By Kim Asche
University of Minnesota Extension
Regional Office, Hutchinson
To promote young children’s delight in talking, listening, reading and writing adults need to provide a variety of interesting language experiences. Children who have reading difficulties in the primary grades often had limited early literacy learning experiences.
Children with reading difficulties have:
less letter knowledge
less sensitivity to the notion that the sounds of speech are distinct from their meaning
less familiarity with the basic purpose and mechanisms of reading
poorer general language ability
Children who are skilled readers:
understand the alphabet and letters
use background knowledge and strategies to obtain meaning from print
can easily identify words and read fluently
Activities that prepare young children for learning to read, emphasize counting, number concepts, letter names, shapes, sounds, phonological and phonemic awareness, models of adult interest in literacy, and independent and cooperative literacy activities.
Research by The National Literacy Trust on 3,001 children from England and Scotland showed that schoolchildren who blog or own social networking profiles on Facebook have higher literacy levels and greater confidence in writing.
The key objectives of the survey were to explore how much young people enjoy writing, what type of writing they engage in, how good at writing they think they are, what they think about writing and what the role of technology is in young people’s writing.
So what were the key findings?
75% of young people said that they write regularly. Technology-based formats were most frequently written. For example, 82% of young people wrote text messages at least once a month, 73% wrote instant messages (such as messages on AIM or MSN), and 63% wrote on a social networking site.
61 per cent of bloggers and 56 per cent of social networkers claimed to be good or very good at writing, compared to 47 per cent of those who had neither.
Pupils who write online are more likely to write short stories, letters, song lyrics or a diary, the research revealed.
Most young people said they used computers regularly and believed that computers are beneficial to their writing, agreeing that a computer makes it easier for them to correct mistakes (89%) and allows them to present ideas clearly (76%). Overall, nearly 60% of young people also believe that computers allow them to be more creative, concentrate more and encourage them to write more often.
Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, said: “The digital age often gets a bad press but the findings of this report demonstrate that social networking sites and blogs are linked to young people’s more positive attitudes to writing. “Confidence and enjoyment are closely linked to the development of skills. Therefore, in order to improve standards we need to encourage children to write more and to enjoy writing, which could be supported by celebrating forms of writing they enjoy. Our research indicates that, for many, these are without doubt technology-based forms.”
British neuroscientists have recently found the reason most people can predict words and sentences as they are being scanned by the eye. Rather than reading every word and sentence to the end before coming up with its meaning, new research has shown the brain makes an educated guess and then moves on.
As we become more literate, the brain becomes better at predicting sentences and therefore quicker at reading.
Researchers have shown that the angular gyrus’ role, rather than acting as a dictionary as previously thought, acts in anticipating what our eye will see – like the predictive texting function on a mobile phone.
The research, published in the journal ‘Nature’ was based on a unique study into former guerrilla fighters in Colombia. The team scanned the brains of illiterate adult rebels, who had had no education, before and after they had undertaken a five year reading and writing course. The new readers had a higher density of so-called grey matter, where information processing is carried out, in several areas of the left hemisphere of the brain.
It is hoped that the research could unlock understanding into the causes of dyslexia.
Google news article here.
Children’s Book Week is celebrated in the UK on 5 - 11 October 2009. This year’s theme is words and pictures – focusing on books which spark the imagination by combining superb illustrations with magical language. Award winning digital children’s book publisher, Ebooks4Kidz Ltd, joins in the celebrations by offering customers up to 75% off their normal retail prices.
The founder of Ebooks4Kidz Ltd, Jeanette McLeod, said “Our passion is to spark children’s imaginations and love of reading by bringing our books to life. It fits so well with what Children’s Book Week is trying to achieve. So we decided to celebrate Children’s Book Week by offering customers substantial discounts on many of the interactive digital children’s books we have available. That way our products are even more accessible to parents who want their kids to develop their literacy skills and love of reading books. Our passion is to spark children’s imaginations with our animated illustrations and to bring the stories to life with automatic page turning. Kids love the ability to listen to the story being read aloud, following along with the narrator as the words highlight. For emerging independent readers they can have complete control to read the books themselves and click on any unfamiliar words to hear them spoken. Our passion is to get children reading more by combining their love of technology with great stories and fantastic illustrations. For less than the price of a cup of coffee children can be truly inspired by words and pictures as they both come to life.”
