After reading the articles, these are the responses to the questions I have come up with:
- How have these readings changed, confirmed, or complicated your thinking about the effects of digital media on young people's abilities to read and write? Specifically, the article Can Texting Make You Smarter? really confused me but didn't sway my thoughts about texting. The article states that texting can strengthen phonology skills. This statement frustrates me. Just because a child can sound out a word, does not mean that they will be a strong speller. Also, the short wording used in texting or abbreviations is not a child modeling that he/she is a strong phonology speller; it shows laziness. I also disagree with the statement in that article that students know when and when not to use their chosen abbreviations. I still get papers where students use these abbreviations and I even get emails from adults with the use of texting abbreviations. ("Can texting help," )
- How have these readings changed, confirmed, or complicated your thinking about the effects of school-based writing instruction on young peoples abilities to read and write? In the article Writing Now it was a little disheartening to find out that not a single writing tactic can help every student or teach every student. I completely understand that we teach a diverse set of learners in a day, but what happened to the basic mechanics of writing? For example: indenting, capitalization, grammar, spelling, beginning, middle, and end points, etc. Speaking from our school's experience, I think we have gone too far from the basic writing instruction. Students now don't seem to know what a paragraph is or how to even properly construct one. I think if we are going to use technology in writing, it needs to be used as an enhancement to writing. For example: using technology for students to properly type stories; checking for punctuation, spelling, indenting, etc. When I went to college, I had an incredible English professor who took the time to teach me the little things about writing I did not learn in school. His patience, diligence, and need for me to be a well-rounded writer really helped me and prepared me for the mounds of essays and papers I was expected to write in college. I wish I would have learned the mechanics he had taught me EARLIER IN LIFE! ("Writing now: A," 2008)
- What changes do you think educators need to make so that reading and writing in school have a more positive effect on children's abilities to read and write? I think to have a more positive effect on students' reading and writing abilities, students first need to learn how to read and write. So many students are pushed through without being taught how to read and properly write. Students even more importantly need to be taught the five main components of reading: phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension, fluency, and vocabulary. These, in my opinion are building blocks that begin with phonological processing. For example, for a student to be able to comprehend and use different and rich vocabulary, they need to have developed phonological processing and be engulfed in phonics instruction. I also think that this process starts in the beginning at home. Parents need to speak to their children and converse with them as much as possible. When speaking of how to incorporate digital media, I think it needs to be done carefully and with thought. It does not need to be used just to be used. Digital media needs to be used to enhance phonological awareness and phonics instruction.
- Find a video, online article, or blog post that supports your line of thinking. Summarize the information and explain how it provides evidence to support your thinking about the role of digital media on young people's abilities to read and write. I was able to find an article on Fairmont's library site. The link to the article is: http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.fairmontstate.edu/docview/214900934 This article is written by Gary A. Troia, Froma Roth, and Steven Graham. I am very interested and have read several articles written by Troia. Troia has written many articles focusing on teaching through writing and also phonological processing and its influence on literacy learning. This particular article discusses intervention activities that target phonological issues while working with at-risk students. This article also speaks about how young children are capable of learning different sounds and how they need to be encouraged to develop these skills. Supporting my thought process of the importance of tapping into phonological awareness and teaching phonics, Troia, Roth, and Graham state in this article, "In recent years, phonological awareness has garnered much attention, both by researchers and by educators, because of its direct link with the acquisition of basic literacy skills. Studies have clearly demonstrated that children who perform well on sound-awareness tasks often become successful readers, whereas children who perform poorly on these tasks later struggle with word identification and spelling" (Troia, G. A., Roth, F. P., & Graham, S., 1998). These authors also suggest different intervention tasks that could be done using digital media. For example, deciphering which pair of words rhyme could be done on a computer, matching games where the student chooses the words with the same syllable pair could be done on the computer, etc. The authors also suggest a specific digital media game called "Daisy Quest". They state, "In DaisyQuest, the following skills are taught: rhyming, initial sounds, final sounds, and medial sounds. Daisy's Castle focuses on onset-rime blending, sound blending, and sound counting. For each skill, a tutorial as well as matching and judgment exercises are provided. A different scene is used for each exercise to maintain the child's interest. Correct responses are reinforced through verbal praise such as, "Keep it up," "Way to go," and "Super." Incorrect responses are accompanied by comments such as, "Not quite" or "That's not right." Frequently, though, more explicit error-correction procedures are necessary to improve a child's understanding and performances, so the teacher should be present throughout computer instruction" (Troia, G. A., Roth, F. P., & Graham, S., 1998).
- Find an image that supports your stance on the value of using digital media to support reading and writing instruction in school. Please provide proper attribution for any images you embed in your Blog (see support for providing attribution below.)
In this picture, a student is using a kindle to READ; not for gaming purposes.
