Digital, Hybrid, and Multilingual Literacies in Early Childhood

Technology is changing education and the way children learn.  This is especially true with the way children learn to read.  The article Digital, Hybrid, and Multilingual Literacies in Early Childhood by Aria Razfar and Eunah Yang starts to take a look at this topic.  As someone entering the teaching world, I have begun to wonder how technology will ultimately affect my profession.  I think if used correctly technology can be a teacher’s best friend and a great aid in a students learning experience.  In this article I read it, it focused on sociocultural literature on early literacy development over the last decade. 

There is three significant focuses that Razfar and Eunah have discovered; the use of electronic and digital media as mediational tools, the use of hybrid languages as mediational tools, and the use of multiple languages, literacies, and discourses, especially of immigrant and non-dominate communities.  This article discusses the future for the “Web 2.0” generation.  The way early literacy is taught and leaned is going to change. 

There are three aspects of human development that are touched on; the interpersonal, intrapersonal and experiences transferred to general life-course development. Semiotic mediation connects the internal and external and also the social and the individual.

Imaginative play is crucial for any child growing up.  Being able to create and imagine items are different things.  In the article it mentions a broom stick being a horse.  I personally always used the broomstick as a hockey stick or baseball bat.  The digital age is changing imaginative play.  Technology now can also not only be the source of entertainment but can be the object of play.  There are four groups of study in this article.  All focus on early literacy development through play.  The first group includes playing with digital tools and famous media characters.  The second group focuses on digital media and its impact on narrative activity at home.  The third and fourth groups are hybrid practices using media character and multilingual interpenetrated interactions. 

A boy named James spent a year between 2.5-3.5 years old learning how to use the CD-ROM storybook.  He became interested in the hypertext feature and would play a game with his father.  He would tell his dad to click him, once he did he would start singing a song or doing something funny.  He was learning the technology and seeing how it worked.  This engaged his creativity and that is how he stated to use that in his play.  A group of kindergarten and first grade children used pretend play, paper items to represent modern technology like an iPod and also popular media characters.  The students would sing songs they knew when holding the paper iPod.  This has changed their pretend play.  Though not a real iPod they knew its function and how it worked.  

Using e-books was another section in the article.  An immigrant family from South Korea moving to Canada was the example.  The mother and son would read together with a traditional book and an e-book.  The traditional book was easier to control and was easier to pace the reading with.  The more students use new technology though the more effective it will become for them.  James from the CD-ROM story became more knowledgeable on how to use the computer.  With more independence James could better use the technology.  He would use other interactive features that would enrich is experience reading with a CD-ROM. 

In the article it also talks about how struggling readers especially can be helped by technology.  Using popular culture can help these students.  One student Noah combined characters from Donkey Kong and Little Bear to create a new story.  These characters made it easier and more enjoyable for him to write.  Another student Sol would create new Pokémon and write about them.  This really engaged his creativity.  Finally Devon who was categorized as a struggling reader would use popular media and video games to help him with reading.  A specific example was spelling Tiger he emphasized the “g” connecting it with his favorite show Yu-GI-Oh.

This was a great article.  I learned a lot from this and look forward to the future with technology.  Popular media and technology in my opinion are crucial for all students.  They are great resources and an easy way to engage a student.  I had never thought of how easy it is now with technology to learn in a multilingual fashion.  This can only better a student.  The different mediation in this article is great resources.  I think all can be and should be used with young literacy learners.  

Here is a link to the article if you would like to check it out:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41804239?seq=7&Search=yes&searchText=of&searchText=Early&searchText=Journal&searchText=Childhood&searchText=Literacy&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicResults%3FQuery%3DJournal%2Bof%2BEarly%2BChildhood%2BLiteracy%26amp%3Bacc%3Don%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bvf%3Djo&prevSearch=&resultsServiceName=null

Phonologically Based Intervention

I recently read an article from the Journal of Literacy Research.  The article was titled "A Phonologically Based Intervention for School-Age Children with Language Impairment: Implications for Reading Achievement"  It was by Michaela J. Ritter, Jungjun Park, Terrill F. Saxon and Karen A. Colson.  This article was originally published in the 30 September 2013 edition.

