1.1 Explain The Importance Of The Environment In Supporting Learning And Development

All Early Years settings have a requirement to follow frameworks to support the learning and development of children’s Literacy and Mathematical skills. Practitioners and professionals working with young children will follow The Early Years Foundation Stage which is a statutory requirement. The Early Years Matters expresses that “The environment plays a key role in supporting and extending children’s development and learning”. http://www.earlyyearsmatters.co.uk/our-services/school-and-nursery-improvement-partner/enabling-environments/ (Accessed 18/04/2018) since the children are in the setting all day it is important that the room meets the requirements of the EYFS with regards to literacy and mathematical development. This will allow the
To ensure the room is encourages emergent literacy it is important that we ensure the room is language rich as according to (Tassoni 2014: p227) “A language-rich environment is one that prompts children to talk and communicate”. We do this by creating wall displays which show the concepts of different print using letters and words for instance hanging the letters of the alphabet on the wall. Book corners which provide the children with a wide range of vocabulary that can help with their speech and language and having an understanding that all words have a meaning. Stories allow the children to acknowledge that we read from left to right. The children’s learning environment should also include a writing area where children are able to sit down and use a variety of writing tools and materials such as pens, pencils, crayons, paper, glue etc. Writing is another way in which children can communicate in through their expressive ideas, thoughts and feelings. Activities can be planned to encourage the children to use this area such as making Christmas cards, letters or
Practitioners will follow the observation cycle to observe, assess and plan to improve the child’s skills and knowledge. Observations can be taken to find out their individual needs, to see if there are any areas the child is struggling in and find out if the child has any additional needs that needs to be supported. The observations are done at early stages so that practitioners can identify any concerns about a child at an early age so that it can be sorted quickly and the child gets the support they need to help them meet their needs. If I observed a child during a literacy activity by reading a story and I found that the child has difficulties in hearing for example when making loud sounds to imitate the story such as “BANG!” the other children had all jumped unexpectedly whereas the other child didn’t, he seemed to have no reaction to the loud noises I had made. The child also had no response to my voice when asking child some questions. I also noticed that the child paid very little attention to the story as he was messing around with random items he found on the floor around him. I had wrote down all of my points on a note pad for me to assess the situation and make decisions of what to do next with the information I have received. When the child’s parent came to the setting I had explained to them about the observation and some of the