Part A:

Scenario 1: Riley

The trouble that Riley has to face to during his reading is the difficulties in dealing with
phonological awareness and decipher complicated words. Riley makes common mistakes
such as omissions, substitutions (for example, he uses “sat” as a substitute for “lay”),
distortion (he finds it hard to pronounce “echidna”), as well as addition (Pilat & Kilanowski-
Press, 2011). Lacking of enthusiasm leads to Riley’s phonological disorders, it could be seen
clearly as he asks to stop. According to Pullen & Justice (2013), lacking phonological
awareness might lead the children to the inaccurate and influent reading skills, additionally, it
lays a negative impact on the children’s social communication, academic performance and
achievement. Therefore, it is necessary to use shared reading as a teaching approach to
support the literacy learning of Riley. The children have an engaging reading experience
through the shared reading collaborating with songs, poems and big books, this also help
encourage the children in reading independently (Rog & Galloway, 2017). In additional,
Riley is provided opportunities to not only listen to words which are started with particular
sounds, but also listen to the rhymes throughout the story (Adams et al., 1998). According to
Adams et al. (1998), this teaching strategy is beneficial in develop Riley’s phonological
awareness and his capabilities in decoding words through the actions of pointing, talking
about words and the ways to sound out words that are unknown. Shared reading provides
opportunities for educators to model fluent reading with expressions and also enrich the
vocabulary of the children (Lapp et al., 2013).

The Big Book “Have you seen my cat?” by Eric Carle is used for the shared reading activity.
Smith et al (2004) stated that the predictable events and high-frequency words in this books
bring the learning experience with joy and interaction for the children. To help the children
construct meaning, the first reading of the book has been done (Smith et al., 2004). In the
introduction of the activity, educator talks about the story title, the cover page and request the
children to predict what will happen in the story. During the reading, educator reads the story
with suitable tone and attitude, it is important to point to and emphasize the words while
reading. It is recommended for educator to pause occasionally throughout the story and ask
the children to predict the words, phrases or the next events. Open-ended questions should be
applied in discussion to connect the children’s prior knowledge and make them feel
enthusiastic (Adams et al., 1998; Smith et al., 2004). Educator highlights the repetitive words
such as “cat” and phrases, sentences such as “Have you seen…? or This is not…” with
coloured markers. According to Fellowes & Oakley (2014), the children memorise better
when they hear and see repetitive words, sentence or phrases often. Then, educator allows the
children to read out loud these highlighted words, phrases and sentences.

Scenario 2: Mia

As clearly showed in the scenario, Mia has confidence in reading the text and well question
answering. However, the problem that Mia faces is comprehension. When answering the
questions from the teacher, the information that Mia gives is irrelevant as she attempts to
connect the answers with her own experiences (ACARA, 2018). Teachers or more capable
others assist Mia in guided reading is an appropriate approach which encourage and support
Mia’s reading because she starts to read texts independently (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). The
children are divided into different groups according to their interests, needs and purposes,
they have chance to enhance individual’s involvement and the growth of literacy by given an
“instructional level text” (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014, p. 283; Lapp et al., 2013). Dividing the
children into groups benefits educator in focusing on each child, recognise misconception and
through that they address their target questions (Duke & Pearson, 2001). Teacher plays a vital
role in this teaching strategy as they scaffold and guide the children to the right way because
the children “read, talk and think their way through the text” (Department of Education,
Employment and Training, 2018). There are some effective teaching strategies that can be
applied in teaching reading comprehensions such as activating prior knowledge, questioning,
predicting, inferring, re-reading and guiding the children the ways to utilise resources within
the text and themselves (Gabl et al., 2007). Additionally, organising a discussion after
reading to talk about the text, to share the children’s opinions or feeling about the text is also
a good way to support the children’s comprehension (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014).

A group of three to six children with similar interests, needs and purposes if formed to do the
guided reading group activity. There are five steps in this activity:

First of all is the “turn in” to reading step, visual prompts based on the text’s content, for
example, a picture or puppet are shown to the children. Together with educator, the children
discuss about these prompts. To activate prior knowledge and encourage the reading ability,
the discussion should be related to the children’s past experiences (Fellowes & Oakley,
2014).
Secondly, booking introduction step provides an overview of the book content to let the
children be ready to read the book experiences (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). Applying
teaching strategies during discussion such as allowing the children to predict what will
happen in the story by looking at the cover, showing them some reading strategies to
overcome difficulty such as difficult words and asking questions to help the children focus on
the right direction (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014).

