As a digital immigrant, multiliteracies are definitely a challenge, but it keeps my brain active trying to figure out how to use these technologies and best put them to use with students. It's good for me, I tell myself. Actually, as I use many new applications and interfaces, I see how engaging they are for students. I also watch students of all ages and abilities use them freely, as digital natives. I realize they may be advanced far beyond my ability in the use of many digital resources. What can I do about this? Well, I can keep learning. But I can also recognize their expertise and let them show me and others. I can change my attitude about students who may struggle in other areas and see them as experts in these literacies. All of these changes are positive for myself, other students, and other teachers. These talents can be used to help students move forward in other areas. So these new literacies help us view students differently, give us additional tools for teaching, and give students additional means with which to express themselves. They also open up a new area of literacy, complete with texts, graphics, resources, and etc., which students must know how to navigate and analyze.
These possibilities excite me. That's why one of the articles discussed last week was so helpful to read. "Envisioning New Literacies Through a Lens of Teaching and Learning" provided a list of roles for the New Literacies Teacher. I thought they clearly spelled out how we should be working with technologies in our schools. The roles show a clear shift in how a new literacies teacher will interact with students. The classroom example given illustrates how traditional literacy instruction is enhanced by new literacies. Now there's the hard part. Synthesizing our current instruction to use new literacies is a great challenge. I think that's where many teachers are stuck. Fortunately, some school technology specialists are helping to bridge the gap. Where there are not specialists to help, individual teachers and teams will have to help adapt our traditional curricula. Just as we study a topic of study in order to teach it, we need to study and practice using new literacies. Not an easy task, but a necessary one.
One thing that concerns me in the migration to new literacies is movement away from some of the hands-on learning that has been so beneficial to education. While it's convenient to do frog dissection on the computer, it doesn't replace the experience. And that's at levels where students have a good grasp of the physical world. We have to be extra-careful with children's use of technology when they are younger, more impressionable, and may even alter their neurological and physical development by overusing technology. I was reading a report called Facing the Screen Dilemma, about young children and the use of technology. It's good to keep in mind.
My last point is that our students still need traditional literacy skills to be strong in order to process information through the multiple literacies they use. We have to keep all of our literacy instruction strong. I'm all for the benefits of new literacies, but I do want to safeguard children's development and the "old" literacies.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Putting the Literacy Puzzle Together
Even if we conscientiously teach the critical areas of early literacy skills—phonological awareness, print awareness, comprehension, vocabulary, oral language—some children will struggle putting all the pieces together. Just because we teach what A looks like and even how to write it, does not mean that they will know that that its short sound is /a/ and that it is the letter and sound in the middle of vat. Furthermore, children may have no idea what a vat is or what how it is used. We often check off the individual skill areas that we are teaching without helping children put them together, making connections from sounds to letters, letter-sounds to segmenting and blending words, words to meanings, definitions of words to comprehension of sentences, paragraphs, and entire texts. Many children will be able to link the areas together to synthesize and accomplish the reading process, however, some may be stuck with a handful of pieces.
That's why two of the articles discussed last week made such an impression on me. Any reasonable attempt we can make to help children connect their literacy knowledge seems to be a valuable thing. "Teaching Sound-Letter Connections With Picture Mnemonics: Itchy's Alphabet and Early Decoding" told about one method of helping young children put together their literacy skills. The Itchy's Alphabet curriculum uses manipulatives and kinesthetic methods to help children acquire and master the alphabetic principle, learning letter-sound correspondence with picture cues. It seemed that this method, used in initial alphabet instruction, could provide students with valuable connections. There are other kinesthetic methods used successfully in remediating reading difficulties, such as the Orton-Gillingham and Wilson methods. Itchy's Alphabet offers its picture mnemonics and kinesthetics up front as the letters are first introduced to children.
The other article was "Print Referencing: An Emergent Literacy Enhancement Strategy and Its Clinical Implications." Print Referencing is another strategy that can be used to help children put their literacy knowledge together. It is easily incorporated into read-alouds by highlighting various print features during the reading, such as the title, the beginning letter of a character's name, directionality, a punctuation mark, etc. It should, however, never take precedence over the meaning of the text. It is crucial that children always understand the meaning and enjoy the reading.
