New+Literacy+Practice

**New Literacy Practice**
 * **How have you seen teachers using technology and digital media in early year’s classrooms to enhance their literacy teaching?**

During the early year’s literacy classroom observations, our group experienced numerous different uses of technology to enhance literacy teaching. Smartboards, computers and cd players were the most common technologies used. Literacy teaching was enhanced through technology as programs such as Storylands on the computer allows the student to work independently on reading and literacy activities. The Smartboard also provides a means for the teacher to integrate technology into the literacy lesson; the smart boar was used primarily for spelling and for reading books. The use of technology is seen as enjoyable and fun for the students – therefore helping the student to enjoy the lesson.
 * **How are early year’s literacy learners using digital technologies at home and at school?**

It was discovered by our group that many early year’s literacy learners are using digital technologies at both home and school. At school, many children have access to computers to do literacy activities and typing; the children were also exposed to the smartboards and tape/cd players. Most of the children interviewed, mentioned the use of computers at home for both leisure and for writing. The children seem to really enjoy the use of technology; it is good to see that even in early years the children are learning to use these technologies as these skills are very important to gain; and integrating these into literacy ** Observation Notes; Literacy in the Classroom ** **LAURA:** Throughout the literacy lesson, there were two forms technology in which the teacher used. To begin the lesson, the class came together on the floor, and a book was read to them on the ‘Smart board’. I thought this was a wonderful way to begin the lesson, as the use of this technology engaged the students entirely. As the teacher was reading the story, she would ask the students a range of interpretive and inferential questions about the book, which enabled the students to explore the text and grasp an understanding of what they were reading. Another form of technology that was used during the lesson was computers. When the students broke up into their literacy groups, one group were assigned to the computers, and were asked to complete a literacy activity. This activity was an interactive story that the students were able to follow along. By clicking on each word in the story, the word would be read out loud for the students to hear and thus they were able to read along with the story. With this technology, the students are learning how to read words and how to sound them out. There were also numerous other activities on the computers such as fill in the blanks, where the students identified with word is appropriate for each sentence to make sense. **MICHELLE:** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">The main resources used for the literacy lesson were texts and work sheets. The whiteboard and butchers paper were used to impart information to the whole class and the talking book on tape via the listening post was utilized by two small groups. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">No other information technology was used within the classroom, due to the fact they were absent from the classroom. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">**ELENA:** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Technologies I observed being used in literacy teaching were computers and a smart board. Computers were used by students who played a spelling game. Children in one of the literacy groups had a computer each and they independently played a game in which they spelled out a word which appeared on the screen. This game encouraged the students to become familiar with the literacy skills of typing and also spelling. In the game children were encouraged by the computer to spell the words as quickly as possible, which kept the game challenging as well as fun to the students.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 110%;">The Smart board was used in the classroom by the teacher, who placed spelling words on the board for the students to read, and then go on to use in sentences. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">** GRACE: ** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The technology I observed the students using in the classroom were desktop computers for Storylands and cd players for Listening Post. The students were able to turn these technologies on and off and were competent at accessing the programs they needed. The students had clearly been taught previously and were now able to use these by themselves.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 13px;">Students using the desktop computers used the program ‘Storylands’. This is an interactive program in which the children are able to pick a story and read it whilst playing the game. This technology encourages independent reading. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 13px;">Students using the cd players are engaging in ‘Listening Post’. This is a guided reading session, where the children have an individual copy of a text, and they listen to a cd that has a voice reading the text aloud, and also discussing punctuation, grammar, capital letters etc that feature in the text. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 13px;">The technology used in the classroom was a great way for the students to get interactive and reading in a fun way! The students seemed to really love this part of the session, the technology gave them a chance to experience a reading in a different form rather than just a book. I believe it is important, not only are they learning about literacy; they are also learning how to use this technology that is sure to be a big part of their lives. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">** ROCHELLE: ** <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 13px;">The grade one classroom I observed had computers, a Smart board, a projector and individual CD players. Although the classroom was equipped with the technologies, they were not used during the literacy lesson.

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