Independent children’s ebook publisher Ebooks4Kidz Ltd is offering up to 75% off a selection of their children’s digital books available on their website http://www.wizz-e.com.
Here’s a video which looks at how to learn the alphabet in a new way. Has anyone tried this method with kids? I’m interested to find out if this works.
I came across this research report recently. It is still shocking to me that despite all the research available that there is a lack of awareness that reading to children and spending time on literacy activities between 3 – 5 years old is vital for their future success.
According to the survey 95% of Americans consider early childhood literacy an important problem, but they do not know that reading to children between the ages of 3-5 has long-term consequences for a child’s academic achievement and life-long success.
75% of the population is completely unaware that nearly 61% of low-income
families do not have any age appropriate books in their homes.
63% did not know that poverty is the best predictor of whether or not a child
will achieve in school.
53% are unaware that nearly one-half of children from low-income
communities start first grade up to two years behind their peers.
Research proves that children who enter kindergarten behind their peers will most likely never catch up and are three to four times more likely to drop out in later years. However, this new survey data shows that only 18% of Americans know that children who lack early literacy skills are less likely to succeed as adults.
The facts are staring us in the face. We need to read to our children. We need to make it part of their everyday routine to give them the best start we can.Find different formats to expose children to reading as much as you can. Make it a fun and enjoyable experience for everyone. Read, read and then read some more!
For me, literacy is a concept that is not easy to define in the 21st Century. At a basic level, it could be defined as the ability to read and write. Reading and writing used to be a relatively privileged activity not that long ago. Yet we expect, and indeed should expect, that today every child should be able to read and write. But is that enough in the 21st Century to be really literate?
Massive advancements in technology have led to the need for new and different type of literacy skills. How are we helping children to keep up with this? Is it by chance or design?
At the click of a mouse, it is possible to retrieve information on the World-wide web, connect with people across the globe, research, investigate, comment and contribute on an extraordinary range of sources from all over the world. Are our children in danger of growing up in a world of information overload?
They will need the ability to access, process, filter, evaluate, combine and use the information to their advantage which depends on a different set of skills. These include using different technology mediums, keeping up-to-date with ever increasing new technologies, exploring new ways of working, assessing vast amounts of information and screening it quickly to assess its relevance, interacting with new communication technologies and styles, or networking in a virtual world. How are we preparing our children with these skills?
The UNESCO definition of literacy is: “Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts.”
Does this definition go far enough to ensure our children are literate for the future? E-literacy starts with the basics of being able to read and write. Without this the information available is inaccessible. However are there other skills we should be teaching alongside the basics? And when does this become a standard part of the curriculum?
If you are a parent of a young child who is learning to read you may come across a term called ‘sight words’ or ‘high frequency words’. Around 50% – 75% of all words in text material are common words that are repeated. They are found in children’s books and what we read in daily life. These words are known as “High Frequency Words” or “Sight Words”. These words include adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs.
The list was originally compiled by Edward William Dolch, PhD and published in his 1948 book, “Problems in Reading”. There are 220 words on the Dolch list and recognising them at a glance helps children to read with confidence. You can get the list easily on the internet by searching for ‘Dolch Sight Word List’.
For most of the words on the list you cannot find pictures so they need to be learned, (e.g. “if”, “the” “soon”, “but”, etc.). It is an important step in learning to read because these words are so frequent that learning them leads to more fluent and confident reading for children. It is important for a child to practice over and over again until the words are learned and this can be done in many ways. These are words that cannot usually be broken down phonetically [i.e. by their individual sound combinations] and as they appear so regularly in the English language it is quicker for children to recognise these by sight rather than trying to decode them each time.
