Literacy Now

The Engaging Classroom
ILA Membership
ILA Next
ILA Journals
ILA Membership
ILA Next
ILA Journals
    • Blog Posts
    • Teaching Tips

    Is Coding the New Literacy?

    by Terry S. Atkinson
     | Jan 10, 2014
    Jen Smyth
    Jen Smyth
    Graduate students in my literacy graduate classes often broach topics extending well beyond our course objectives as they recount their own classroom teaching experiences. Such was the case this past summer as Jen Smyth, a ninth and tenth grade English teacher at Hertford County Early College High School, shared her thoughts about the importance of teaching coding to her students: 

    When educators talk about web literacies, it seems we sometimes double down on consumption and fail to really think about what it means to be creators on the web. We teach our students to use search engines and read webpages but ignore the language and logic that underpins web creation: HTML. I’m doing a lot of thinking about what it means to be web literate and am slowly coming to realize that teaching students how to read and write code may be as important as teaching them how to read and write traditional text. William O’Byrne (2013) argues that web literacy ‘requires that students not only understand and research online information and culture, but employ a critical lens as they examine and remix online content. I believe that this is at the very heart of what we're doing as we remix a website using Hackasaurus, or create a YouTube mashup using Popcorn. Teachers need to understand the context within which students are revising, recreating, or remixing online content' (para. 4).

    Months later as I listened to NPR’s recent Tech Marketplace report, Kids: Program or Be Programmed, I contacted Jen to ask if she knew about the Hour of Code initiative:

    While aware of the initiative, she further investigated code.org’s resources to find that it featured mobile coding apps developed by MIT and Microsoft that offered an alternative for her students’ current game building projects using Scratch and Kodu.

    Jen credits Connected Learning and her involvement in the Tar River Writing Project with significantly influencing her student web creation efforts. However, her students’ experiences are not typical of most U.S. students, as code.org reports that only 1 in 10 American schools teach students coding. This estimate stands in stark contrast to England’s 2014 curriculum implementation mandating the teaching of computer programming in all primary and secondary UK schools. However, some, such as Alli Rense, caution that programming does not exist in a vacuum and depends upon an understanding of logic, communication, and abstract thinking. As the U.S. conversation continues, proponents such as Mark Prenzky, Douglas Rushkoff, and Dan Hoffman argue that coding is a new literacy that American schools can no longer afford to ignore. Considering that students are learning to code and create on their own in ever increasing numbers offers powerful evidence to support their stance. Using free tools such as those available at the MIT Media Lab, Code Academy, Coursera, CodeSchool, and CodeCombat the outcomes may indeed be leaving schools behind.

    Terry S. AtkinsonTerry S. Atkinson is an associate professor and a graduate director at East Carolina University, atkinsont@ecu.edu.

    This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

     

    Jen Smyth Graduate students in my literacy graduate classes often broach topics extending well beyond our course objectives as they recount their own classroom teaching experiences. Such was the case this past summer as Jen Smyth, a ninth...Read More
    • Blog Posts
    • In Other Words

    This I Resolve in Annum Comminus Summa

    by Alan Sitomer
     | Jan 08, 2014

    As with most folks, when the New Year strikes I reach down deep, look into my heart and make commitments to the twelve months ahead that I hope won’t implode by Martin Luther King Day.

    p: thomasstache via photopin cc

    This year is no different. And being that we are now in Annum Comminus Summa (that’s Latin for Year of Common Core, btw…or so says Google Translate), here’s a list of a few things I hope to gain mastery over before the clock strikes twelve ending the twelve months which will comprise the year 2014.

    1. I resolve to deepen and expand my ability to deliver non-fiction content to learners of all stripes. Of course this will mean I am going to need to check my sources, do a ton of research, carefully select grade appropriate texts and try to harmonize them with both cross-disciplinary aims as well as within intertextual, multi-media, appropriately scaffolded and differentiated units. But it’s still early in the year so my faith is strong that I will be up to the challenge. (At least more up to it than I am when it comes to eliminating my egregious need to soothe myself during trying times with chocolate.)
    1. I resolve to remain steadfastly committed to literature. Fiction still matters a GREAT deal. Classic books, YA fiction, stories of all types, and even though I can already foresee ill-informed checklist checkers sweating me for not chronically pimping non-fiction, as research shows (and as my teacher’s heart/mind knows), the benefits of reading fiction for young minds is irrefutable and irreplaceable.
    1. I resolve to help develop strong, competent writers. Yes, Common Core is placing an unprecedented premium on writing, but as a thoughtful educator I have always felt that our schools have needed to place much more oomph on a student’s ability to write well (and much less oomph on a kid’s ability to choose A, B, C, or D in order to get credit for knowing things).

