Competing priorities: Singaporean teachers’ perspectives on critical literacy

This paper explores a group of Singaporean English language teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about critical literacy as well as their perspectives on how best to teach literacy and critical literacy in Singapore schools. A face-to-face survey was conducted among 58 English language teachers by using open-ended questions. The survey covered various topics related to literacy instruction including text decoding, meaning construction, and critical analysis of texts. The participating teachers believed strongly that reading and writing are transactional and interactional practices. However, they were less certain in their beliefs about teaching critical literacy including the critical, analytical and evaluative aspects of text reading. Some teachers saw a conflict between using time on teaching critical literacy and preparing students to pass their exams. As critical literacy is not a requirement at exams, they found it difficult to justify using time teaching it. The results suggest that the teachers’ belief systems are strongly influenced by the broad macro-structure of the educational system in Singapore and their own educational experiences.     

When Race Enters the Room: Improving Leadership and Learning Through Racial Literacy

This article explains (a) why racial literacy—an understanding of the origins and function of race in US schools and society—is essential to the work of educational leaders, and (b) how educational leaders can improve their leadership through racial literacy. It introduces the concept of racial literacy as a first step to improving school leadership practices, to be followed by racial realism, racial reconstruction, and racial reconciliation in racially diverse school communities. The article concludes with recommendations and resources designed to advance the racial literacy of educational leaders and their teams as part of a broader commitment to inclusion and social justice in US schools.     

Digital literacy practices and their layered multiplicity

Success in educational programmes often depends on learners being able to negotiate and manage a variety of digital literacy practices commensurate with the literacy demands of their course. This paper reports on preliminary findings of a multi-method PhD study which examines the digital literacy practices arising when an adult learner in a UK college completes writing assignments for her course. It explores whether she uses digital tools agentively and decisively in her personal life, in order to transform her classroom practice. Data show that mobilising personal digital literacy practices into classroom-based literacy events allows learners to successfully make the link between their own everyday digital literacy practices and the requirements of their course. It is argued that a “social practice” approach to digital literacies, along with actor-network theory sensibilities, allows researchers to observe the sensitivity of classroom-based digital literacy events to the layered multiplicity of their contexts.     

A biographical perspective on chicano educational success

The lack of educational success among Latinos has been the focus of much research concerned with identifying factors contributing to school failure. However, some Latinos do achieve educational success and receive college degrees. Their lives can serve as case studies of minority educational success. This study used autobiographical and interview data to construct the life histories of two Chicanos in order to examine their interpretations of their educational experiences and the sociocultural factors which they identified as influencing those experiences. An additional purpose was to provide detailed biographical information which is currently not available on educationally successful Chicanos. A biographical perspective provides a counterbalance to perceptions of the role of sociocultural factors such as ethnicity in the education of minorities which view them as static or unproblematic. When examined within the contexts of lives that undergo transitions across biographical time, the influence of sociocultural factors such as ethnicity is shown to vary and to require an examination of their impact that shifts across educational careers. His research interests include examining relatiponships between literacy, cullure, and socialization in written and oral genres, including the life histories of Chicano educators. He holds a Ph.D. in language and literacy from The Ohio State University Her research and teaching interests focus on bilingual education in Spanish and English. She holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and the study of schooling from UCLA.     

Image–language interaction in online reading environments: challenges for students’ reading comprehension

This paper presents the qualitative results of a study of students’ reading of multimodal texts in an interactive, online environment. The study forms part of a larger project which addressed image–language interaction as an important dimension of language pedagogy and assessment for students growing up in a multimedia digital age. Thirty-two Year 6 students representing a sample of high, medium and low performers on an Australian state-wide school literacy test were surveyed about their internet usage and interviewed using a structured protocol while working online through a selection of materials from an educational website. Findings from the earlier stages of the project indicated that different types of image-text relations vary in the degree of difficulty they pose for students’ reading comprehension. This phase of the project extended the analysis of image-text relations to online, interactive texts. Student performance on online reading tasks and interview data are used to illustrate some of the complexities students encounter when reading online, and how this may vary with factors such as their day-to-day literacy experiences and levels of engagement. The results have implications for literacy pedagogy and assessing the reading of web-based texts.     

