New+Literacy+Practice

= //**New Literacy Practice**// =

In the five early years classrooms visited by our group members, there were two main types of technology being used to enhance literacy teaching and learning during the 2-hour literacy sessions we observed. Computers were used in the classrooms for students to complete literacy activities in pairs or individually with the ‘WiggleWorks’ reading and writing program and ‘The Sound Blender’ activity, which aims to get students accustomed to sounding out letters and pronouncing words correctly. In one classroom, a guided reading task was completed by a group of students where the computer would read the book along with each child. The interactive whiteboard was utilised by the majority of early years teachers being observed by our group members for tasks including displaying which students were in each literacy group and what task they had to complete, the correct spelling of words for a spelling test and children’s answers to questions asked by the teacher. The interactive whiteboard was used to engage students during a modelled reading teaching approach in one classroom to display a comprehension activity and an electronic text instead of a big book.

Understanding a child’s funds of knowledge can show us how an early years learner is using digital technologies at home and school and can be translated into enhancing their literacy learning. Based on funds of knowledge interviews conducted with five early years learners, it was found that all students interviewed are usually digital technologies at home as well as school with the most popular pieces of technology being computers, television, music and Nintendo DS and Wii consoles. Students and their parents commented that computers were being used at home for playing educational and children’s games as well as researching topics they would like to know more about and checking their parents email accounts. The Nintendo DS console was also identified as a source of learning by some students who said they used it to play ‘Brain Training’. Some of the students’ favourite music choices ranged from Lady GaGa and Katy Perry to Jack Johnson while favourite television shows included ABC shows, the Simpsons, Packed to the Rafters and watching the news with their parents.

According to Means (2007), ‘Technology can enhance student engagement and productivity. More specifically, technology increases the complexity of the tasks that students can perform successfully, raises student motivation, and leads to changes in classroom roles and organization.’ In the classroom that used the interactive whiteboard to conduct a modelled reading activity in place of a big book, the use of this piece of technology clearly showed an increase in student engagement with the text and led them to play an active role in their own learning. The support offered to each student’s learning was demonstrated by students being encouraged to take initiative and approach the board for further instructions that were displayed in relation to the comprehension activity they were asked to do rather than relying on the teacher to tell them this information.

The use of computers, interactive whiteboards, cameras and iPad’s is already widespread in primary school literacy sessions but there are many new technologies that need to be considered for use in the future. In an article that examines possibilities for using Web 2.0 technologies to support literacy learning, Stone (2011) suggests that Wikis, word clouds and web collaboration are all ‘new technologies that can be utilised by primary schools available through the internet and online learning platforms’. The use of Wikis allows students to collaborate their ideas and learn from each other in response to a literacy activity such as writing words to describe a character from a big book. Reading their classmates thoughts using a technology program like this is designed to enhance each students understanding of the task and improve their final piece of work (Stone 2011). []