      By MLK Day my diet might already be shot (but that’s not due to willpower; biology has cursed me with a scientifically provable chemical infatuation with chocolate) and might already be on life support (I did walk to the fridge for the chocolate brownies, after all, as opposed to simply asking someone else to go get it for me, but the caloric expenditure probably didn’t balance out the caloric intake) yet doubling down on building better writers in 2014 is one that I believe has a lot of gas in the tank.

    Okay, so I have three goodies. However, it’s time for the million dollar New Year question: Do I dare expand the list? To add more things builds more pressure on me. After all, I can swear off chocolate and vow to exercise, but if I take on meditation, philanthropy, learning Chinese and joining a crochet club (y’all do know how hard the crochet circuit parties, right?) then I am setting myself up for trouble.

    Yet, when I look at the Common Core I know I also really need to deepen and expand my skills in areas such as:

    • Amplifying Text Complexity for Low Achieving Readers
    • The World of Essential Questions
    • Building Authentic Student Engagement
    • Closing the Close Reading Gap
    • Providing Bulletproof Textual Evidence
    • Elevating Visual Literacy
    • Speaking and Listening (ten times over)
    • Refining Argumentation and Rhetoric

    Gulp…it’s a lot to tackle. And that’s not even all of it by any stretch. But yes I do. I will go for it.

    Why? Because while I know obscene amounts of chocolate are bad for me I also know owning a wide variety of skillsets in the world of literacy instruction is good for me.

    Thank goodness Annum Comminus Summa is also going to be the year of Annum Lorem Ipsum Auxilium, the year of intense professional development.

    Alan Sitomer on Reading Today Online

    Alan Lawrence Sitomer is a California Teacher of the Year award winner and the founder of The Writer’s Success Academy. In addition to having been an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School Of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Mr. Sitomer is a nationally renowned keynote speaker who specializes in engaging underperforming students. To date, Mr. Sitomer has authored 16 books with works ranging from hard-hitting YA novels like HOMEBOYZ, THE HOOPSTER and HIP-HOP HIGH SCHOOL to humorous and warm children’s picture books such as DADDIES DO IT DIFFERENT. Alan has two new books hitting the shelves in spring 2014: CAGED WARRIOR, a gritty tale about the underground world of teen mixed martial arts fighting, and DADDY AND THE ZIGZAGGING BEDTIME STORY, the next in his series of beloved children's picture books.

    © 2014 Alan Sitomer. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.
    As with most folks, when the New Year strikes I reach down deep, look into my heart and make commitments to the twelve months ahead that I hope won’t implode by Martin Luther King Day. p: thomasstache via photopin cc This year is no...Read More
    • Blog Posts
    • Teaching Tips

    Can We Play Now?

    by Sam Williams
     | Jan 07, 2014

    When I meet up with a group of teachers it is difficult to get us off the topic of teaching in today’s classroom. There are so many opinions about new standards, testing, teacher evaluations…the list goes on. We have a hard time talking about anything else because we are so consumed by the changes we see in our work lives. Many of my colleagues believe we have lost sight of what is most important in our schools—the children.

    Having taught pre-K and kindergarten for many years I can’t lie, I am definitely concerned about the push for more direct instruction and testing in our classes. I find it is harder every year to infuse play into my lessons. In many school districts teachers are given the exact amount of minutes per day to teach each subject. Which content area wants the teacher to include the housekeeping center? Which content area should be used for play with blocks?

    p: woodleywonderworks via photopin cc

    As educators we can make an argument for most social centers and how they fit into our day. But we also see the list of standards, the curriculum and supplements that are supplied to us, the curriculum calendars, and the testing schedules and we may second-guess ourselves and whether we should include those social centers into our day. But I do feel it is our job as early childhood educators to continue to incorporate play-based learning into every content area.

    Why is it so important?

    In early childhood we have a responsibility to help continue, or in many cases, start that love of learning and school that is so important for our youngsters to have. I fear, as do many of my colleagues, if we push direct instruction all day and every day in early childhood we will hinder the enjoyment of learning. Many of us have also seen an increase in behavior issues in our classrooms. There are a multitude of reasons that we are seeing an increase in negative behaviors. I believe one of the biggest reasons is that our students are pushed too hard and do not have an opportunity to learn to self-regulate through play and social interaction.

    The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states that children learn in a variety of ways, play is an important vehicle for developing self-regulation, and promoting language, cognition, and social competence. It also states that children’s experiences shape their motivation and approaches to learning (NAEYC, 2013).

    Play-based learning helps children to learn from their peers. Children learn to take turns, be flexible in their interactions, solve problems, negotiate conflict, create common goals, delay gratification and build stronger oral language skills. In the play-based classroom a science lesson on the life cycle of a butterfly may first involve reading many books on the topic and then allowing children to explore this topic in small groups. Let the students decide how they want to explore this topic further. It might mean a group project creating a model of the life cycle, and/or creating a poster about the topic. This type of exploration will not only reach many subject areas (math, science, reading, and writing) but will also reinforce strong social skills. Students will learn through interactions with peers how to work together, create goals, and create a shared project.

