Accelerating Literacy through Play
27 & 28
Nov 14, 9am to 4pm, Hong Kong
Overview
Play offers
a natural opportunity for children to learn and develop
literacy skills. Play-based activities encourage
children to use literacy skills in situations that
complement their real world and help them understand
it
..This workshop will provide
teachers with useful knowledge and effective strategies
to use play in order to improve student skills in
reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Among other
things, it will focus on the communities of learners
specific to the participants and will use a variety
of proven approaches to demonstrate how a
play-centered environment encourages literacy
growth.
Objectives:
At the end of the workshop,
participants will be able to:
Identify the unique literacy
demands of the current generation of children
Integrate play-based activities
into classroom practice to engage and motivate
learners
Create
play centers that support experimentation with reading and
writing
Provide
language-centered play environments that are crucial to literacy
growth
Include
exceptional learners in all aspects of the literacy
program
Check for
understanding and collect evidence of student
learning
Participate in co-planning activities with learning teams to
ensure program sustainability
Access professional development
materials for highly successful literacy
teaching
Outline:
Day 1:
The workshop will begin with an
overview of the compelling results of a
play-based program and why we should pay
careful attention to the inclusion of play in
our classrooms. Topics that we will discuss
include:
Ideas on how to design a play-based literacy
program
Identifying best practices and developing
innovative ways of implementing
them
Supportive instruction on how to build play-based
centers
Blending play-based learning and explicit
instruction
Making
and using props
Assessment of progress as a result of play-based
literacy classrooms
Non-obtrusive methods for collecting evidence of
student learning
Day 2:
The emphasis of this day will be
on the use of children’s literature, and
in particular, multicultural children’s
literature, to facilitate literacy development
through play. Meaningful and enriching
children’s books will be the focus for :
Presentation of classroom procedures such as the
use of story-maps and story boards to promote
play-based activities and to reinforce newly
learned ideas and concepts
Providing new ideas that can be transferred into
play centers that will encourage the routines,
functions and features of literacy
Play
building through the exploration of story concepts
such as character development and point of view
Understanding literacy skills such as prediction
and character dialogue through play
strategies
Improving spelling, grammar, vocabulary, writing,
speaking and listening skills through
opportunities for creative
play
Throughout the two days we will integrate the
advantages of play in the development of literacy
skills in relation to:
Trainer Profile:
Dr. Honey
Halpern is a well respected teacher with many
years of teaching experience in elementary,
secondary and universities. She works as a literacy
consultant and a lecturer in the Faculty of
Education at the University of British Columbia. Her
courses include “Teaching Language Arts in the
Elementary School” and “Language Across the
Curriculum in Multilingual Secondary Classrooms”.
She has worked as a consultant for the
International School in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
and most recently as a teacher trainer at
StandTall Primary School in Kampala,
Uganda.
Her Master’s in Education degree from McGill
University and Doctorate from the University of
British Columbia are both in Reading Education. Her
commitment to good teaching practice is demonstrated
through her participation in professional
associations. She is an active member of the
editorial board of The Reading Teacher, is on
the Executive of the British Columbia Literacy
Council of the International Reading Association,
and chairs the BC Exemplary Reading Award
Program.
She is an enthusiastic promoter of positive reading
habits for all ages and has spoken on this topic to
many teacher and parent groups with great
success.
She continues her literacy interests as an author of
several articles published in national and
international literacy journals. She has produced a
brochure for teacher aides: Manual for
Teaching Adolescent Non-Readers; as well as
a pamphlet for the British Columbia
Teachers’ Federation: Learning to Read
and Write: Stages and Suggestions. A Guide for
Parents of Young
Children.
Methodology:
This
workshop invite teachers to ask questions and
participate in their learning through shoulder to
shoulder talk, problem solving in small groups and
trying out some of the newly presented strategies.
Participants are encouraged to share the
challenges faced in the classrooms and trainer
will attempt to address these issues through this
workshop. To make sure that everyone acquires the
necessary background knowledge to understand the
rationale for the new approaches, a combination of
Power Point presentations, YouTube videos and
informal explanation in response to the
specific needs of the participants will be
used. Inquiry-based learning will be
encouraged and
supported
Target
Audience:
This
workshop is designed for people involved in
literacy instruction of children aged 3 to
10
This workshop will be of
interest to pre-service teachers, classroom
teachers, resource teachers, librarians,
administrators, curriculum consultants, special
education teachers, and teaching
coaches.
Investment:
Venue: Marco
Polo Prince
Hotel, Harbour City, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Duration: 12 hours/ 2
days
Closing Date: 14 Nov
14