Thirdly, independent reading allows the children to read independently silently. While the
children are reading, educator conducts running records for each child’s reading by checking
reading ability of each child through observation of their reading behaviours or body
language (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014).

Fourthly, discussion step lets the children share the reading strategies they used and what
difficulties they faced while reading. Educator can require the children to link to other texts
or themselves. Another way for teacher to check the children’s understanding is to ask them
to sequence, summarise or retell the story; they are also encouraged to raise questions for
their peers; self-reflect by sharing thoughts or feelings experiences (Department of Education,
1997).

Finally, the following-activity step suggests educator to organise some learning experiences
that allow the children to re-read the book to have an in-depth understanding (Fellowes &
Oakley, 2014). Some activities must be considered such as word ladders, working sentences
with similar context.

Part B:

Scenario 1: Harper

Harper is facing problem with spelling as evidenced in his written text. He shows his inability
in distinguishing certain sounds and he hugely relies on the phonic analysis of words to spell,
for instance, “scard”, “gowing”, “fery” (Christie, 2005). The role of spelling ability is
significantly important in his learning, in order to “create short imaginative and informative
texts”, he needs guidance (ACARA, 2018). According to Jones et al (2010), a tool that is
considered as powerful in enhancing the understanding of spelling, grammar, punctuation and
sentence structure is interactive writing. This provides educator and Harper opportunities to
cooperate in both writing and composing (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014). The interactive writing
activity only allows one or two individual engage in any given time, thus, the support that
teacher provides to Harper can be reached at the high level (Rog & Galloway, 2017).

The cooperation with educator to produce a short and meaningful text by using Book Creator-
an application which is used to write the text, is the learning experience designed for Harper.

Firstly, educator offers active learning experiences by connect the prior knowledge of Harper
to the lesson such as his life experience or his interested topics, which makes him feel more
active and self-confident with his writing (Button et al., 1996).

Secondly, in establishing the topic, based on what Harper share about his experience,
educator and him decide the text’s purpose, audience and the topic. The teacher explains and
supports Harper to sharp his ideas, words and sentence structure that he is going to write
(Roth & Dabrowski, 2014).

Thirdly, Harper composes the text with the text’s specific content discussed. Educator assists
Harper in using accurate language in the text while he continues contribute ideas (Roth &
Dabrowski, 2014). When a suitable sentence is formed, the educator requires Harper to repeat
several times so that he memorise and make a prediction what the next coming word in that
sentence when he writes (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014).

Fourthly, sharing a pen allows educator and Harper to record the text on Tablet in turn.
Before Harper’s turn to record, the teacher should record some words that makes a sentence.
Harper can write individual letters or whole words. While doing that, educator should raise
some questions which concentrate on Harper’s spelling and punctuation. For example, “What
do you put at the end of a sentence? What the next word do we write? What sounds do you
hear when you say the word slowly?”. Encouraging him to sound out individual words while
writing. Colourful markers are used to edit errors is necessary (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014).

Fifthly, in reread and revise step, to revise easily, Harper is required to reread carefully what
he recorded, if he has difficulty with any words or meanings, the teacher helps him to clarify
(Roth & Dabrowski, 2014).

Finally, educator revisits the text with the focus on word solving. This assists Harper in
figuring out some new words and the spelling of these words (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014).
Scenario 2: Madison

According to the writing of Madison’s narrative, it is clearly showed that she has trouble with
writing conventions. Various ideas with suitable length on the topics that offered are includes
in Madison’s writing, however, the errors that mostly occur are in punctuation and grammar
which are syntax, word classes and morphology (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). She also finds it
difficult in selecting and structuring same ideas into paragraphs (McLachlan et al., 2012).
Therefore, to compose a clear text, Madison needs someone to help her use a range of types
of text structures and grammatical features (ACARA, 2018). To meet her needs, shared
writing is considered to be an effective strategy which allows the collaboration of teacher and
students in composing a written text (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). Educator uses questioning,
modelling, prompting and supporting strategies in shared writing. The children base on that
to contribute ideas while educator scribes the text (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014). The educator
aware the current misconception of Madison and understand which technical aspects of the
written text that Madison lacks of through the interaction between teacher and child; thanks
to that, the teacher can support Madison’s writing competence (Washtell, 2009). The writing
knowledge and skills of Madison will be enhanced through the activities of contributing
ideas, discussion and actual writing (Washtell, 2009).

