‘It's in the water here’: the development of a community‐focused literacy strategy

This paper considers the pioneering development of a community‐focused literacy initiative that began in Derbyshire, a county in the middle of England. Read On‐Write Away! (ROWA!) is viewed from the standpoint of its former director. The article describes the strategy in the context of national policy and other government initiatives in England, and gives a historical account of the project's inception and development.     

Failure to thrive? The community literacy strand of the Additive Bilingual Project at an Eastern Cape Community School,South Africa

This paper discusses an attempt to establish community literacy procedures in an Eastern Cape community school. The school hosts the Additive Bilingual Education (ABLE) project, a cooperation between UK and South African universities and the school trust. The community literacy strand of the project encourages family members to contribute oral texts in Xhosa to the school (for example, ntsomi or traditional stories, biographies and procedural texts such as recipes). These are then turned into print and electronic text through shared writing, and act as reading resources through paired reading, a cross‐age peer‐tutoring procedure. This is an attempt to deal with the shortage of reading material in Xhosa, while at the same time enhancing community involvement in the school by producing ‘culturally relevant’ materials. In discussing the problems I encountered in attempting to establish these procedures, I seek to link factors operating at the micro level of school practicalities and community attitudes with those operating at the macro level of national policy and international cooperation.     

Not just ‘sunny days’: Aboriginal students connect out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices

In this paper, I report on a school‐university collaborative research project that investigated which practices and knowledges of Canadian Aboriginal students not acknowledged in school may provide these students with access to school literacy practices. The study, which took place in a small city in Western Canada, examined ways to merge the out‐of‐school literacy resources with school literacy practices for minority language learners who struggle with academic literacies. Drawing on the third space theory, in conjunction with the concept of “funds of knowledge,” I explain how students' linguistic and cultural resources from home and community networks were utilised to reshape school literacy practices through their involvement in the Heritage Fair programme. I analyse a representative case study of Darius, a 10‐year‐old boy who explored his familial hunting practices for his Heritage Fair project. This illustrative exemplar, “Not just sunny days,” highlights the ways in which children's out‐of‐school lives can be used as a scaffold for literacy learning. In conclusion, I discuss implications for educators and researchers working to improve literacy learning for minority students by connecting school learning to children's out‐of‐school learning.     

Parent empowerment for family literacy: a European initiative

The article describes the genesis of, rationale for and running of the Parent Empowerment for Family Literacy Project (PEFaL), a European‐Union funded six‐nation family literacy initiative that took place between 2001 and 2004. Whilst a number of features of the project are typical of family literacy programmes, some aspects of PEFaL are identifiably distinctive. These include the multicultural, trans‐cultural and linguistic dimensions, and an innovative attempt to encourage parent and child participants to communicate with each other across countries by email and the Internet. These features and some of the project outcomes are discussed and prospects for follow‐on activities are examined.     

Partnership in Action: Introducing family‐based intervention for children with disability in urban slums of Kolkata,India

This paper presents the processes and findings of a three‐year action research project implemented in a small number of urban slums in the city of Kolkata (previously known as Calcutta), the capital of the state of West Bengal in Eastern India. The project involved partnership between an established institute for cerebral palsy in Kolkata, two United Kingdom (UK) universities and three non‐government organisations working on community development in the urban slums of Kolkata. These diverse groups working jointly were able to reach low‐income, disadvantaged families with low literacy skills, providing individualised home‐based intervention for their child with disabilities.     

Is the glass half‐full or half‐empty? Perceptions of recently‐qualified educational psychologists on the effectiveness and impact of their Master’s level research

This paper reports the results of a small‐scale study of the perceptions of recently‐qualified educational psychologists (EPs) in Scotland about the effectiveness of their Master’s level research and its impact on their own practice, on their service and on the wider educational psychology community. Thematic analysis of the data was carried out. There was widespread agreement that their dissertation research project had a positive and wide‐ranging impact on their own professional development, in terms of their reflective stance, theoretical knowledge and understanding, practical skills and expertise which they could use for training others, and lastly, career enhancement. There were mixed perceptions, however, of the impact their research had on their service or on the wider profession. Proposals for improvement were made in order to build capacity for research and evaluation in psychological services, in the light of increasing interest in professional accountability and evidence based practice (EBP).     

Generous reading: Discovering dialogic voices in writing

This paper describes an approach to the assessment of EAL written composition in the primary school. It draws upon related work in literacy as social practice and socio‐linguistic approaches to language learning to develop an approach to writing assessment that builds upon students’ linguistic strengths and traces their written words to sources in the immediate context and wider world. Following Joseph Tobin (2000) this approach is described as generous reading. Generous reading references poststructuralist literary theory through a focus on close reading of texts using a multidisciplinary approach. This paper describes the purpose, theory, and methods for generous reading followed by examples and a discussion of implications for instruction and assessment.     