Another strategy I thought of during our discussion was dialogic reading. This includes prompting the child to comment about something in the reading, expand on the comment (as in a dialogue), and repeating the expansion to make sure the child understands. This is an effective way of introducing vocabulary in an incidental way. It can also be used to aid comprehension, oral language development, and making connections.
One of the exciting things about both print referencing and dialogic reading is that they are easily done in a one-to-one situation between a parent or caregiver and child. It was great to hear a couple examples of how some schools have sponsored read-aloud nights and helped parents learn about these simple, yet beneficial strategies. I was able to participate in one such event sponsored by Jumpstart at a HeadStart school in Chicago. These outreach events give parents opportunities to learn how to boost their children's understanding in an enjoyable, non-stressful way.
I wanted to check out what brain research had to say about these types of strategies. The article I read definitely supports using multiple approaches that require children to repeatedly process information in different ways. The researcher recommends "offering multisensory, engaging, and thought-provoking lessons followed by opportunities to practice and process sensory information with conscious thinking, verbalizing, writing, or creating something that uses the reading skill." (Willis, 2009) The article also suggests that connections should be built between new information and prior knowledge to efficiently link the information together in the brain. As we use strategies that help children connect these pieces of learning together, we can help them successfully put the puzzle of literacy together.
Willis, J. (2009). What brain research suggests for teaching reading strategies. The Educational Forum, 73(4), 333–346.
That's why two of the articles discussed last week made such an impression on me. Any reasonable attempt we can make to help children connect their literacy knowledge seems to be a valuable thing. "Teaching Sound-Letter Connections With Picture Mnemonics: Itchy's Alphabet and Early Decoding" told about one method of helping young children put together their literacy skills. The Itchy's Alphabet curriculum uses manipulatives and kinesthetic methods to help children acquire and master the alphabetic principle, learning letter-sound correspondence with picture cues. It seemed that this method, used in initial alphabet instruction, could provide students with valuable connections. There are other kinesthetic methods used successfully in remediating reading difficulties, such as the Orton-Gillingham and Wilson methods. Itchy's Alphabet offers its picture mnemonics and kinesthetics up front as the letters are first introduced to children.
The other article was "Print Referencing: An Emergent Literacy Enhancement Strategy and Its Clinical Implications." Print Referencing is another strategy that can be used to help children put their literacy knowledge together. It is easily incorporated into read-alouds by highlighting various print features during the reading, such as the title, the beginning letter of a character's name, directionality, a punctuation mark, etc. It should, however, never take precedence over the meaning of the text. It is crucial that children always understand the meaning and enjoy the reading.
Another strategy I thought of during our discussion was dialogic reading. This includes prompting the child to comment about something in the reading, expand on the comment (as in a dialogue), and repeating the expansion to make sure the child understands. This is an effective way of introducing vocabulary in an incidental way. It can also be used to aid comprehension, oral language development, and making connections.
One of the exciting things about both print referencing and dialogic reading is that they are easily done in a one-to-one situation between a parent or caregiver and child. It was great to hear a couple examples of how some schools have sponsored read-aloud nights and helped parents learn about these simple, yet beneficial strategies. I was able to participate in one such event sponsored by Jumpstart at a HeadStart school in Chicago. These outreach events give parents opportunities to learn how to boost their children's understanding in an enjoyable, non-stressful way.
I wanted to check out what brain research had to say about these types of strategies. The article I read definitely supports using multiple approaches that require children to repeatedly process information in different ways. The researcher recommends "offering multisensory, engaging, and thought-provoking lessons followed by opportunities to practice and process sensory information with conscious thinking, verbalizing, writing, or creating something that uses the reading skill." (Willis, 2009) The article also suggests that connections should be built between new information and prior knowledge to efficiently link the information together in the brain. As we use strategies that help children connect these pieces of learning together, we can help them successfully put the puzzle of literacy together.
Willis, J. (2009). What brain research suggests for teaching reading strategies. The Educational Forum, 73(4), 333–346.
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