Handbook

This topic enables pre-service teachers to examine the ways that infants and young children contribute to their social worlds as active participants in the interactions, language, ways of thinking, playing, and solving problems that form the basis of early literacy and numeracy competence. Through the inquiry processes used in this topic, pre-service teachers explore the interrelationship between perceptual, sensory and language communicative capabilities of infants, toddlers and young children and examine the changes that occur as infants interact with others and develop complex communication skills. Pre-service teachers study the beginnings of abstract and symbolic thought in young children's play. The topic considers how families and educators and communities can identify and extend children's learning and development of key literacy and numeracy concepts. The topic draws from a multi-disciplinary knowledge base that includes child development, sociology and curriculum theory and research to consider how young children's acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills can be enhanced in early childhood professional practice.