Literacy in Primary Classrooms

            The first steps toward learning to read happen long before a child enters a classroom. Basic literacy function is evident when children use symbols, language, pictures, and even play to communicate. However, reading and writing ability is not a natural development. It requires thought, planning, and instruction (2016, A Developmental Approach to Educating Young Children,  91-114). Literacy skills develop over time moving from phonological awareness to phonemic awareness and then to phonics and decoding. Next, students become fluent readers that make meaning from multiple forms of text to comprehend what they have read. Literacy now includes multi-modal and digital text that includes video, pictures/photographs, and digital text encompassing many genres including web reading. The evolution of text has made it necessary for our classrooms to include instruction so that students can effectively use all of these texts while quickly acquiring the digital skills necessary to do so with the available tools (Colwell et al, 2020).


    Literacy development happens in the classroom in which students are engaged and excited about learning as they make connections to the world around them. Classrooms with an inclusive environment in which all students feel safe to explore and conducive to student growth. Teachers must remember that all students have the ability to show growth. Through carefully planned and implemented activities growth is possible for all levels of learners in the classroom (Dobler et al., 2015). There are many ways to support student growth. I have included examples from my classroom. During the educational day I include whole group and small group instruction. During small group instruction students are working independently to become better readers and writers. Below I have included two examples of literacy centers from my classroom. One includes a collaborative center. The other utilizes digital text for research in which students choose an animal to learn about and create a poster about their animal. Students then used digital tools to share a completed product on SeeSaw.

             Center 1 Collaboration

Collaboration Video                              

Center 2 Engagement with Literacy Centers

  

    Digital texts include text that is delivered through a digital device that includes audio, visual and is in multi-modal forms. For students today that means they can read digital texts, find photographs or pictures that help convey information or move through a website reading and clicking links to further a search for information (Doble et al., 2015). Through analysis of data, Dr. Maureen Walsh of Australian Catholic University found truth in the need to redefine literacy needs in the curriculum of classrooms (Walsh, 2010). By working with teachers, Dr. Walsh integrated programs that mix print and digital texts across the curriculum. Students successfully engaged in the programs with text by viewing, writing, and creating their own texts. The results showed that mixing traditional and digital text can be accomplished and greatly affect student achievement (Walsh, 2010). Digital text plays an important role in the world today as everyone will encounter it and most professional choices demand its use. Foranzi and Leu stated that students reading below grade level in third grade have great difficulty catching up, therefore, it is the educators of primary students' responsibility to begin the teaching of new literacies skills (Forzani & Leu, 2012). The structure of digital text is different from that of traditional text and like any other genre students must become proficient in using digital text. Finding and using information on the internet requires readers to use creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and comprehension (Johnson, 2014). The use of digital and multimodal text can support literacy learning for students of all levels.

Bibliography





Comments

  1. Sally BeachOctober 12, 2020 at 2:58 PM

    Kim, your picture and video were effective additions to your text. This moves nicely from laying out the basics to how digital and multimodal text fit in an effective classroom. You need to check your link to your bibliography as when I hit it, it denied access. Look at your google doc to see if you opened it up to everyone to view only.
    SB

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