Primary literacy in Finland

WHY PRIMARY TEACHERS FROM FINLAND DEAL SO SUCCESSFULLY WITH LITERACY IN THE PRIMARY YEARS? SOME IDEAS

In that Country there is the idea of children learns by doing. We can see a class where the children are working separately and the teacher helps them in some specifics moments.

In early ages they don’t learn at the same speed at others. For example, in the video, we can see that there are lots of different levels in the same class. Some of them are written a whole book with 6 pages and now they are doings their covers, and others are still working in their stories. Some of them have papers books with corrections and they are writing them in the computers to print them after, and other ones are writing directly in the computers.

In the curriculum the reading and learning skill are reflected in different kinds of text. They were seeing poems, information texts, stories and jokes. Also, the actual activity is focus on creativity and the aim that they can express themselves (not important only for writing but also for oral expression)

Different spaces at the same time. The have freedom to move into the class to the library upstairs. There isn’t a unique class with only a teacher, and a unique task.

Telling stories: all the children do their own hand puppets to work with drama for write the stories after. Furthermore, telling stories is a routine in the everyday school.

The organization of the day class: They start by making a circle, a good way to introduce the children to the school day with some sounds and rhythms to make they calm. They manage the idea that all the children want to say something talking in a small groups. With this idea the teacher encourage the time to communicate. This activity finish with some fed-back for the whole class (one child of each group say what were they talking about).

For the activity of making books they started by doing a magazine where everybody could include stories of their own. Now they can put all their own stories into one book. They had have the change of develop imagination

When the children finish the principal project they can move it for other story. In the library they can play games about reading and writings skills (opposites, read newspapers…)

Key factors: resources, personality education, and less people with lower abilities. Also, the society in that country appreciates education a lot. They are focus in learn other languages at very early stages. For that you have to know very well your own language to learn another one. They give the story-telling and playing a lot of importance in child’s growth.