香港青少年媒介素养教育网站分析与启示

信息时代如何提升青少年的媒介素养是教育界广泛关注的问题,而通过构建媒介素养教育网站是解决这一问题的途径之一。论文通过对香港青少年媒介素养教育网站的分析,结合我国青少年媒介素养现状提出其启示作用,以期为建设本土化的媒介素养教育网站提供参考。     

Literacy learning in secondary school science classrooms: A cross-case analysis of three qualitative studies

The purpose of this cross-case analysis is to illustrate how and why literacy was incorporated into science teaching and learning in three secondary classrooms. Research questions guiding the analysis include: (a) How were literacy events shaped by the teachers' philosophies about teaching science content and teaching students? and (b) How was literacy (reading, writing, and oral language) structured by the teachers and manifested in science lessons? The methodology of ethnography and the theoretical framework of symbolic interactionism were employed in the three studies on which the cross-case analysis was based. The researchers assumed the role of participant observers, collecting data over the period of 1 year in each of the three classrooms. Data, in the form of fieldnotes, interviews, and artifacts, were collected. In each study, data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to determine patterns in the teachers' beliefs about learning and how these influenced their choice of literacy activities. The cross-case analysis was conducted to determine patterns across the three teachers and their classrooms. The findings from this analysis are used to compare how the teachers' philosophies of teaching science and their beliefs about how students learn influenced their use of literacy practices during lessons. Specifically, each teacher's use of literacy activities varied based on his or her beliefs about teaching science concepts. Furthermore, reading, writing, and oral language were important vehicles to learning science concepts within daily classroom activities in the three classrooms.     

Literacy practices in Mexican immigrant homes

Abstract

Despite a well-established body of literature focusing on school-based Spanish and English bilingualism of Latino children in the United States, the biliteracy development and literacy practices at home have received little attention by the educational research community. Addressing this gap is important because educators can then use the knowledge related to home language and literacy resources to inform the school curricula and better serve the needs of a linguistically and culturally diverse student population. We contribute to this endeavor by exploring two Mexican immigrant families and their language and literacy practices in their home milieu. Findings from this study suggest that family interactions, as well as the more general home context, are crucial factors in supporting children's development of both oral language and literacy in Spanish and English. An important and recurrent observation is the scaffolding that parents use in Spanish as part of their literacy practices. In addition, children act as agents in their own learning of Spanish, and in making connections to their knowledge of English     

The paradox of text in the culture of literacy

This paper invites a reconsideration of the divide between oral and literate cultural practices in the research on literacy. It begins by challenging the distinction which David Olson has made between text andutterance as one which overstates the separateness of literate and oral practices. To supplement Olson's position, the author describes the continuing importance of oral practices for the promotion of intellectual activities which are centred on texts. He does so, in part, by drawing on the literacy lessons of the Passover Haggadah. The Haggadah proves to be a text which celebrates the intellectual necessity of interruption and the ongoing need for interpretation, two critical practices firmly rooted in an oral regard for the word. This picture of an alternative literacy tradition is put forward as a possibility for a renewed regard for reading and for the text in the classroom.     

Troubling literacy: monolingual assumptions,multilingual contexts,and language teacher expertise

The current educational context in many English speaking countries is one where literacy is understood to be essentially monolingual in orientation; that is, an understanding of literacy around a single common language, with the emphasis on identifying universal, normative ‘standards’ and ‘benchmarks’, such as the National Assessment Program-Literacy and Numeracy in Australia, the Primary National Strategy in the United Kingdom, and No Child Left Behind in the United States. This paper aims to problematise such assumptions by examining how teachers, themselves, understand “teaching literacy” when their students come to the teaching/learning relationship with a first language other than English. With a focus on teachers working with bilingual and multilingual students in their early stages of acquiring English as a second language (ESL), the study thus acknowledges the increasingly diverse sociolinguistic profile of students in Australia and elsewhere in the varying degrees of communicative competence they bring to the mainstream in their use of ESL. Moreover, it draws on ESL teacher knowledge and expertise which has been identified as increasingly marginalised within mainstream educational discourse. Through case studies of three ESL teachers in the middle years, salient themes around the interrelated notions of literacy as learning, language for literacy and language as literacy were identified with respect to the literacy needs of second language learners.     

