Language and Literacy (Journal)
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A second grade teacher\u27s innovations toward multimodal literacies in an urban primary school
No full textThis study is an examination of a second grade teacher’s negotiation of multimodal literacies in a high performing urban primary school in Detroit. In spite of the school’s high performing record, teachers were required to adhere closely to paced curriculum and exclusive use of curriculum materials. A teacher and researcher collaboration implemented supplemental texts and negotiated innovations toward multimodal literacies with a theme entitled Fossils. An examination of peer-led discussion groups, peer-led reading logs and the focal teacher’s Interactive Whiteboard innovations demonstrates deeper comprehension and enhanced participation due to linkages across texts and with students’ social worlds
Singing is a Celebration of Language: Using Music to Enhance Young Children’s Vocabularies
No full textMusic engages children in language learning, offering them opportunities to understand and express their ideas and communicate with others in ways that go beyond words. This article, based on two ethnographically-framed studies and the use of two real-life vignettes, demonstrates how singing and musical experiences (e.g., composition, soundscapes, musical improvisation) have the power to enhance children’s lexical acquisition and semantic knowledge at various levels of development. Results demonstrate that singing and musical experiences, whether biologically or socially shaped, provide opportunities to celebrate language and enhance young children’s vocabulary building
Just Doing Our Jobs: A Case Study of Literacy-in-Action in a Fifth Grade Literature Circle
No full textThis case study examines the use of literature circles in a fifth grade classroom. Using the concept of literacy-in-action, it examines the question of why, in spite of critique, the use of defined student roles continues to dominate literature circle pedagogy. The study’s examination of the interaction of people, objects, practices and meanings associated with this particular classroom’s literature circles, demonstrates the way in which reliance on one particular literacy object, the role sheet, worked to radically alter the intended pedagogical purpose and meanings set out by those who first popularized literature circles. Through its travels to and from the fifth grade classroom, the role sheet accumulated an increasing status or power, along with a peculiar resistance to critique. The examination sheds light on the tensions and contradictions that arise when an instructional routine is transplanted from one context to another, a phenomenon occurring daily in classrooms worldwide. The findings illustrate the unintended consequences that arise when a literacy object is used as a proxy for the human mediation traditionally, and necessarily, associated with meaningful literacy pedagogies
Using Singing and Movement to Teach Pre-reading Skills and Word Reading to Kindergarten Children: An Exploratory Study
No full textKindergarten classrooms were randomly assigned to a songs group (n = 44) that used choral singing and movement to teach phonological skills, letter-sounds, and word reading, or to a control group (n = 49) where children received their regular language and literacy programs for equal amounts of time. The songs group teaching involved choral singing and movements created for the project to teach phonological skills, letter-sounds, and word reading. Children preferred songs that were quick to learn, had strong or soothing rhythms, and incorporated movements. Children in the songs group had increased letter-sounds, medial phoneme identity and word reading compared to children in the control group. Children in both groups made equal gains in rhyming and identifying phonemes in initial and final positions. Songs group children also read new words not presented in the songs program. Initial and medial phoneme identity and letter-sound knowledge made independent contributions to word reading
Répercussions des difficultés dans la compétence scripturale d’enseignants du primaire en contexte d’insertion professionnelle
No full text L’insertion professionnelle des enseignants est problématique dans plusieurs pays, et ce, pour de multiples raisons, dont la lourdeur des tâches professionnelles. Malgré que plusieurs de ces tâches nécessitent l’écriture, certains étudiants en formation initiale ne semblent pas maitriser suffisamment la compétence scripturale qui est requise pour la réalisation des tâches inhérentes au domaine de l’éducation. En nous référant aux différentes dimensions de la compétence scripturale et à la conceptualisation de Vallerand (2008) de l’insertion professionnelle, nous avons tenté de décrire les difficultés dans la compétence scripturale et les répercussions de celles-ci sur les tâches professionnelles et l’insertion professionnelle d’enseignants débutants
Des enseignants en milieu minoritaire francophone améliorent leur enseignement pour la réussite en littératie
No full textCe texte vise à comprendre les liens entre l’implantation de dispositifs pédagogique liés à l’observation et l’’analyse des données d\u27apprentissage réalisée en communauté d\u27apprentissage professionnelle (CAP) sur la progression des apprentissages en littératie d’élèves de huit écoles d’un milieu minoritaire francophone. Le protocole de recherche de type longitudinal sur une période de trois ans documente l’évolution des apprentissages en lecture et en écriture des élèves qui réussissent et ceux à risque. L’analyse des résultats montre que les élèves à risque et non à risque obtiennent des progrès significatifs dans les rendements en lecture et que le lien étroit entre la progression de ces apprentissages et le travail en CAP conjugué à aux meilleures pratiques en enseignement de la littératie
Together in Song: Building Literacy Relationships with Song-based Picture Books
No full textThis action research study provided a collaborative social space in which to examine the intersection of shared singing/reading, emergent literacy, and family literacy. In particular, the significance of home literacy engagement with song-based picture books was investigated through the core action of a non-deficit, school-based family literacy program. Data were collected via parent/guardian journals that documented intergenerational home literacy engagement over a two-month period. Findings revealed that shared singing/reading with song-based picture books provided rich opportunities for families to build joyful, literacy relationships while providing kindergarten-aged children with meaningful experiences with text
Understanding the importance of ethos in composing the “everyday” new literacies classroom
No full textThis article examines the impact of a senior English teacher’s ethos in composing, with her students, a new literacies classroom. This is a paradigm case where ever-changing technical stuff and a new ethos are encouraged in the literacy events of the classroom context. Utilizing a metaphor of ‘classroom as text’, we better understand the importance of the teacher’s own literacies, and her role as co-author of new, situated classroom literacies. In this case, language and literacy teaching becomes tangential through multi-textual readings and compositions that enact an ellipsis where certain previously privileged texts and approaches are omitted. In this way, through a reciprocal relationship, the teacher fosters rather than defines her students’ emergent literacies and critical thinking development. In turn, the students influence their teacher’s conceptions of what it means to be literate; what textual readings and compositions are meaningful to their situated language learning in digital times
Children as Co-ethnographers of their Plurilingual Literacy Practices: An Exploratory Case Study
No full textInterdisciplinary childhood researchers have begun to advocate a shift from conducting research about children to engaging children themselves in the research process. In this article, I reflect on issues and insights that arose while working with grade 5 students as ethnographers of their own language and literacies practices over the course of a six-month transformative multiliteracies classroom intervention in a French school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I describe this initial exploratory case study as a way of provoking discussion on ways we may re-envision plurilingual multiliteracies research with children as co-researchers