What's News - Guest Speakers

Classroom Teacher let loose at National Conference
Current Guest Speaker - Jane Peart

Only last week I asked a grade 9 student to read a couple of paragraphs of a text we were using. I returned to talk to her five minutes later and asked,

Have you read it yet?
Yes.
Tell me about it.
I can’t.
So, you haven’t read it then.
Yes, I have read it, but I don’t know what it means.

This last statement was said with an incredulous tone, not usually reserved for the obvious.

My attention was drawn to a National Conference: Improving Literacy Learning.

On the green form as part of my professional development proposal under the heading of RELEVANCE TO DEPARTMENT/PLANS/SCHOOLS PRIORITIES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING I wrote:

"As literacy coordinator, I need to be able to understand and justify to others the current emphasis on the importance of addressing literacy outcomes across the curriculum."

I was fortunate in having the support of senior staff at my school to attend this national conference run by the Australian Council for Educational Research, and duly found myself in Adelaide on Monday 18 October 1999.

Improving literacy learning - what does the research tell us? That was the title of the conference. I had worried for weeks that this might mean it would consist of a lot of ivory tower university people presenting data in the form of charts and graphs which would conclude that "back to basics" was the way to go. I need not have worried. From the moment the keynote speaker, Professor Susan Burns, from George Mason University, Virginia USA began, to the closing address of Professor Bill Green from the University of New England NSW, a very different message was clear.

The theme that all presenters adhered to was an emphasis on acknowledging the social, cultural and technological context in which the literacy learning takes place, and that skill acquisition outside such a framework is not enough. I think "testing" was only referred to once, and then to say that whilst it has its place, choosing tests for the purpose of data collection which are outside any meaningful context was not going to deliver an accurate picture of student abilities. This theme held strong not only for literacy as we have known it, but when inevitably coupled as it now is with new technologies.

Professor Burns talked about the conditions under which reading is likely to develop most easily. Her emphasis was on the importance of creating a rich print environment and a rich knowledge base within which children not only learn to read but learn to want to read. She stressed how important it is to make sure that the books we present to children have their favourite content and to connect children’s favourite activities with the reading process. She talked about the value of an extended focus on a topic rather than the ‘snippet approach’ All this held an affirming resonance for me. It reminded me of Mem Fox and her passionate plea that teachers steep their methodology in meaningful context - meaningful to the child, that is.

We may have heard this before but it doesn’t change anything unless we realise that the contexts which hold meaning for our students today are radically different from our own. Elsewhere I remember Peter Freebody warning teachers that at times how we talk and what we talk about can be like a completely different language to the students in our classes. Likewise, how much of student language is not acknowledged or valued by us?

Professor Burns referred to the decoding aspects of learning to read as grasping the alphabetic principles of reading and writing and outlined the principles with which we are all familiar. She did comment that in the USA, as in Tasmania, there is a movement for professional development in literacy to be towards code oriented courses. She preferred the metaphor suggested by integration rather than balance to describe how best to manage the ‘whole language’ versus ‘functional’ approach to the teaching of language and literacy. One of the speakers said of her research that it marked the end of the reading wars.

It is into this arena of literacy debate that technology enters. Nobody resiled from the fact that what we are witnessing today is the compound effect of adding technology to the already extraordinarily complex classroom environment with all its fragility. Technoliteracy - ok, a new jargon word - but you need a big word for this new change and challenge for teachers of literacy. We move from the book to the screen, and children learn to learn from visual literacies.

Andrew Lord, a teacher presenter from South Australia, had an apt description of teachers as ‘immigrants’ in the field of new technologies whereas the children are ‘indigenous.’ The new technology in education is not an option; it is a given, and teachers have to learn to teach again.

I started to feel comfortable with terminology such as visual literacy. Much of the reluctance of young people to engage in traditional prose can be explained by their enthusiasm for the more interactive literacy offered on screen where much of the information is provided in non-continuous text where whole sentences play very little part. Mixed formats created by desktop publishing, tables, charts, graphics and hypertext are the go.

Here the relationship between oral language and the new literacy technologies must be explored. The principles of critical literacy are even more important here, where a number of skills are working together. It is important that students understand the construction of things, to "read against the grain". We cannot assume that just because they have learnt computer skills, that they can transfer them. Teachers need to plan tasks which require students to explain what they have learnt. Our advantage is that we are expert communicators rather than technicians, and it is this ability which puts us beyond operational - once we have learnt how - and into creative, contextual and critical dimensions.

"Teachers first" was the principle adopted by the Digital Rhetorics project and promoted by all the presenters of the concurrent sessions on Monday afternoon. This principle means that support for government funded professional development for teachers is seen as fundamental, even though this whole area is still "fluid, metamorphosing and unpredictable" ( Ilana Snyder). Apparently there is not much empirical evidence at this stage showing improved outcomes to support the wholesale nature with which governments are embracing computers in education. This may have to do with the lagging behind of the pedagogical aspects of change.

What did I decide that all this meant for my school? Certainly that language and literacy is embedded in all of the eight learning areas as they are currently defined (or in any way that they may be defined in the future) and that learning is conditional upon the child’s engagement with both the content and process. The process has already been hijacked by technology whether we like it or not. Professional development always serves to broaden our focus and remind us of the crushing reality of how many demands there are on the classroom teacher, but I am no wiser as to how productive it is to simply increase the load.

I have been aware of the debate regarding literacy standards in our country and its consequent push for schools to focus fairly narrowly on literacy. To continue to be committed to what we do with students, teachers need to have confidence that top-down directives and their accompanying prioritising of funds are based upon sound and equitable educational principles. My concern is that we put our energy and resources where they have the best chance of having a positive effect on learning outcomes.

The following is a list of the main points, which I think are too important to forget.

• Effective reading instruction is essential in early childhood. (It is too late to call in the reading specialist in the 3^rd and 4^th grade)

• Professional development which focuses primarily on decoding and spelling are of limited value.

• Learning literacy skills should be within a meaningful context. Integrate whole language and functional literacy approaches to teaching reading.

• Technoliteracy is the way of the future. Teachers First principle must be applied.

• A critical literacy approach is important. Tasks need to be designed to ensure that thinking and learning is taking place.

• Research shows there are no gender difference in the ability to learn to read. (the problem for boys lies in the way gender is constructed in our society)

Jane Peart is Literacy Coordinator at Cosgrove High School in Hobart.