Strategies for Developing Positive Behaviour Management. Teacher Behaviour Outcomes and Attitudes to the Change Process

This paper describes an extended action research project run in a large secondary school over an 18‐month period. The work was part of a wider strategy for change within the school. The data presented here describes some of the features of the change process and reflections on its impact. A key aim was to challenge and enable teachers to modify their behaviour in order to increase the number of specific positive feedback statements they made in their classrooms to their students. The paper reports on three main strands of data that were collected: observation of teacher and pupil behaviours in classrooms, feedback from questionnaires completed by teachers who took part in staff groups formed to discuss behaviour management, and qualitative data from interviews and a focus group with staff at the end of the project. All provide evidence of a change in teachers’ behaviour and information about teachers’ attitudes to the change process.     

“Beyond the frame”: exploring children’s literacy practices

The aim of this small–scale research project was to examine the literacy events children choose to engage in outside school. Two groups of Primary School children were involved in investigating the use of literacy in their lives, using disposable cameras to record literacy events and texts. The photographs and the discussion stimulated by them provided evidence that these children used literacy in richly diverse ways for purposes which they saw as meaningful. Although limited in size and scope, the study showed that uses of literacy presented by these children reflected community literacy practices (as identified by Barton & Hamilton, 1998). However, it was also clear that the children acted with considerable autonomy, motivation and creativity in making their use of literacy meaningful to them. This paper provides a report on the project and discusses the implications of these findings for the teaching of literacy in school.     

The views of Nigerian teachers in public and private primary schools on the teaching of early literacy in English

Drawing on the bilingual policies and biliteracy programmes of African nations, this paper discusses the context of literacy education in Nigeria and examines Nigerian early literacy teachers’ attitudes to teaching literacy and literacy teaching practices as informed by the National Policy on Education, Primary English Language Curriculum and the teaching–learning milieu. The paper also reports the findings of a survey in which respondents to a questionnaire expressed their views and understanding of the primary English curriculum and their own relations and experiences with it, as well as their own competencies and self‐concept as literacy teachers. Results indicated the need to train Nigerian teachers to adopt a much wider perspective in literacy, which recognises the opportunities for developing the interrelated strands of literacy. Governments should also consider practising teachers’ professional identities and growth in decision‐making and curriculum development. This will enhance their understanding of ideologies in policy and practice.     

Challenging the orthodoxy of literacy: realities of moving from personal to community empowerment through Reflect in Ghana

In the last decade, the Reflect approach—an alternative to the ‘great divide’ theory of literacy—has gained wider currency in developing countries because of its ability to deal with social, cultural and political issues by placing the identification and solution of local problems in the hands of local people. In Ghana, ActionAid International Ghana (AAIG) has supported Reflect in the Upper East, Northern, Upper West, Brong Ahafo and Greater Accra regions. An evaluation of the literacy circles showed that whilst women’s self‐efficacy had increased since joining the literacy circles, the progression from personal to community empowerment has been very slow as communities still perceive AAIG as the ‘donor’ and the communities as ‘recipients’ of funds, rather than become empowered to demand accountability from district assemblies for development projects. Fewer opportunities have been created by communities to facilitate wider socio‐economic change where they could use the PRA as a tool to assert their right to development.     

Derbyshire secondary development project

This paper concerns a project involving six secondary schools in different parts of Derbyshire lea. The broad aim of the project is to investigate ways of helping schools deal more effectively with difficult behaviour. Central to its philosophy is that of building working teams within schools which have the time and power to influence decision making. The team concept is further enhanced by the creation of ‘support’ teams outside the schools which act as a management structure to the project. This structure has formed the vehicle for evolving a partnership with lea senior staff and for sharing ways of identifying and meeting school‐based needs and those of the authority.     

The Shared Agency of Photography in Gallery Education: Open Eye Gallery Discusses Its Rethinking of Gallery Education,through the Role of Photography as a Tool for Co‐Authorship and Co‐Production

This article describes a current project by Liverpool organisations Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), Whitby High School (Ellesmere Port), recent partners Liverpool Hope University and Curious Minds. The school is in an area of high socio‐economic deprivation and low level of cultural engagement. The project seeks to support students’ photographic and digital skills, using co‐authored approaches to learning to raise young people’s overall aspiration levels. This article addresses conflicts / ethics of photography, social media and the digital in creative education today but ultimately seeks to champion photography as a tool for increased visual literacy when co‐authored between both school and cultural organisation.     

