LO 4.2

Learning Outcome: 4.2
Outline how family members, peers & other significant members in children's lives contribute to young children's awareness & immersion in key literacy & numeracy concepts, through describing how parents, peers & communities may see, feel & shape young children’s early literacy & numeracy experiences 

Community Kid’s Corner!!

As part of one of my university topics I recently created a model of an ideal children’s corner in a local library. The idea of the project was that our local council area was offering us $1500 to purchase resources that would provide benefits to the community via its youngest citizens.

It was all a part of a competitive grant process, where we all had to justify our spending and demonstrate the projects far-reaching value for very young children in our work in early childhood. I designed a kid’s corner which could be incorporated in the local library.

The Kids Corner offers a whole new learning space in the local library for children as small as infants to go in and play and learn and move around for a good, fun time! The room is literacy and numeracy inspired with many learning resources such as: books, art, numbers, puzzles, games, movies, music, pretend play, dress ups, animal posters, map of the world, clock, fish tank, building blocks, hop scotch, alphabet, etc. It is an environment for children to move freely and explore and experiment in. According to Tucker (2010), play builds a sense of ownership in the children, and promotes children’s self-esteem. Through play children can repeat, rehearse and refine skills, displaying what they do know and practising what they are beginning to understand.

The work of Vygotsky (1966, 1978) provides theoretical support for literacy- and numeracy-enriched play centres. He saw dramatic play as an important step in developing the ability to use and process written symbols. Several whole language theorists (Goodman, 1990; Holdaway, 1979; Strickland & Morrow, 1989) also support this view. They advocate capitalising on children's inherent desire to playfully explore the nature and purpose of reading and writing, stressing the importance of activities that are naturally motivating, child-initiated, "hands-on," developmentally appropriate and freely structured.

These are the children of our future, for this community to preserve its upright position we need to give our children every opportunity to develop and grow into healthy participants of our society. Some children in the community don’t have the resources at home to play and experiment, so thing free learning area in the local library- which has something for the rest of the family too- would be so convenient for so many families in the community. 

The Kids Corner will be maintained by the local library and donations from the community will be a constant reward. It benefits the community as it is free, is community built through donations and community support, with the aim to develop and grow the upcoming citizens, and gives a whole new aspect to the library and community.

References:

Goodman, Y. M. (1990). Children's knowledge about literacy development: An afterword. In Y. M. Goodman (Ed.), How children construct literacy (pp. 115-123). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Holdaway, D. (1979). The foundations of literacy. New York: Scholastic. 

Strickland, D. S., & Morrow, L. M. (1989). Environments rich in print promote literacy behavior during play. The reading teacher, 43(2), 178-179. 

Tucker, K. (2010). Mathematics through play in the early years. SAGE Publications: London.

Vygotsky, L. (1966). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. Soviet Psychology, 12(6), 62-76.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.