Elvira Čengija, OŠ Belokranjskega odreda, Semič

This paper includes a good example how different approaches can be used in early literacy teaching. This school year I am teaching 14 children that have different prior knowledge as well as various reading and writing competence. When I was planning my lessons, I thought of each child’s capabilities individually, so that every one of them could reach their maximum progress regarding to their prior knowledge. I devoted my special attention to the three Romani pupils that come from poor underprivileged homes; such was also their prior knowledge. The Romani pupils mother tongue is Romany, therefore their understanding of Slovene, as the language of the environment, is weak. Working with hard of hearing pupil, I started using a phonomimic literacy development method, which has proven to be very successful with other pupils and their different learning styles. Literacy activities were conducted over long periods, during which each pupil got to learn a gesture for the manual alphabet and a short song. With the help of the ICT, especially tablet computers, we were able to record the pupils. They were working in pairs, one of them was showing a word using only gestures for individual letters and the other pupil was trying to identify the given word. All taken videos will be used for further discussion. This newfound knowledge helped my pupils to recognise letters and words written classically and with using tablet computer or smart board. In this way, I achieved greater motivation, cooperation and better concentration, especially among Romani pupils.