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.Her next remarks show that she hada good knowledge of the whole routine:child: Mummy, don t you have to, don t you have to put theaddress, Mummy?mother: Mm.child: I ve got an envelope.mother: You ve got an envelope, OK.It was clearly not infrequent for Cathie s mother to write to dictationand then get Cathie to copy her writing, because without any explicitreference to this step, her mother said:72 Learning at home: living and talking togethermother: Shall we write in the garden, or shall we write in here?child: Write out in the tent.They both went into the garden, carrying notepads, and Cathie crawledinto her tent.Then she asked:child: But what can I press on?mother: There.[Giving her a book]Her mother then gave Cathie her notepad to copy from:mother: Copy that, and press on there, OK?child: Copy what?mother: Copy  Dear Grandma and Grandpa.child: Yes.thank you.Her mother sat in the garden, reading a newspaper, while Cathie copied Dear Grandma :child: Mummy, look.mother:  Dear Grandma , lovely,  and , very good, are you puttingin  Grandpa now?child: No, you do Grandpa.mother: You make a Grandpa and then I ll show you how towrite the next bit.child:  D is for Grandpa? [She pronounces it  dee rather then duh ]mother:  G for Grandpa.[Gee]child: What is  G ?mother:  G for Grandpa like the big  G you put for Grandma.child: You mean one of these [points to  G ]?mother: Yes.a nice big  G.and then you needn tput Grand, you can just put G pa- so put a big  G and then puta  p.The discussion continued, with the whole letter-writing episode in thetent lasting for over ten minutes.It is clear that Cathie, who had justcelebrated her fourth birthday, had a good understanding of somefundamentals of literacy  that the written text conveys a message, thatit is made up of separate words corresponding to spoken words, thatLearning at home: living and talking together 73these words are made up of individual letters, and that the written textreads from left to right.A good deal of  3R teaching occurred in a much more incidentalmanner.Counting was the most common number activity.The contextsof the home provided many natural settings for counting.The motherscounted knives as they set the table, counted the items on their shoppinglist, asked the children to count the number of people coming to tea, orthe number of sausages they had put on each plate.The childrenobviously enjoyed counting and often initiated it themselves.Again, thiscounting was usually in a very meaningful context, for example, count-ing the coins in their money box.Their skills were still rudimentary.One of the most elementary number skills is to know by rote the numberseries, but a good many of the children made errors early on, e.g.,  one,two, three, four, five, sixteen.Their major problem, however, was inone-to-one correspondence, that is, counting objects correctly, withoutdouble-counting or missing one out.Some of the mothers taught more advanced number skills.Susan smother saw a traditional children s number song as a good context inwhich to teach subtraction.She and Susan were singing nursery rhymestogether.Partway through the song, which describes a progressivereduction in the number of buns in a baker s shop as they are sold, shestopped singing to teach subtraction in a more explicit way:mother: If you ve got three currant buns in the baker s shop [holdsup three fingers], look, and I take one away [folds one fingerdown], how many are left?child: [Sings]  Three currant buns in the baker s shopmother: How many s left if I take one away from three [holds upthree fingers and folds one down]?child: Two.mother: That s right.child:  Three. [Starts to sing]mother: No.Two currant buns in the shop.At this point Susan, who seems to have grasped the principle, takes onthe role of teacher and begins to instruct her mother:child:  Two currant buns in the baker s shop, round and fat withsugar on the top.Come a boy with a penny one day [stopssinging].Put your hand up with two fingers.[Mother does so]74 Learning at home: living and talking together Along come a boy with a penny one day [folds one of mother sfingers down].mother: How many s left now?child: [Sings]  One currant bun in the baker [stops singing].Putyour finger out.[Mother holds up one finger]  Along come aboy.and took it away. None left.mother: None left now!Susan obviously enjoyed her mastery of this task, and suggested:child: Shall we play, shall we play, shall we play three currantbuns in the baker s shop again?mother: If you want to.child: You put your three fingers up [lifting up all five of her ownfingers].mother: That s more than three.How many s that?child: Don t know.mother: Count them.child: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight [she starts tocount her fingers correctly, but goes wrong and screeches withlaughter].mother: Don t be silly.At this point it became clear that Susan had not yet an adequate enoughgrasp of number to master the lesson fully, and she reverted simply tosinging the song [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]