    Compare these activities with a more teacher-directed approach where a student will listen to information about the life cycle, write about it, and finish a sequencing worksheet on the different parts of the life cycle of the butterfly. It isn’t difficult to see which one will engage students in multiple disciplines and build stronger social skills.

    What can we do?

    The first step, and probably the most difficult, is to be vocal about our concerns about the lack of play in our classrooms. We, as teachers, need to talk about why play is important. We need to let our administrators, school boards, unions, evaluators, and even those in the department of education hear from us about this topic. We also must be able to articulate the key points to our arguments. We can’t just say “it is important for kids to play.” We have to be able to cite the research, know the stages of development, and supply the statistics. Being well-versed and educated on this topic will make our argument more viable and will get the attention of the decision makers.

    Now it is our job to start putting our words into action. Let’s start putting play into action in our classrooms. A few simple suggestions to get more play-based learning in our classrooms:

    • Centers with a multitude of manipulatives (tiles, cubes, blocks, counters, beans, bottle caps, etc.)—allow the students completely free choice in manipulatives. Once you have used manipulatives in whole group instruction allow children to use free exploration with them. It is amazing how often they will choose to do math in their centers. Modeling of how to record their math in journals and allowing them to use their journals freely during centers will provide open play time as well.
    • Math tool time—give students access to scales, weights, chart paper, manipulatives, measuring cups, measuring spoons, beakers, graduated cylinders and allow students to freely explore. Again once you have modeled recording data students are so interested and willing to do this on their own.
    • Measuring time—let students measure anything they want with anything they choose. They love this exploration and they learn so much about length and comparison when they get to choose what they want to measure and what tools they want to use.
    • Dramatic play—we have done dramatic play for years and unfortunately we use it less and less now. Provide students with costumes, masks, paper, markers, and crayons to make their own scenes, props, and masks. My students love nursery rhymes because they are something they can read on their own after I have introduced them in whole group instruction many times. They love to act out the nursery rhymes. I never asked them to act out nursery rhymes; they just decided one day that it would be a fun thing to do. They make the decisions on which rhyme they want to do and who will play each part.  
    • Co-author a book—I love giving students chart paper, construction paper, and a collection of writing tools and allowing them to work in groups and write in any way they want. They come up with many more creative stories and purposes for writing then if I tell them what to write.
    • Open literacy centers—allowing students to use lots of manipulatives and different mediums to explore literacy. Give children play-dough, craft sticks, wikki stix, chenille stems, paint, etc. to explore the alphabet and make words. When you allow students to use these tools freely they will be more open to explore inventive spelling and making words in their own way.
    • Open science investigations or experiments—once you have done a science investigation or experiment in the class, allow the students access to the science tools and let them choose their own investigation. My students wanted to record their own investigations in their science journals and several of them followed up with their investigations over several days.
    • Outside play—after we have played several games together as a group I allow my students to choose their own games. I am always amazed as they set up their own system of rules: who is going to play, who will be “it” first, and even how to win the game. I constantly hear them working through problems on the playground when they set up their own games.

    Obviously there are many more ways to incorporate play into our classrooms. We need to give ourselves permission to let free play happen in our classes. Read more about developmentally appropriate play and be able to answer “why are the students using blocks during math time?”

    When I started teaching more than 15 years ago early childhood was more about preparing students with the social skills they need to succeed. Today, it seems that we are spending the majority of our time preparing students for academic life. I believe we can successfully do both. I believe with more play-based learning in our classrooms we can instill a love of learning that will last a lifetime and still reach every single standard. I want my students to be prepared for academic success but as they are leaving my class I also want to hear “I had fun today!”

    Sam Williams on Reading Today OnlineSam Williams is a kindergarten teacher in Tampa, Florida. He is also a published author, and is a professional development writer and trainer. He owns an educational resource company that supplies resources and professional development for teachers around the country.  You can find Sam at www.sharpenyoungminds.org.

