Annotations
- 1. Anstey, M., & Bull, G. (2006). Teaching and learning multiliteracies: changing times, changing literacies (pp. 56-81). Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association. This article explores how teachers can provide opportunities for students to explore learn and engage with a variety of literacies. It focuses on pedagogies that have been in use and how these can be extended further. Characteristics of a dynamic pedagogy include the functions and goals are precisely stated and relevant to the students with links to their school and homes. The students develop deep understandings of literacy and literacy practices. How they can demonstration use of vocabulary and discuss and use language conventions. A teacher encourages the students self-monitoring and applying their knowledge in a variety of ways and acknowledges the social, cultural and technologies characteristics of the classroom. The teacher integrates opportunities to apply, practice and transform learning. 1 Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2009). Multiliteracies: new literacies new learning, Pedagogies: an International Journal, 4 (3), 164-195. A paper which highlights the focus of the New London Group. The aim of the group was to address the changing needs of the modern world and the adaptions educators need to make to adjust. It details an analysis of the why, what and how of literacy pedagogy. The ‘why’ focuses on how literacy and therefore education a key source of social equity. The ‘what’ is the need to conceive meaning making in design and transform of the social world. The ‘how’ are the limitations of traditional literacy teaching to transmit language rules. They suggest a pedagogical shift and building on traditional literacy teaching. The transformative literacy suggested by this paper reframes traditional ideas as experiencing, conceptualising, analysing and applying. 2 Coyne, E., Farrington-Flint, L., Underwood, J., & Stiller, J. (2012). Sensitivity to rime unit frequency and children's early word-reading strategies. Journal of Research In Reading, 35(4), 393-410. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9817.2010.01474.x Coyne (2012) showed growing evidence to suggest that children are capable of choosing a range of reading strategies to accurate comprehension. A student’s awareness of both lexical and non-lexical word-reading strategies are evident in their early reading. Given the relative importance of rime unit frequency for children’s early reading and spelling performance and the importance of acknowledging flexibility in children’s reliance on different word-reading strategies. It is argued that additional work is required to fully assess the contribution of word-specific features in the development of children’s early word-reading strategies. This study examined how 7-8 year olds sensitivity to rime-level spelling sound correspondences can influence their use of both lexical and non-lexical forms of word-reading strategies. 5 Daly, A., & Unsworth, L. (2011). Analysis and comprehension of multimodal texts. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 34 (1), 61-80. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database. This research explored the relationship between the images and language. It showed that although the images and the written text can complement each other however it should not be assumed the text easy to understand if the images are included. It explores the relationship between the text and images and whether it is straightforward or has hidden meanings. It directs the student’s attention to images that might suggest an event and be supported by the text. If the meaning can be abstract thereby encouraging the students to find a deeper meaning. The findings were that while teachers can assume the images make texts easy to understand, some students need explicit teaching to ensure understanding. 3 Dewitz, P. Jones, J. Leahy, S. (2009). Comprehension Strategy Instruction in Core Reading Programs. Reading Research Quarterly. (pp. 102-126). Dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.41.2.1
- 2. This study addressed ‘what are the skills and strategies which are needed and how do they fit into our core reading programs?’ It focused on reading comprehension and how it requires word decoding, vocabulary, knowledge, prior knowledge and motivation. How do teachers teach these strategies? Core reading programs now include comprehension strategies as predicting, self-questioning, comprehension monitoring, summarising, evaluating and narrative structure. Direct and explicit instruction of reading strategies contributes to improve reading comprehension. How should these strategies and skills first be introduced and taught? How do teachers ensure that students internalise and employ these strategies? Effective comprehension instruction begins with direct and explicit explanation and demonstration of strategies when, why and how they should be used. 1 Harvey, S. Goudvis, A. (2008). Comprehension at the Core. The Reading Teacher. (Vol. 66 Issue 6 pp 432 – 439 doi:10.1002/TRTR.1145 Harvey stated in this article that although children are born thinking, teachers need to teach them to think strategically and recognise the power of their thinking. It highlights how even proficient readers sometimes lose track and drift of when reading. Teachers model how to stop, refocus and read for meaning. The strategies developed were a comprehension continuum which covers the students answering literal questions to actively using the knowledge, retelling which shows short term recall and an understanding of events, merge thinking with content by inferring and questioning. When students merge their thinking they can acquire and then actively use their new knowledge. The strategies were developed for the students to ask deeper more thoughtful questions. 2 Hirsch, E. Jr. (2003) Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge – of Words and The World. American Federation suggest of Teachers. Hirsh highlighted how fluency is important in how fast and well a reader comprehends a text. A student gains fluency by: overcoming the limitations of working memory by rapidly grasping the kind of text being read learning to identify words and their grammatical connections at the basic sentence level developing the ability to take in basic features fast thereby leaving the mind free to concentrate on important features a wide vocabulary knowledge enables readers to make sense of word combinations and choose among multiple possible word meanings Developing vocabulary knowledge by definition as well as contextual Suggested strategies in this study are word and world knowledge which can be conveyed through read- alouds, vocabulary instruction, and activities that immerse children. 4 Mudzielwana, N, P. (2013). Research-based Teaching Comprehension Strategies: Bridging the Gap. Journal of Language Teaching and Research (Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 317-327) Academy Publisher. Finland A paper which why some South African students cannot read in Year Three. The research highlighted that teachers did not know how to teach specific reading comprehension strategies. Theorist, such as Piaget and Vygotsky were used to explore strategies that were successful in other countries. The research found two approaches in improving reading comprehension namely reciprocal teaching and scaffold support. It went on to gather evidence from teachers in the target area to explore the strategies that were being used. The research was based on evidence gathered through interviews, observations and content analysis. The research resulted in the following reading comprehensions strategies: Comprehension monitoring Graphic and semantic organisers
- 3. Questioning Question and answering Question generation Story structure Summarising 3 Santoro, N. (2004). Using the four resources model across the curriculum. In A. Healy, & E. Honan (Eds.), Text next: new resources for literacy learning (pp. 51-67). Newtown, NSW: Primary English Teaching Association. Santoro quotes (Winch et al. 2004) ‘Literacy is embedded in our everyday lives’ and in doing so highlights that literacy is not merely a set of skills rather a way of operating within a set of social situations. Student’s need to know a broad lexical range to transfer from one domain to another. Teachers need to ask if their classrooms provide opportunities for students to develop the literacies in all areas. A teacher addresses how to best support students in the use of all four resources of code breaker, text participants, users and analysts. Students learn these strategies understand they are connected and in fact overlap and are used together in conjunction. 4 Schubert, M. (2009). Comprehension activities for the middle years of schooling: teaching and learning to comprehend texts across the curriculum, Literacy Learning: the Middle Years, 17 (1), i-viii The article is a summary of strategies for teaching comprehension in the middle years of schooling. It suggests there is anecdotal evidence that there is more testing rather than teaching of comprehension. It uses a quote stating that teachers in all curriculum areas must teach comprehension. Students learn best with an integrated approach giving them explicit instruction in reading strategies. The article made suggestions for teaching comprehension strategies using the following headings: Activating prior knowledge – know/want to know/what I have learned, Yes/no/maybe, sketch it, visualising, read and retell and graphic overview. Forming broad understandings – paragraph, probing pronouns, visualising, read and retell and graphic overview. Developing interpretations – paragraph summary, inferential comprehension, visualising, read and retell and graphic overview. 5