Session Information
27 SES 03 A, Teaching Practices in Literacy, Language Arts and Mathematics
Paper Session
Contribution
The work presented here is part of a research project that studies the classroom practices of teachers in Early Childhood Education. The paper studies the tasks involved in these classroom practices when teaching different learning content. One of the curricular aspects studied involves the initial literacy; that is, an analysis is made of those teaching methods used to teach the written language to pupils aged 3, 4 and 5.
The initial literacy is a major cause for concern and a topic that receives considerable attention from experts across different fields: psychology, pedagogy, neuropsychology, etc. In fact, there is a prolific stream of literature covering the diversity of perspectives on the best way to conduct the teaching process, encapsulated around questions on what to teach, when to begin doing so, and how.
Recently, as noted in the review conducted by Hoffman, Maloch & Sailors (2011), there has been a sharp increase in the research that explores the way in which the process of teaching the written language is undertaken. This is a key aspect in the research into literacy, as it enables us to understand three issues: how the real teaching practices are organised, how they are shaped into specific tasks, and the nature of the relationship that can be established between the practice itself and the theoretical state-of-the-art. Although this approach poses difficulties when conducting research accordingly, it is the most appropriate procedure for understanding this process, given that is takes place within the very setting in which children learn.
The approaches to the research on the initial teaching of the written language have varied depending on the perspective adopted. Snow & Juel (2005) describe teaching practices from the viewpoint of psychology, while Clemente, Ramírez & Sánchez (2010) and Clemente & Ramírez (2008) analyse teachers’ discourse when describing their practices in the initial teaching of the written language. Other authors have used questionnaires (González, Buisán & Sánchez, 2009; McDonnell et al., 2014), studies involving observations of real practices (Connor, Morrison & Katch, 2004, Rodríguez & Clemente, 2013); or a variety of techniques (Presley et al., 2001; McMullen et al. 2006). Neither should we forget the case study by the researchers Tracey & Morrow (2015), who conducted a thorough analysis of the effective way of teaching initial literacy based on the theoretical assumptions derived from the latest research. The approach adopted here is based on the observation and analysis of real classroom. Furthermore, the position taken seeks to reflect a holistic view of this teaching process. In other words, the aim is to analyse all those aspects that shape the learning of the written language as a communication system (understanding the purpose of this method of communication; understanding that writing is a symbolic system of the second degree, given that it represents the spoken language, and working on text comprehension). This approach adopted by the literacy process has been upheld by a large number of papers, including the one by Pressley, Graham & Harris (2006), who posit that not only is there a need for actual practices to respond to the contributions made by sundry theories, but that such theories also need to be likewise included in the very research into the processes for teaching the written language.
Our aim in the research has been to conduct a study of how classroom practice is organised through an analysis of the tasks teachers perform with their pupils. The following are our research goals:
Describe the tasks that teachers perform in the literacy process.
Analyse the content of these literacy practices in relation to the theoretical knowledge on the subject.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Clemente, M. & Ramírez, E. (2008). “How teachers express their knowledge through narrative”. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24 (5), 1244-1258. Clemente, M., Ramírez, E. & Sánchez, M.C. (2010). “Enfoques teóricos y prácticas docentes en la enseñanza inicial de la lengua escrita”. Cultura y Educación, 22 (3), 313-328. Connor, C.M.; Morrison, F. J. & Katch, L. E. (2004). “Beyond the Reading Wars: Exploring the Effect of Child-Instruction Interactions on Growth in Early Reading”. Scientific Studies of Reading, 8 (4), 305-336. González, X.A., Buisán, C. & Sánchez, S. (2009). “Las prácticas docentes para enseñar a leer y escribir”. Infancia y aprendizaje, 32 (2), 153-169. Hoffman, J.V., Maloch, B. & Sailors, M. (2011). “Researching the Teaching of Reading through Direct observation. Tools, Methodologies, and Guidelines for the Future”. In Kamil, M.L., Pearson, P.D, Moje, E. & Afflerbach, P.P. Handbook of Reading Research. Volume IV (pp. 3-33). New York: Routledge. McDonnell, A.P., Hawken, L.S., Johnston, S.S., Kidder, J.E., Lynes, M.J. & McDonnell, J.J. (2014). Emergent Literacy Practices and Support for Children with Disabilities: A National Survey. Education and Treatment of Children, 37 (3), 495-530. McMullen, M.B., Elicker, J., Goetze, G., Huang, H., Lee, S., Mathers, C., Wen, X. & Yang, H. (2006). “Using Collaborative Assessment to Examine the Relationship between Self-Reported Beliefs and the Documentable Practices of Preschool Teachers”. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34 (1), 81-91. Pressley, M., Graham, S. & Harris, K. (2006). The state of educational intervention research as viewed through the lens of literacy intervention. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 1-19. Presley, M., Wharton-McDonald, R., Allington, R., Collins-Block, C., Morrow, L., Tracey, D., Baker, K., Brooks, G., Cronin, J., Nelson, E. & Woo, D. (2001). A Study of Effective First-Grade Literacy Instruction. Scientific Studies Of Reading, 5 (1), 35–58. Rodríguez, I. & Clemente, M. (2013). Las tareas de enseñanza de la alfabetización inicial en las prácticas docentes. Estudio de caso. Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, 16 (1), 41-54. Snow, C.E. & Juel, C. (2005). “Teaching children to read: what do we know about How to do it?” In Snowling, M.J. & Hulme, C. The Science of Reading: A Handbook (pp. 501-520). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Tracey, D.H. & Morrow, L.M. (2015). Best Practices in Early Literacy. Preschool, Kindergarten and First Grade. In Gambrell, L.B. & Morrow, L.M. Best Practices in Literacy Instruction (pp.85-106). New York: The Guilford Press
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