Dear Parents,
So, we have completed our all Vowel stories and I must say it went very well. We wrote three wonderful sentences, each on different days: THE WORLD IS BEAUTIFUL. I STAND ON SACRED LAND. THE SKY IS BLUE, MY HEART IS TRUE. At this first threshold moment it is not about learning to ‘read’ it is about writing. A sacred act in itself. And so the first writing needs to be meaningful, beautiful and worthy! In the Waldorf approach the children write before they read moving from the ‘active to passive’. At this stage they write texts/sentences that they know. They recognise the letters we have done/worked with in the past and they start to recognise/see/learn sight words. Over the short time they come to sounding out the word and a real sense of satisfaction comes over them. While being immersed in stories, they do not feel pressurised to ‘learn’ sounds but rather to experience how the words evolve and develop out of what they know - and always within a context (a story). This does not mean that they are not learning sounds. Through the stories, verses and word games the children learn the ‘name’ sound (Aye = Ayden, amen) and the ‘earth’ sound (a = Annabella, apple) of the letters. The ‘heavenly’ sound (Ahhhh = far, star) – the continuous sound is brought simply in the story – bringing the feeling quality of the letter. It is not formally referred to in the ‘lesson’ – it and other vowel sounds will come later – in Class 2 when we go deeper into Phonics. It’s really fascinating to help them sound out the words and encourage them to ‘see’ the words. Slowly they come to see what letters the word is made up of. Within all this is to allow them to develop a love for words and to see how they fit into what they already know and to become excited about writing and reading. Another important aspect when teaching the Vowels – and in fact all the subjects – is the moral aspect (not moralistic). Whether it is in Numberwork where Princess Minus prefers to ‘give away’ or David Divide who ‘shares equally’ or in Literacy where Angel E brings kindness, Angel O brings love and protection, etc. In everything we do in a Waldorf classroom, we try to instil a feeling of reverence, of beauty and goodness, kindness, love, caring, nature, community, honesty, sharing, etc. This work is not only about learning the 3 Rs (Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic) – it is about our constant journey of becoming human. We constantly stand on sacred land. Wishing you all a good week. Warmly. Teacher Beulah 15th August 2021 Ps. A small request… during this week break… please could you continue to immerse the children in nature, encourage them to play with their animals and friends, and try to refrain from technology, movies and other electronic devices… Comments are closed.
|
AuthorTeacher Beulah's 'Letter to the Parents' Archives
February 2023
Categories
All
|