This article was extremely insightful and interesting.  It covered a topic I had not much prior knowledge of.  The basis of the article and the research done in the article was about children with language impairment and there higher risk for experiencing problems in reading.  Children with language impairment are as much as six times more likely to have difficulties to learn to read then typical children.  Phonological Awareness is essential component for children to learn to read.  So, phonological awareness intervention was to be used with children with language impairment grades k-3.

Studies in the past have shown that students receiving phonological awareness intervention are more successful developing reading skills then those who go without.  Overall the study is to further research to prove the benefits of phonological awareness intervention is a good and effective practice.

The two main questions from this articles study to be answered was:
1. Do school-age children (grades 1-3) with LI who receive explicit PAI over a 12-week period differ significantly in performance improvement on measures of PA, word-level reading and passage comprehension tasks in comparison with grade-matched children with LI who do not receive the intervention?
2. Is there a difference in magnitude of treatment gains of PAI across different grade levels (e.g. equivalent, increase, or decrease)? That is, does the clinical advantage of PAI persist into school grades that are later than kindergarten?

The study was done with three similar elementary schools.  The demographics (income, ethnic groups, credential and etc) were the same throughout the schools.  The schools were not told whether they were a experimental group or a control group.  The study was done with a quasi-experimental pre- and post-group design.  This would be a gauge on improvement over the 12 weeks of work.

One thing I found interesting when reading the article was the breakdown on the students.  I noticed in the article that there was only 17 females compared to 58 males participating.  It mentioned that it is common for an unbalanced gender distribution in language impairment.  I never knew this, and was surprised at such a vast difference.  I wonder why males have more issues typically then female students.

The work was done with students for 12 weeks.  There was two 15 minute sessions per week with explicit PAI training.  This was the only difference between the control group and the experimental group.  Both groups continued their normal routines throughout the day.  After the work was done over the three weeks and the pre and post tests were given the results were great.  The improvement in the PAI students compared to the control group was amazing.  The analysis was done in tow ways first was the groups were compared on post-test measures.  The second was the experimental groups results were categorized by grade.

Table 2. Group Performances on the Five Dependent Variables at Pre- and
Postintervention Assessments.
                                                    CA (n = 30)                              PAI (n = 34)
                                               Pre                 Post                     Pre                    Post
Measure                                M (SD)           M (SD)                 M (SD)            M (SD)
Blending words                    7.77 (2.48)       8.00 (2.31)           7.66 (2.40)        9.88 (2.04)
Blending non-words             7.55 (2.87)       7.81 (1.83)           7.44 (1.81)        9.76 (1.94)
Letter-word identification    84.80 (13.53)    85.07 (10.85)       85.97 (11.02)    94.07 (12.89)
Word attack                       83.33 (12.21)    85.63 (12.32)       86.60 (11.31)    93.99 (11.73)
Passage comprehension      78.07 (10.09)     80.47 (8.16)        79.88 (9.76)      86.87 (9.42)
Note. CA = age-matched controls, PAI = experimental group who received phonological awareness
intervention. The grade range of the two groups was first to third grade.
Phonological awareness subtests taken from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Wagner,
Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999).
Reading sub-tests taken from the Woodcock Diagnostic Reading Battery–Revised (WDRB-R; Woodcock,1997)

As we can see from this graph from the article the leap from pre to post for PAI is great in every category.  I was amazed especially with the growth in blending of words and non-words.  That was the area that saw the greatest improvement.  Each area worked on though, saw vast improvement.  The improvement gap was larger in each category for PAI compared to control group.  That is great.  They also saw from their research that the lower the grade the greater the success for PAI.  This could be for a number of reasons.  I think this means though that PAI should be implemented in pre-school through second grade.