    © 2014 Sam Williams. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.
    When I meet up with a group of teachers it is difficult to get us off the topic of teaching in today’s classroom. There are so many opinions about new standards, testing, teacher evaluations…the list goes on. We have a hard time talking about...Read More
  • ILA Membership
    ILA Next
    ILA Journals
    ILA Membership
    ILA Next
    ILA Journals
    • Blog Posts
    • Teaching Tips

    Unite for Literacy: Providing “Book Abundance” to Learners Across the World

    by Michael Putman
     | Jan 03, 2014

    Unite for Literacy screen shotThe culmination of a dream of two life-long educators, Mark Condon and Michael McGuffee, Unite for Literacy (UfL) is a website dedicated to the idea of “Book Abundance, where all children have access to books that celebrate their cultures and honor their home languages.” UfL achieves this vision within the “Wondrously Infinite Global Library,” which contains more than 100 books that can be read or listened to anytime and anywhere an Internet connection is available. While these capabilities may be present on a variety of websites that you may already use, what makes UfL unique is the potential to address the diverse range of language found in today’s classrooms. For example, one book, Counting Sheep, includes narration in ten different languages, including Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish. On the other hand, Can You See the Wind? features additional languages such as Arabic, Korean, and Tagalog among the fourteen languages available for narration. In fact, there are 15 languages included across the spectrum of the titles offered with narration. This is just the tip of the iceberg, however, as the goal for the site is to eventually be able to support readers in 300 languages. Think about the possibilities for discussions, not only among the learners in your classroom, but with students across the world who have access to the same book!

    Additional unique features of Unite for Literacy include the use of all original books in the library and, interestingly, an across the board focus on non-fiction. According to a blog post by Mark Condon, Vice President of Unite for Literacy, this is not an accident. Acknowledging that the website is designed to be a tool for children worldwide, nonfiction was deemed necessary to ensure the books had relevance and meaning across cultures and continents. Children (and adults) can spend time learning about unique foods in books such as My Navajo Taco, personal hygiene in Let’s Brush Our Teeth, or interesting locales in Conservation in Botswana. The library also includes multiple books that focus on universally-applicable math concepts like sorting and counting. These books engage learners using Violet, a character who has a bit of a sweet tooth and a habit of eating the manipulatives, especially candy and cookies!

    For users who want more than access to the library, Mark blogs several times a month on a variety of topics applicable to literacy. Furthermore, there is a Facebook page associated with Unite for Literacy that is updated regularly, allowing people to stay abreast of news about Unite for Literacy. In sum, UfL provides unique, engaging materials that can support the range of learners across your classroom as well as open possibilities for communication and collaboration among teachers and students across the world!

    Michael PutmanMichael Putman is from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Michael.Putman@uncc.edu. 

    This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG)

     

    The culmination of a dream of two life-long educators, Mark Condon and Michael McGuffee, Unite for Literacy (UfL) is a website dedicated to the idea of “Book Abundance, where all children have access to books that celebrate their cultures and...Read More
    • Blog Posts
    • Quiet! Teacher in Progress

    Resolve to Own Your Fabulous

    by Mrs. Mimi
     | Jan 02, 2014

    Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms. 

    Happy New Year, everyone! (Although, really, I see the world through the eyes of a teacher and therefore firmly think of the “new year” as starting in September, but we can roll with convention a bit, can’t we?)

    p: DonkeyHotey via photopin cc

    How are you doing on making (and keeping) those resolutions? Broke one already? Have yet to come up with one? Well, I have an idea to add to the list. You ready? Stop self-bullying.

    Let me explain…

    As teachers, we feel an incredible responsibility to not only teach our small fries how to read, but to teach them to love reading. We push them to expand their choices as readers as we encourage them to come back to certain classics. We stay up late, thinking about our current strugglers and how we can get them to make progress without hating to read. In short, we walk a fine line between staying strong in our convictions about best practice and constantly beating ourselves up when students struggle.

    Personally, I think the teachers that can reflect on the short-comings of their own practice make some of the best teachers. So go ahead and continue to beat yourself up a bit from time to time. This is not what I consider “self-bullying.”

    When I say “self-bullying,” I am referring to all those little comments we make about ourselves as teachers that consistently belittle, demean or minimize our successes. A few examples:

    You are an organizational goddess, yet, when someone walks into your classroom and remarks on your off-the-charts organization, you say, “Oh no. It’s such a mess in here. I’m always such a mess. Look at those piles!”

    You rock behavior management, yet when someone mentions how well behaved your class was in the hallway, you say, “They were just gearing up for later! They are NEVER like that.”

    You own the teaching of math, yet when someone comments on the progress your students are making, you say, “They would do this well with anyone. I’m not special.”

    Why do we feel the need to duck compliments? I don’t think it is as simple as being humble.

    It’s like we are afraid to stand out as successful. But if we struggle to own our successes and choose instead to focus on our short-comings, how can we expect our students to do any differently? I’m all for being honest about our flaws and for constantly setting goals to improve instruction. Yet, in the spirit of the new year, let’s try to commit to ending the self-bullying and be honest about our successes as well.

    Mrs Mimi on Reading Today OnlineMrs. Mimi is a pseudonymous teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of IT'S NOT ALL FLOWERS AND SAUSAGES: MY ADVENTURES IN SECOND GRADE, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

    © 2014 Mrs. Mimi. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.

     

    Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her...Read More
Back to Top

Categories

Recent Posts

Archives