Biscuits or Banquets?

Maureen Hunt examines the quality of the reading ‘diet’ children are getting and how important it is for those children from more disadvantaged backgrounds to have rich reading experiences in school. She explores why solely using a phonic based approach is not enough and gives some top tips for teachers to make the reading experience into a metaphorical banquet for children.

Teacher showing phonic cards to students

Becoming a lifetime reader is dependent on developing a love of reading¹ and few would argue against the fact that the ability and motivation to read impacts on the life chances of all children.

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      string(5705) "Building Core StrengthIt is important to determine where teachers, leaders, parents and carers might begin. Over the last five years it has become increasingly apparent among the 100,000 targeted children and young people engaged in Achievement for All programmes that the common starting point for the majority is the need to build core strength.Core strength can be described in this context as the confidence and ability to learn, develop and participate in society. Children and young people experiencing disadvantage and underachievement lack confidence, find learning challenging, develop differently and have limited participation in society. Underlying factors, or needs, may be cognitive, physical, emotional or social; each manifest in a fundamental lack of progress of the child or young person when compared to their peers.Causality is often misinterpreted as a diagnosis rooted in a deficit model i.e. children and young people defined by ‘they can’t do this because they have a problem’, which leads to labelling, low expectations, and a rhetoric of failure. Yet Achievement for All has demonstrably proven in many different contexts and settings that ‘they can succeed’.  Meaningful change in society will only occur if we invest in all children and young people. This means finding what is great inside them, digging it out and sharing it with the world not judging or classifying them in a negligent manner. This would include being supportive in a realistic, developmental way that provides a window to what alternative means. This might be through providing housing, food, health and educational support, or simply by encouraging all children and young people to participate, to join in.It takes a mindset that focuses on the possible, daring to believe that there is an alternative way to be. For the child or young person to believe in themselves, the adults around them need to change their behaviours. It is about harnessing behaviours that encourage, challenge and support, nourish and develop; behaviours that are values driven and inclusive.Achievement for All provides a framework that develops leaders and teachers, parents and carers to support and develop children and young people. Through the provision of training, tools, information and knowledge we enable, facilitate, encourage and support; we provide the architecture to build core strength in every child and young person.Evidence informs professional practice, measures our impact, and formulates our strategies to guide our growth from schools to colleges, early years settings and now, young offenders. The technical learning, empirical knowledge and understanding and personal skills of our team have led to improved outcomes for at least 100,000 direct beneficiaries to date. This has been measured by academic progress in reading, writing and maths, and by social developments of each child and young person reflected in behaviour and attendance.Building core strength and illuminating good practice amongst professionals whilst valuing every parent and carer as a partner in their child’s growth and learning is key. It is about demonstrating and modelling that all children and young people can learn regardless of background, challenge or need. Social Mobility and the role of the teacherThe current rationale for inclusion is social mobility – but what is it? For many it’s the ability of individuals to move from one class group to another class group, or one income group to another.  What we do know is that social mobility is related to long term capacity to build the knowledge, skills and understanding of individuals and families so that they can sustain and support themselves – that’s as individuals and as families. We know that social mobility is inter-generational – that generations of the same family, often from low-income groups, can get caught in the poverty trap, unable to change their situation. We also need to be aware that, as in a game of snakes and ladders, social mobility can go down as well as up!  We know that low-income families often start behind other families in our communities. Those children born into low-income families will often start behind and may never catch up. The gap is quite significant in the early years – children have problems with socialising, the environment, speech, language and play, and they have problems with learning. And this gap grows and continues to grow as children move through education. By key stage 2, at least one in four of those children born into low-income families has difficulty in learning, particularly around literacy and numeracy, and by key stage 4 – again, the gap is increasing currently up to 28% against outcomes between the most vulnerable and most successful children. 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The ground floor was to be the main deck which would house the Shop of Adventures and would be the area of the building which would be accessed by members of the general public directly from the High Street. On the first floor, or upper deck, would be staff spaces including a kitchen and an ideas room for use with the older pirates. Finally, at the top of the building was to be the crow’s nest, two small rooms that could be used by other education charities or social enterprises as office space.The artists, Camillia and Ben, explored ideas for each space based on examples of exciting spaces they found and some of the ideas they had put into practice in previous locations. Spending time with the Hackney Pirates meant that the artists understood them and what they did and Catriona and the team trusted them to develop exciting but practical ideas for the space. The Hackney Pirates had a project budget of around £10,000 which came from their own funds. 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Learning Spaces