‘Invisible’ teachers of literacy: collusion between siblings and teachers in creating classroom cultures

The promise to raise literacy standards significantly at age 11 in economically disadvantaged areas has been an important part of the present British Government's educational policy. Integral to this promise has been the introduction of official home/school ‘contracts’ or ‘agreements’, which oblige parents to engage in specific literacy activities with their children. However, evidence from a longitudinal study of family literacy practices in East London suggests that family and community members other than parents might play a crucial role in initiating young children into literacy. Siblings particularly have been found to be efficient ‘teachers’ of school literacy practices. In this paper, I investigate particularly ways in which an unspoken collusion takes place between teacher and older sibling revealed during ‘play school’ sessions in Bangladeshi British households in East London.     

Using education assistants to help pave the road to literacy: Supporting oral language,letter-sound knowledge and phonemic awareness in the pre-primary year

Children with weak oral language skills are at risk of experiencing difficulty with early literacy acquisition. Intensive small group intervention during the pre-primary year has the potential to improve children's success in developing emergent literacy skills. Education assistants are a potentially powerful resource for supporting students at educational risk. In this study, education assistants at four schools were trained to provide a daily half-hour emergent literacy program to pre-primary students with low oral language skills. The program focused on developing phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge and vocabulary using both explicit and in-context (embedded) learning activities. The students undertaking the program made significant gains on early language and literacy measures. Case studies are presented that illustrate the strengths and limitations of the intervention for children and schools.     

Scientific Literacy and Social Transformation

The paper provides a systematic theoretical analysis of the main visions of the concept of scientific literacy developed in the last 20 years. It is described as a transition from a transmissive educational vision of scientific literacy (Vision-I) to a transformative vision (Vision-III), with a stronger engagement with social participation and emancipation. Using conceptual tools from sociology and the philosophy of education, the notions of science participation and emancipation associated with transformative Vision-III are critically analyzed in order to draw attention to the growing need to define them with greater accuracy as key conceptual components of scientific literacy. Without such an approach, it will be difficult for science education to materialize and consolidate educational actions that are pedagogically sound, culturally and socially sensitive, and coherent with the social transformation of the diverse conditions of oppression. It is concluded that Vision-III should include both a broad conception of participation, which makes visible the invisible and informal acts performed by diverse groups to build society, and an alternative notion of emancipation committed to liberation.

     

The Phenomenon of Information Literacy

Information literacy is being increasingly recognised as an important educational outcome for university graduates. How it is experienced, however, has only recently become the subject of scrutiny. The study reported here examines varying conceptions of information literacy amongst a group of lecturers, librarians, staff developers and learning counsellors. A phenomenographic approach was used to discover their conceptions. Data were gathered from participants, both male and female, through interviews, e‐mail discussions and workshops. As an outcome of the analysis, seven categories, or “faces” of information literacy were discovered. These categories depict information literacy as it is conceived or experienced. They provide target conceptions for the educational process which differ from the more conventional competencies or skill‐based objectives.     

EDUCATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND RESOURCES FOR SUSTAINABLE ACCESS TO SCHOOLING AND OUTCOMES: THE CASE OF EARLY LITERACY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHERN TANZANIA

ABSTRACT

Following on the 1990 and 2000 World Conferences on Education for All, African governments increased their focus on access to schooling (but not necessarily on outcomes) by providing more facilities for increased enrolments. The learning outcomes that had been neglected led to a call to focus on more sustainable access – re-examining the quality of some of those facilities against the anticipated quality of educational outcomes. Studies in Southern and Eastern Africa, including the one under discussion here, indicate that the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not rely only on school-based factors but also on the careful analysis of wider socioeconomic and cultural factors. This paper, through the results of the case study component of the Early Literacy Development project in the Lindi Rural District of Southern Tanzania, discusses why literacy development has lagged behind in Sub- Saharan Africa. The focus of the study and of this paper is on the relationship between literacy practices, literacy events and early literacy development at home and school in low-resourced communities. The extent to which school infrastructure and ecology including buildings, teaching learning materials and teacher characteristics reinforced literacy practices and events at home and school is also highlighted as being of special interest.

