Rationale
Pre-primary school is said to be a boost for early literacy. It fosters literacy practices and hence equips students with literacy skills for consequent classes. The basic skills that are emphasised here are reading and writing. This course aims to equip the students with skills, to enable them provide all their future students with opportunities to read and write. Verbal communications are key at this level and hence, applying the right use and pronunciations of the language are important. Furthermore, the course also aims to introduce literature to students so as to render them familiar with the literary categories and theoretical issues related to texts, authors, readers, and socio-historical aspects and to be comprehensible within the ages of 3-6. The course will also examine children’s learning skills. Tips for reading and writing are included and provide thought provoking scenarios. Students are equipped with skills to explore ways of using children’s literature in classroom methodologies.
Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course students will be expected to:
i. Critically analyse teaching methodologies and teaching materials related to the teaching of literature in the pre-primary school.
ii. Select texts, subjects, teaching techniques according to objectives of the course and the interests and needs of the student.
iii. Use a variety of texts, literary theories, teaching practices and appropriately designed educational material to design and to organise classroom activities.
iv. Analyse the different types and genres of children's literature.
v. Examine main features of textual items of children's literature and, depending on the type of study to differentiate their didactic approach.
vi. Evaluate and select texts intended for children and develop customized approaches based on the teaching needs of the students.
vii. Design activities based on principles of interdisciplinary teaching for others cognitive objects using texts of children's literature.