The Hackney Pirates and their Ship of Adventure

8 Jul 2015

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      string(5672) "this study researchers introduced iPads to a primary school reception centre, a children’s centre and a special school and suggested that technology has the potential to support different mediums used to support literacy such as stories and importantly personalization. iPads had a positive impact on literacy development and provided an array of opportunities for children and teachers to speak and listen to each other. Currently, a collaboration between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tufts and Georgia State Universities is trying to understand the impact that technology (tablets in particular) might have in supporting reading preparedness of children between four and eleven years old in under-resourced educational settings in Africa, the United States and slums in India. Findings are promising, showing that a platform to deliver reading content can benefit students across diverse under-resourced educational settings. 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As regards the array of arguments put forward by a number research studies that technology distracts from physical play and social interaction, according to research by Plowan et all in 2012, these are not necessarily valid.  Conclusion Investment in technology seems to offer solutions for inclusion and equity of access, particularly for children from socio-economically disadvantaged families. Given the conclusions of scientific research that suggest supporting learning in early childhood provides greater returns in later life, we might conclude that the earlier the integration of technology and learning happens the better. Despite the potential, aspiration and hope for technology’s contribution to tangibly raise the achievement of basic skills such as reading, this has not been matched by initiatives to explore possibilities and test outcomes in Early Years settings. The use of technology in classrooms can have a positive impact if it is used effectively; to a large extent this will be dependent on the quality of teaching. Effective schools will be able to use technology more effectively, less effective schools will not necessarily be able to fulfil its full potential. Technology can act as a catalyst for powerful change. Progress is about focusing on how we can bring that change about and how it can be practically delivered. Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford (2000) and the research by the Education Endowment Foundation (2012) offer the following useful directions, which can provide a framework for implementing and developing technology in the early years setting: Ensure an educational purpose – Uses of technology can be as simple as the use of a telephone to promote imaginary play, the benefits of which are well documented. Applications should promote children in a range of different areas, including creativity, self-expression and language. Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford refer to the Millie’s ‘Make a bug’ application and particularly emphasise the benefits of its free-play mode. They raise concerns however, about applications which are designed with narrow educational aims such as use of language and drill-and-practice programmes which, they say are too teacher directed and appeal to children’s’ extrinsic motivation, i.e. praise by an adult or a smile, etc.Promote collaborative use – Technology can inspire communication not restrict it.  Children using an application together requires their joint attention and sharing. It offers the opportunity for children to use argumentation and resolve any potential conflict; for younger children the intervention of an adult will ensure effective use.Integrate with other aspects of the curriculum to enhance learning – The use of technology should be part of other learning activities and play rather than a separate activity completed in a separate room full of computers. Integrating technology can also provide a greater range of visual and audio artefacts than a nursery might usually hold. 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Assistive Technology

Resolving the row over early years technology

20 Jun 2017

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      string(5667) "study researchers introduced iPads to a primary school reception centre, a children’s centre and a special school and suggested that technology has the potential to support different mediums used to support literacy such as stories and importantly personalization. iPads had a positive impact on literacy development and provided an array of opportunities for children and teachers to speak and listen to each other. Currently, a collaboration between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Tufts and Georgia State Universities is trying to understand the impact that technology (tablets in particular) might have in supporting reading preparedness of children between four and eleven years old in under-resourced educational settings in Africa, the United States and slums in India. Findings are promising, showing that a platform to deliver reading content can benefit students across diverse under-resourced educational settings. Despite challenges faced by each study population (i.e., no access to schools; or schools with 50-100:1 student-teacher ratios in developing countries; or low socio-economic at-risk communities in developed countries), three independent literacy and vocabulary pilot assessments suggest better student performance overall. This includes better letter and word recognition, when compared to similar grade students who did not have access to the tablets (Breazeal et al, 2016, p.19). In the same realm, a study of pre-schoolers in Australia who had greater access to touch screens were found to have higher letter and sound knowledge and name writing skills than those without (Nuemann, 2014).Furthermore, a study exploring the attentiveness, impulsivity, learning and emotional effects of touch screen environments on children aged four to seven showed that the introduction of digital devices resulted in no difference in the concentration spans and problem-solving capabilities of children compared to the use of traditional toys, such as drawing or playing with building blocks (Kilman, 2015). As regards the array of arguments put forward by a number research studies that technology distracts from physical play and social interaction, according to research by Plowan et all in 2012, these are not necessarily valid.  Conclusion Investment in technology seems to offer solutions for inclusion and equity of access, particularly for children from socio-economically disadvantaged families. Given the conclusions of scientific research that suggest supporting learning in early childhood provides greater returns in later life, we might conclude that the earlier the integration of technology and learning happens the better. Despite the potential, aspiration and hope for technology’s contribution to tangibly raise the achievement of basic skills such as reading, this has not been matched by initiatives to explore possibilities and test outcomes in Early Years settings. The use of technology in classrooms can have a positive impact if it is used effectively; to a large extent this will be dependent on the quality of teaching. Effective schools will be able to use technology more effectively, less effective schools will not necessarily be able to fulfil its full potential. Technology can act as a catalyst for powerful change. Progress is about focusing on how we can bring that change about and how it can be practically delivered. Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford (2000) and the research by the Education Endowment Foundation (2012) offer the following useful directions, which can provide a framework for implementing and developing technology in the early years setting: Ensure an educational purpose – Uses of technology can be as simple as the use of a telephone to promote imaginary play, the benefits of which are well documented. Applications should promote children in a range of different areas, including creativity, self-expression and language. Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford refer to the Millie’s ‘Make a bug’ application and particularly emphasise the benefits of its free-play mode. They raise concerns however, about applications which are designed with narrow educational aims such as use of language and drill-and-practice programmes which, they say are too teacher directed and appeal to children’s’ extrinsic motivation, i.e. praise by an adult or a smile, etc.Promote collaborative use – Technology can inspire communication not restrict it.  Children using an application together requires their joint attention and sharing. It offers the opportunity for children to use argumentation and resolve any potential conflict; for younger children the intervention of an adult will ensure effective use.Integrate with other aspects of the curriculum to enhance learning – The use of technology should be part of other learning activities and play rather than a separate activity completed in a separate room full of computers. Integrating technology can also provide a greater range of visual and audio artefacts than a nursery might usually hold. Siraj-Blatchford and Siraj-Blatchford provide a powerful example of a child in a nursery who was unable to read but astounded nursery staff when he found a website that showed a live link to an owl’s nest and watched owl babies being fed and cared for by parent owls for the whole morning. As part of the curriculum, professional development for introducing technology seems to be successful when used about 3 times a week if not for more than a period of about 5 – 10 weeks. It can be"
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Leadership

Are children ever too young for technology?

26 Sep 2017