on the computer and this process would continue until each child has completed the exercise.
The evaluation of this activity would be demonstrated through the proficiency each child has shown using SimpleText and the quality of the published sentence. Whether the children has varied the size of the text, whether the font has be altered and whether they used the sound function to listen to their sentence spoken.
When students are playing games using SimpleText this would again have to be monitored by a roster system. The evaluation of the game would take place when the child printed our the published activity.