The study was sponsored by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Development (formerly CIDA) – Strengthening Education Systems in East Africa (SES-EA).     

Teacher Professional Growth on Assessment Literacy: A Case Study of Prevocational Geography Education in the Netherlands

Abstract

Teachers should have the necessary assessment knowledge and skills to contribute to students’ learning. This study provides insight into how a professional development program for teachers contributed to the achievement of higher mastery levels of assessment literacy. This study used Xu and Brown's TALiP (Teacher Assessment Literacy in Practice) framework to achieve these higher levels. To evaluate the extent to which teachers demonstrated professional growth regarding their assessment literacy, teachers’ practices were evaluated through a content analysis of summative assessments. Potential changes in teachers’ knowledge, skills, and beliefs were measured through questionnaires and interviews. The outcomes showed that reflection on educational goals and on teachers’ beliefs, collaborative practice, and peer feedback played an important role in fostering higher mastery levels in assessment literacy. The outcomes of this study support the value of the TALiP framework and support the idea that professional growth could be fostered via diverse growth pathways.     

At-risk readers developing expertise in register switching: evidence from cohesion analysis

Register refers to the variety of language that is appropriate for a particular situational context. This study examines young children’s development of register switching expertise as they become independent readers. Participants were 17 first graders identified by their classroom teachers as at-risk readers and admitted into an early literacy intervention program called Reading Recovery. At both the beginning and end of Reading Recovery, each child was asked to share a story about a personally relevant topic in a face-to-face, conversational context and then dictate that same oral tale as an autonomous/written text intended for a reader audience. The 68 texts (34 oral and 34 written) were analysed for their use of register-appropriate cohesive linguistic choices. It was found that as these at-risk children grew from emergent to independent, strategic readers, they were concurrently developing skills in constructing written register texts by recontextualising the cohesion language patterns in their oral register texts. It is suggested that developing expertise in register switching may compose part of the process of learning to read and write. This finding is discussed in the light of relevant literacy and educational research.     

Assessment literacy and student learning: the case for explicitly developing students ‘assessment literacy’

In this paper, we report on a study to quantify the impact on student learning and on student assessment literacy of a brief assessment literacy intervention. We first define ‘assessment literacy’ then report on the development and validation of an assessment literacy measurement instrument. Using a pseudo-experimental design, we quantified the impact of an assessment literacy-building intervention on students’ assessment literacy levels and on their subsequent performance on an assessment task. The intervention involved students in the experimental condition analysing, discussing and applying an assessment rubric to actual examples of student work that exemplified extremes of standards of performance on the task (e.g. poor, excellent). Results showed that such a procedure could be expected to impact positively on assessment literacy levels and on student performance (on a similar or related task). Regression analyses indicated that the greatest predictor of enhanced student marks (on the assessment task that was the subject of the experiment), was the development of their ability to judge standards of performance on student work created in response to a similar task. The intervention took just 50 minutes indicating a good educational return on the pedagogical investment.     

Portraits of marginalized lives: Stories of literacy and collaboration in school and prison

The purpose of our paper is to focus on two multicultural literacy programs that we have developed in different sites in a major Canadian urban centre. We compare an inner city elementary school and a provincial correctional facility (jail) in order to study two respective literacy programs, as grounded in the experience of marginalized populations, with a view to promoting the transformative reconstruction of the meaning of education for individuals. In this discussion we provide a context for understanding these two educational sites; for examining the pedagogical dimensions of them; and for sharing portraits of our participants both in custody and in the classroom; and, finally, for exploring the interactive, collaborative approach undertaken in our respective programs and in our research together. Through this research inquiry, we, like our participants, have experienced the value of sharing and writing stories about schooling and life experiences from an immigrant/refugee perspective.We have attempted to illustrate how researchers and their participants can collaborate to create alternatives for encouraging self-expression and discovery in education. Our vision of education is that more attention needs to be given to marginalized individuals and populations in the context of curricular innovations that both enhance and promote literacy development and personal self-esteem. Culturally sensitive literacy programs can have the potential to transform students, teachers, and researchers to become writers of their own educational stories and, moreover, authors of their own lives.