A 10 lesson unit comprising of a 70 slide PowerPoint and 10 different worksheets exploring the topic of child language acquisition (reading and writing) and a summary terminology and theory sheet. The first 2 lessons are about reading and the final 8 are about writing. This unit can be used for any exam board.
Each lesson includes a starting discussion prompt which acts as a learning objective, detailed notes on the theories and terminology listed below, a worksheet containing examples of writing or a transcript (or revision cards for lesson 10), and a homework task. The following theories and terminology are covered:
– Early literacy – Shirley Brice Heath (1983)
– Stages of Reading Development – Jeanne Chall (1983)
– Features of reading schemes
– Language Acquisition Support System – Jerome Bruner (1983)
– Synthetic phonics
– Stages of writing development – Barry Kroll (1981)
– Emergent writing
– Stages of writing development – Kathy Barclay (1996)
– Emergent literacy – Marie Clay (1975)
– Initial literacy – Yetta Goodman (1985)
– Ascender/descender graphemes, cursive handwriting and different types of join
– The impact of touchscreen technology on children’s writing – Dunn and Sweeney (2018)
– Homophones, graphemes and digraphs
– Stages of spelling – Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston (2004); Bear & Templeton (1998); Gentry (1977; 1982)
– Categories of spelling errors
– Functions of punctuation – David Crystal (1995)
– Learning About Punctuation – Nick Hall and Susan Robinson (1996)
– Playful punctuation – Andrew Burrell and Roger Beard (2022)
– Genre theory in children’s writing – J.R. Martin and Jean Rothery (1981)
– How genre is linked to schoolwork – Frances Christie (1987)
– Modes of children’s writing – James Britton (1982)
– Chronology in texts – Katherine Perera (1984)
The final lesson is a consolidation activity complete with guided revision cards. Alternatively, you could use an app such as Quizlet so that the students could produce digital revision resources.