Session Information
31 SES 07 A, On Literacy
Paper Session
Contribution
The various reports on the educational situation in the First and Second cycles in Costa Rica (MEP, 2012; CONARE, 2013) have shown the limited improvements in education which Costa Rica has experienced in the last decade. Similarly, the data obtained by international assessments (OECD, 2012) have shown the shortcomings in the field of literacy, in general, and reading comprehension, in particular (if their data are compared to other European and Asian countries).
In the context of Costa Rican Primary School students (9 to 11), it is unknown what their writing and reading practices are in and out of school, and how they relate to each other. Thus, we could describe those communities of practice to which the students of Primary Education, their families and teachers belong, as well as the interrelationships established both among the various domains as well as among the agents themselves (Ivanič, 1998, Maybin, 2006).
Literacy practices have a socio-cultural character (Barton, 1994; Cook-Gumperz, 1986) and can be grouped into four basic dimensions: "Personal literacy culture" (individual or collective literacy events outside the school setting), "(I)nstructional culture" (reading and writing tasks and activities required by school), "Cultural production and consumption" (literacy events related to the publishing market) and "Culture of Memory" (library uses and information storage) (Martos & Garcia, 2010 , Martos & Campos, 2013; Neuman & Celano, 2001). In these four dimensions we find both dominant as well as vernacula literacy practices (Barton, 1994; Barton & Hamilton, 1998), in which primary school pupils develop different forms of written communication.
Thus, the description of literacy event or practice includes participants, a place where it takes place, a device that enables reading and writing and an action which is carried out. In short, they are elements which appear around literacy practices that are clearly codified, since reading and located writing have a clear social function in the domain where they occur (Barton & Hamilton, 2000; Lillis, 2013).
The domains to which a school-age individual belongs (i.e., belonging to different discursive communities) necessitate the acquisition of heterogeneous communication skills. The need to address multiliteracy (New London Group, 1996; Cope & Kalantzis, 2009) in a multimodal school context (Kress, 2010) draws a hybrid literacy system that combines print and digital elements (Kalantzis & Cope, 2000; Lea & Stierer, 2000). The adaptation to the multimodal text enhances metadiscoursal knowledge of the various modes of a communication system (linguistic, visual, gestural, spatial or auditory (Kress, 2003) and the various socio-cultural contexts.
The objectives of this research were as follows:
a. Describe the literacy practices of students in General Basic Education (Cycle II) from the different domains to which it belongs.
b. Determine the differences which exist among the literacy processes of students, families and teachers in the domains in which these occur.
c. Compare literacy events of primary schoolchildren (Cycle II) and their domains of development through the data provided by students, families and teachers.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Barton, D. (1991). The social nature of writing. En Barton, D. & Ivanič, R., Writing in the community (pp. 1-13). Newbury Park/London/New Delhi: Sage Publications. Barton, D. (1994). Literacy. An introduction to the ecology of written language. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Barton, D. & Hamilton, M. (1998). Local literacies. Reading and writing in one community. London/New York: Routledge. Barton, D., Hamilton, M., & Ivanič, R. (2000) Situated Literacies: reading and writing in context. Routledge: London. Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE) (2013). Desempeño de la educación general básica y el ciclo diversificado. En Estado de la educación costarricense (pp. 135-195). San José: Editorama. Cook-Gumperz, J.J. (1986). The social construction of literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2009). “Multiliteracies”: New literacies, new learning. Pedagogies. An International Journal, 4(3), 164-195. Ivanič, R. (1998).Writing and identity: The Discoursal Construction of Identity in Academic Writing. Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kalantzis, M. & Cope, B. (2000). Changing the role of schools. En Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (Eds.), Multiliteracies. Literacy learning and the design of social futures (pp. 116-144). London & New York: Routledge. Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge. Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality. A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London/New York: Routledge. Lea, M.R., & Stierer, B. (2000). Student writing in Higher Education. New contexts. Buckingham: Open University Press. Lillis, Th. (2013). The sociolinguistics of writing. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Maybin, J. (2006). Children’s voices. Talk, knowledge and identity. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Martos García, A. E. (2010). Las prácticas de lectura / escritura y los enfoques etnográfico y geográfico. Didáctica: Lengua Y Literatura, 22, 199–229. Martos Núñez, E., & Campos Fernández-Figares, M. (2013). Diccionario de nuevas formas de lectura y escritura. Madrid: RIUL-Santillana. MEP (2012). Informe nacional de factores asociados al rendimiento académico en las pruebas nacionales diagnósticas, tercer ciclo de la educación general básica, 2010. San José: Departamento de Evaluación Académica y Certificación, Dirección de Gestión y Evaluación de la Calidad, Ministerio de Educación Pública. Neuman, S.B., & Celano, D. (2001). Access to print in low-income and middle-income communities: an ecological Study of four neighbourhoods. Reading Research Quarterly, 36 (1), 8-26. New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66, 60-92. OCDE (2012). Informe PISA 2009: Lo que los estudiantes saben y pueden hacer: rendimiento de los estudiantes en lectura, matemáticas y ciencias. Madrid: Santillana.
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