Spot the Pairs
Create 2 small cards for each of the words on the Dolch list. Chose 10 words that the child is learning and place the 2 sets of words face down. Turn two cards over and try to find a match. If the cards match, the child should say (and spell) the word and place the two matching cards together.
If the child does not make a match, turn the cards back over. Repeat the process until all of the cards have matching pairs.
Go Fishing
Deal five cards (face down) to each player. Place the rest of the cards in a draw pile (face down). Have one person start the game. Have that person choose a word that they have in their hands and ask another person, “Do you have the word ‘xyz?’ If the person that was asked has the card, they give it to the person who asked and the matching cards are placed face up. If the person that was asked did not have that word, say, “Go Fish!” and the requester takes a card from the draw pile. If a matching pair is made that person will get another turn. If not the next player goes next. If anyone runs out of cards, they can take a card from the draw pile. Repeat the game until all the words have been found. The player with the most matching sets of words wins the game.
Word Bingo
Create 5 by 5 grids and write the common words you are working on into the grids. Create small cards with all the words and mix these up in a small bag. Draw one card out at a time. The child should read the word on the card and search for the word on their grid. They cross off the words as they are drawn from the bag. For more than one child this works really well with different word combinations on the grids. The winner is the first child who has crossed off all their words on the grid.
Get a Treat
Place a small treat e.g. a candy or sticker on each word. When the child says that word correctly they collect the treat! A special reward chart can be created to place the stickers on so your child can see their progress.
I was recently reading a report by Ofsted [an independent education review body in the UK] about literacy trends in schools.
The report is available here.
“The gap between schools in their understanding of the uses of new technology partly reflected the very differing views that schools held about English, the changing nature of communication and pupils’ literacy needs in the 21st century. The most effective schools understood that ‘ICT has fundamentally altered… how we think about reading and writing’. As technology has changed, so the literacy needs of pupils change. This always involves adding new skills rather than simply replacing old ones.”
This is fundamental. We need to view the use of technology as beneficial to engaging students as well as adding to the skill set that they will require in the future. The skills required to read and enjoy a novel are different to those needed to skim emails, or text messages or extract pertinent data from an electronic report. However we cannot forget the basics. Reading and writing are skills, in my view, that need to remain no matter what technological advancements are made.
I was recently reading a book about what affects literacy skills in young children and I thought I’d share some of the key research findings I came across.
The critical point that was made was that learning to read and write begins long before the school years. Research shows that the attitudes of adults who interact regularly with children have a huge influence the attitude of children learning to read (DeBaryshe, 1995; Baker et al., 1995; Spiegel, 1994). A number of factors affect these interactions, including the parents’ own attitudes towards reading, the children’s motivation for reading, the opportunities parents provide their children and how they behave, as well as the parents’ own reading and literacy ability levels.
So what does the research say? Here are a few excerpts.
Parents who believe that reading is a source of entertainment have children with a more positive view about reading than do parents who emphasize the skills aspect of reading development (Baker et al., 1997).
Children who view school learning as irrelevant to life outside school are less motivated to invest time and effort in learning to read (Purcell-Gates, 1994; Stipek et al., 1995).
When parents are responsive and ”chatty” during shared reading, improvements in their children’s skills have been recorded (e.g., Whitehurst et al., 1994).
Parents who believe their children are interested in reading are more likely to provide reading activities than parents who do not see such interest (Hiebert, 1981).
Enthusiasm about reading is suggested by many researchers as a route to development of the child’s active engagement in reading (Snow and Tabors, 1996; Baker et al., 1995).
Activities such as family storybook reading promote positive feelings about books and literacy (Taylor and Strickland, 1986).
Mealtime conversation helps children acquire knowledge about narratives when family members recount the day’s activities, giving children an experience of value in learning about language and communication (Snow and Tabors, 1993).
So some simple steps can promote reading skills in your children:
• talk to your children,
• share books,
• be enthusiastic about reading,
• chat about the books they are reading,
• be seen to enjoying reading yourself.