Assisting the educator in rewriting the story “Walking in the jungle” by Julie Lancome is the
chosen learning experience for Madison. An interactive whiteboard (IWB) is supposed to be
an effective tool to use in this learning experience for the teacher to record text because “text
can be composed, stored, returned to, altered, manipulated, and revised on subsequent
occasions” (Washtell, 2009, p. 75). Educator must have clear learning intentions, for instance,
it could be for the children to understand the sentence order, word choice or punctuation
because these objectives aims to develop student’s writing and readiness to the next learning.
Otherwise, educator cannot focus on a lot of aspects at once (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014).

In the introduction of the learning experience, educator read the story so that the children
familiarise themselves with the topic and connect to their prior knowledge, experience
(Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). Educator identify the text’s purpose and explain for the children
such as “What can people see while walking in the jungle?”. The ideas are brainstormed and
recorded in the graphic organiser of IWB.

In the development part, educator make an example by using modelling strategy to compose
the first sentence of the story, then the children contribute their sentences with teacher’s
scaffolding (Washtell, 2009). Explicit modelling is applied during the writing activity
(Department of Education and Training, 2018). Educator should explain for the children the
reasons why chosen these words or structures, for example, the reason why using “huge”
instead of “big” in regards to word choice. Furthermore, to make a connection between oral
and written word, when writing on IWB, it is important to verbalise the words in the sentence
and also highlight the words’ spaces (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014). According to Kelly (2009),
“think aloud” and asking questions allow the children to pay attention to the use of
punctuation. In addition, it is necessary that the children are given enough time to think, have
discussion and respond to the educator (Washtell, 2009).

In the conclusion, educator and children reread the text, emphasize the objectives which are
mentioned in the learning intentions. After that, editing the text and let Madison transfer the
whole story to his workbook and share with other person.

Part C:

There are two literacy programs which are designed to assess children’s communication
skills, particularly oral language, reading, writing, grammar skills and phonemic awareness.
The children’s learning with the combination of two or more curriculum’s learning areas, this
occur within and across learning areas is the plan of integrated literacy programs (Fellowes &
Oakely, 2014). The stand-alone literacy programs are described as those which are devised in
isolation from other learning areas (Fellowes & Oakely, 2014). As evident in the definition,
the two literacy programs are contradicting.

In the integrated literacy programs, educators use integrated approach while they develop the
programs because the integrated approach suitable for various age group which “encourages
student engagement, makes the learning meaningful and ensures that the learning is
respectful of each student's age” (Australian Curriculum, 2018). Integrated approach provides
the children opportunities to link their learning with real-life world, to make connections, as
well as develop knowledge across different learning areas (Fellowes & Oakely, 2014). For
example, through setting up a classroom jungle, the children have chance to self-reflect their
knowledge about jungle animals and form questions about what they want to know; read text
to gain information; discuss the importance of protecting jungle animals; write about these
animals and ways to protect; draw, paint, create jungle animals artistically; learn about
deforestation and its impact on jungle animal life. The children’s “knowledge, skills and
understanding in speaking, listening, reading, writing and creating, as well as art,
mathematics and geography” develop as they participating in the activities (Fellowes &
Oakely, 2014). Although the children use language and literacy to learn and some tools such
as written, oral and visual communication, the stand-alone literacy programs indicate that
there are some difficulties in catering for some areas of language and literacy learning. Thus,
the stand-alone literacy programs’ goals for listening, speaking, reading, writing, creating and
viewing are exclusively addressed (Fellowes & Oakely, 2014). According to Fellowes &
Oakely (2014), their concentration on speaking, listening, reading, writing and creating are
more likely to be addressed in providing for multilayer of learning. The organisation of these
programs is into a daily block of continuous time with the aims to address goals for specific
areas of literacy exclusively.

To ensure the well-development of children’s language and literacy, the importance of the
integrated literacy programs is that the specific language and literacy learning outcomes are
addressed; appropriate methods are applied such as modelling, guided practice…;
distinguishes are made for the children to figure out using literacy for learning and for
communication; ample instructions are provided (Fellowes & Oakely, 2014). In the stand-
alone literacy programs, the whole class and small group methods are utilised while
independent practice method is applied in the integrated literacy programs. The similarity
between these two programs is the utilisation of some methods such as modelling, guided
practice.
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