Parental involvement in literacy development: using media texts

This paper reports on a small‐scale project which aimed to build upon the existing home literacy practices of a group of three‐ and four‐year‐old children living in the UK. The purpose of the project was to develop literacy materials and resources which could be borrowed from nursery and used within the home to promote children’s literacy development. Children’s informal literacy practices at home were identified using literacy diaries, which 18 families completed over a four‐week period. These documented children’s reading of both printed and televisual texts. In addition, interviews were conducted with 15 parents and carers. The paper reports on the findings from this stage of the project, which indicate that much of children’s reading was focused on popular cultural and media texts. Media boxes were developed as a literacy resource for use by parents and children in the home. The use of these media boxes by three families was documented and the initial findings, which suggest that the use of such resources draws on families’ cultural capital, discussed.     

Personal inquiry: innovations in participatory design and models for inquiry learning

This paper describes a participatory design approach to the development of inquiry‐based learning supported through a technology toolkit. The work is part of an interdisciplinary project – Personal Inquiry (PI). The paper focuses on the approach we adopted, concentrating in particular on the two mediating artefacts we used to guide and frame the design process during two design workshops. The first mediating artefact used was an inquiry framework developed as part of the wider PI project and the second was Kellett’s enquiry research bubbles, which is a framework to guide enquiry‐based thinking processes. The paper reports on data collected during the workshops and reflects on the value of the approach adopted. The paper also explores the PI‐team’s own reflections on the design process and its role in the overall project.     

Literacy in virtual worlds

Introducing new digital literacies into classroom settings is an important and challenging task, and one that is encouraged by both policy‐makers and educators. This paper draws on a case study of a 3D virtual world which aimed to engage and motivate primary school children in an immersive and literacy‐rich on‐line experience. Planning decisions, early experimentation and the experience of avatar interaction are explored. Using field notes, in‐world interviews and observations I analyse pupil and teacher perspectives on the use of digital literacy and its relationship to conventional classroom literacy routines, and use these to trace the potential and inherently disruptive nature of such work. The paper makes the case for a wider recognition of the role of technology in literacy and suggests that teachers need time for experimentation and professional development if they are to respond appropriately to new digital literacies in the classroom.     

Watching,creating and achieving: Creative technologies as a conduit for learning in the early years

This paper describes the use of robotics in an Early Years classroom as a tool to aid the development of technological skills in a creative environment rich with literacy and numeracy opportunities. The pilot project illustrates how a three‐phase process can result in the development of: (1) emergent literacy and numeracy, (2) digital access for disadvantaged Early Years learners and (3) basic engineering concepts. The pilot study was conducted with a class of 16 students aged between 5 years and 6 months to 7 years, over a 6‐week period. During this period, the students were introduced to and engaged in the creation of robots and simple machines via the use of a commercial robotics package. The pilot was designed around three distinct phases: modelling, exploring and evaluating. These phases provided scaffolding for the students to engage with the technology and for the class teacher to develop her own skills. The use of this particular robotics package is unique to Australia, unique to Early Years, and links hands‐on, fine‐motor development with 21st century learning. The researchers and authors of this paper are currently based at the Australian Catholic University and are involved with projects involving creative, digital technologies, children in the early years of formal schooling, emerging literacy and numeracy for diverse Early Years learners and the development of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.     

Building Strong Community Partnerships: Equal Voice and Mutual Benefits

This article explores an urban partnership and service-learning project deliberately created to improve literacy and strengthen learning communities in an urban, Latino neighborhood of Chicago. The project aligns activities and objectives with resources and needs of university participants, a Latino community organization, and local public schools. The needs addressed include (a) improving literacy achievement in Latino students, (b) improving literacy instruction, (c) expanding students’ awareness and engagement with social injustices, and (d) exploring barriers to literacy access in students’ homes and community. This project serves as a model for developing partnerships and outreach between higher education institutions and the community.     

Enhancing children's literacy skills: designing the Q‐Tales ecosystem for children's e‐book design and publication

This article describes the conceptualisation and development of a pedagogical framework to support the design of e‐books for children to enhance literacy development. It emerged from research undertaken within the Q‐Tales international consortium project of the EU's Horizon 2020 Programme for Research and Innovation, where the aim was to facilitate key stakeholders to collaborate and participate in the online production and publication of high‐quality, educational e‐books for children. The pedagogical framework described here sought to answer the question “What concepts and principles undergird the effective design of pedagogically impactful e‐books for children?” It is grounded by the theoretical underpinnings of socio‐constructivism, constructionism and skill theory, and how they relate to children's literacy development. A framework describing different narrative forms and component features, key pedagogical activities appropriate for different stages of reading development and design recommendations regarding the integration of multimedia into e‐books are also central to the pedagogical framework. As well as informing the design of the Q‐Tales infrastructure for children's e‐book design and publication, we hope the guidelines and pedagogical activities enumerated here will be widely useful for those designing and developing digital, interactive narratives, particularly e‐books to enhance children's emerging literacy.