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" property="dct:title">The pros and cons of tablet reading</span> by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://images.google.com/search?as_q=kid+using+kindle&tbs=sur:fmc&tbm=isch#facrc=_&imgrc=hFeX7ZbID4OL8M%253A%3BTNjyW8YhKTlQmM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fblog.appsymap.com%252Fen%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252Fsites%252F3%252F2014%252F03%252FeReaders-for-Kids.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fblog.appsymap.com%252Fen%252F476%252Fthe-pro-and-cons-of-tablet-reading-for-kids%252F%3B560%3B370" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">http://images.google.com/search?as_q=kid+using+kindle&tbs=sur:fmc&tbm=isch#facrc=_&imgrc=hFeX7ZbID4OL8M%253A%3BTNjyW8YhKTlQmM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fblog.appsymap.com%252Fen%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252Fsites%252F3%252F2014%252F03%252FeReaders-for-Kids.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fblog.appsymap.com%252Fen%252F476%252Fthe-pro-and-cons-of-tablet-reading-for-kids%252F%3B560%3B370</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License</a>.
Resources:
(2008). Writing now: A policy research brief. National Council of Teachers of English, Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Magazine/Chron0908Policy_Writing_Now.pdf
Can texting help with spelling. Scholastic Instructor, Retrieved from
Troia, G. A., Roth, F. P., & Graham, S. (1998). An educator's guide to phonological awareness: Assessment measures and intervention activities for children. Focus on Exceptional Children, 31(3), 1-12. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.fairmontstate.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/224045192?accountid=10797
In response to your question about the basic mechanics of writing, I'd like to say that while there are some important things to know about all writng, there are very few universal rules. A paragraph for instance is a concept that takes some practice to understand. It's a block of ideas that belong together, but there is no set number of sentences, and you don't always indent. And the acceptable length of a paragraph varies according to purpose, genre, and style. News articles have 1 or 2 sentences, but a fictional narrative can have anywhere from 1 to 30... or more. This is why writing is tough. No one can just learn it and then be equipped to write anything. This is why communication technology is changing it and making it more confusing for some... each medium comes with its own rules, and its own mechanics.
ReplyDeleteI have found that the best way to deal with this is to simply give kids lots and lots of practice in as many genres as possible, while offering help along the way.
I do agree with your statement that technology needs to be incorporated properly into the classroom in order for it to be effective. That is our jobs as teachers. We need to create lessons using the appropriate technology to increase student learning and literacy. I also agree that students do need help with their writing skills; however, drilling it into their heads does not seem to be working. Instead, it is making them less engaged in their own learning. Therefore, we need to find a balance of incorporating more technology into the classroom to help our students increase their writing skills that will help teach them the fundamentals of writing.
ReplyDeleteMichaela,
ReplyDeleteI am also a bit concerned that the basic foundations of reading and writing are being antiquated. Teachers should instruct on sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling and phonetics to give students the basic of language. However, I do believe that standards are changing and acceptance of "new" language or "whole" language is more widespread. I know I was substituting for an English 9 teacher and the plans instructed students to listen to an audio of a textbook story and then students were to write a two-page story that summarized the reading. Students were overwhelmed with this assignment and didn't know what a "summary" was. These were 9th graders and I told them the word summary meant to summarize. They still needed more clarification. I was amazed.
Teachers need to incorporate more technology into lesson plans to encourage students to become more engaged. Students of today are immersed in various means of technology and we as teachers should capitalize on this as prime learning experiences. Newer teachers and younger teachers are more equipped with the resources and more apt to use them in their classrooms.
The NCTE is NOT suggesting we do not teach 'basic skills" like sentence structure, vocabulary and spelling. What they are suggesting is that spending large portions of the school day learning these skills by completing worksheets is not effective. Instead these skills are better taught in their context of use. Like Jared wisely pointed out, these skills often vary according to the genre.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, children learn to write when they are provided with lots of opportunities to write for authentic purposes for audience's other than the teacher. Worksheets should not be considered as an opportunity for real writing. Nobody does worksheets outside of school. Research, like the Pew Internet and American Life study shows that students do write much in school. They fill in blanks or write a couple of sentences for short answer questions.
While I agree the phonemic awareness is important for reading. I think it is interesting that you do not see how using text messaging lingo can teach phonemic awareness. It's not different than using nonsense words, a widely accepted and effective strategy, for improving phonemic awareness. It's part of the D.I.B.E.L.S.
How often do you get papers from students with text messaging abbreviations in them? I never get papers with text message abbreviations in them. I do get lot's of emails with text message abbreviations in them. But it doesn't bother me. I view email between students and teachers and parents and teachers as informal communication. I'm mostly concerned with answering their questions and solving problems rather than determining if they are able to use academic writing conventions.
Cara, I'm not surprised at all that students needed more clarification of what a summary was after you told them it meant to summarize. It's one of the hardest strategies for students to grasp, and one of the hardest strategies for you to teach. Research shows that teachers do a terrible job at teaching students to summarize. Additionally, defining a word with a derivative of that word is not an effective strategy. However, providing examples and repeatedly modeling for students how to summarize is effective. You may about think about creating a metaphor for helping student understand the concept of summarizing. Summarizing is like skinning a bear. It takes a long time to get to the heart (i.e key ideas) Just something to think about! ;)