Overall this was a great insightful article.  I learned so much from researching it.  I feel that this will help especially if I teach those emergent reading grades.  I think having tools to help students in need that struggle with reading and language is essential.  As well as Phonological Awareness intervention did, I think it should be applied to all elementary schools.  The research should continue, though it seems to be very effective.  Great article and look forward to sharing more.

Here is a link to the article:
http://jlr.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/content/45/4/356.full.pdf+html

High Stakes Testing

This week I listened to another podcast from Voice of Literacy.  The podcast was centered around high stakes testing and the negatives that goes along with it.  The guest was Dr. Caitlin Dooley, a professor at Georgia State University.  She primarily performs studies on teachers beliefs on literacy instruction in the time of high stakes testing.  This is a hot topic today in the education world.  Everything is based on the standardized test. 

In the article Dr. Dooley even mentions teachers pay and job security is based on the standardized test.  These standardized test not only determine students individual future but also other major decisions.  The scores directly effect the teachers and on a larger scale the school districts funding.  I think its ridiculous that funding is determined by test scores.  This could be a key component into why low income school tend to score low.  If those schools don't have resources how do we expect them to succeed. 

In her recent study she worked in two contexts, an urban school historically low scores and a suburban school with historically high scores.  She worked with a group that was struggling at both schools.  She realized that the more the school and teachers emphasized test scores and solely focused on them the scores dropped.  I don't think this is a coincidence. 

No Child Left Behind was created to help low income areas and struggling students.  Dr. Dooley believes that it does the exact opposite.  She believes soon when reauthorization is allowed to NCLB that it needs to happen.  The scores indicate that our success is bout where it was in the early 80's.  If this program is not advancing these students it shouldn't be done.  NCLB has created a larger gap between the test takers.  I think that we need to have tests but only have them be one tool to judge a student.  If we can't create fair opportunities for all students then something needs to happen that allows that.  NCLB is a great idea but it needs to be tweaked along with the testing system.  I think with some work both can be great and benefit not only students but teachers.  I look forward to taking on challenges like this in the future as a classroom teacher. 

Text Selection

In our class we have started discussing emerging readers and how students get started reading.  Assigned in our class was an article by Dr. Karen Wohlwend.  The article is Guide to Text Selection: Teacher Prompts and Book Notes for Parents.  It seems to be first hand examples applied in a classroom.  It starts with a newsletter for parents called Book Notes. 

The Book Notes letter describes a level range for a student and what you can expect as a parent.  It describes to parents in sections; When I am reading on my own, I can:, When I am reading with help, I am learning to:, and finally how my parents can help:.  The newsletter is shown throughout the article for each set of levels to describe them to parents.  This is a great way to keep parents informed and involved in their child's learning.  Particularly with such a crucial skill like reading.  I have heard from many professors or current teachers to send newsletters to parents to keep them in the loop.  I especially like how this one is laid out and is very informative for the parents. 

The different levels usually are grouped in 2-5 levels at a time.  It starts at 1 and goes through 24 and beyond.  The levels are broken down as follows:
Early Emergent Levels (1-4)
Upper Emergent Levels (5-8)
Early Fluency Levels (9-12)
Fluency Level (13-14)
Transitional Level (18-22)
Transitional and Independent Levels (24 and beyond)

In each level it is described by book characteristics and then other areas that those students would be learning.  For example Fluency Levels 13-14 have these areas. 
Book Characteristics
This tells different characteristics a reader at this level needs in a book for it to be effective.  A great description especially for new teachers.
Self-Introduction
Students should be self-introducing books to themselves by looking at the entire book.  
Readers at the Fluency Level
Well on their way to becoming independent readers
Self Correction
Self correcting independently
A self-Extending System
List of what the student should be doing at this point during reading.  Example is search for cues using meaning, syntax and visual cues. 

This was a great article and guide to help teachers choose appropriate text for students.  I will use this as an example for the newsletter for parents in my classroom.  The levels are described in detail and easy to follow for teachers.  If applied correctly could be a great system to help young readers.  As a soon to be first year teacher, it could be overwhelming and a example like this could ease the pain.