How Does Toddlers’ Engagement in Literacy Activities Influence Their Language Abilities?

The most intensive period of language development is during the first years of life, during which the brain is developing rapidly. Research has shown that children from disadvantaged households who received high-quality stimulation at a young age grew into adults who earned an average of 25% more than those who did not receive these interventions. In addition, it has been suggested that children who show a greater interest in literacy-related activities and voluntarily engage in them are likely to become better readers than children with less interest in literacy. These children’s factors, along with their engagement in literacy activities, are important components in children’s early literacy experiences and may affect their early language development. In this study, we examined associations among maternal education, home literacy environment (HLE), children’s interest and engagement in literacy activities, and language development of 44 toddlers aged between 20 and 36 months. Overall, results showed that only children’s engagement in literacy activities was related to vocabulary and morphosyntactic skills, whereas maternal education, HLE, and children’s interests were not. These results suggest that taking advantage of individual children’s interests by planning activities in which children are fully engaged, may be effective strategies for promoting children’s oral language development.

Equity and Engagement Through Digital Storytelling and Game-Based Learning

This chapter is founded on the idea that literacy is the cornerstone of teaching and learning across disciplines and is the scaffold for quality communication across modes. Therefore, it contends that the ever-widening education and opportunity gaps seen throughout United States school systems have the potential to be bridged through engaging communicative literacy experiences. Information and resources provided are supported through a theoretical framework based on engagement theory, equitable access as a construct, and multiple literacies theory. As educational equity gaps continue to develop and widen for students based on race, income, language, and technology, it is imperative that innovative practices be researched, reviewed, and put into practice. By utilizing digital storytelling and game-based learning, this chapter attempts to provide the reader with a deeper understanding of issues related to classroom practice, educational equity, learning engagement, and literacy opportunities.

Nurturing the reading brain: home literacy practices are associated with children’s neural response to printed words through vocabulary skills

Previous studies indicate that children are exposed to different literacy experiences at home. Although these disparities have been shown to affect children’s literacy skills, it remains unclear whether and how home literacy practices influence brain activity underlying word-level reading. In the present study, we asked parents of French children from various socioeconomic backgrounds (n = 66; 8.46 ± 0.36 years, range 7.52–9.22; 20 girls) to report the frequency of home literacy practices. Neural adaptation to the repetition of printed words was then measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a subset of these children (n = 44; 8.49 ± 0.33 years, range 8.02–9.14; 13 girls), thereby assessing how sensitive was the brain to the repeated presentation of these words. We found that more frequent home literacy practices were associated with enhanced word adaptation in the left posterior inferior frontal sulcus (r = 0.32). We also found that the frequency of home literacy practices was associated with children’s vocabulary skill (r = 0.25), which itself influenced the relation between home literacy practices and neural adaptation to words. Finally, none of these effects were observed in a digit adaptation task, highlighting their specificity to word recognition. These findings are consistent with a model positing that home literacy experiences may improve children’s vocabulary skill, which in turn may influence the neural mechanisms supporting word-level reading.

Situated literacy : a study of family literacy in Aotearoa/New Zealand

<p>This study investigated the family as a site for literacy. The theoretical approach is that all literacy is situated in a social context. Eleven parents were interviewed about literacy use and practices both in their present families. The parents were from India, Sri Lanka, Britain and Aotearoa/ New Zealand. The study explored generational differences as well as aspects of diversity among the families. While there were similarities in the uses of literacy across the generations, diversity was evident in the differences in purpose between the Pakeha families and the others. For the Paheka the purpose of reading was for pleasure while the other parents stressed the importance of reading for moral messages and guides to behaviour. Parents spoke more often about reading than about writing, they recalled favourite books, especially those by Enid Blyton, and reported stories they told their own children. It is suggested that teachers might explore their own literacy experiences to better understand the issues of both literacy and diversity.</p>

Situated literacy : a study of family literacy in Aotearoa/New Zealand

<p>This study investigated the family as a site for literacy. The theoretical approach is that all literacy is situated in a social context. Eleven parents were interviewed about literacy use and practices both in their present families. The parents were from India, Sri Lanka, Britain and Aotearoa/ New Zealand. The study explored generational differences as well as aspects of diversity among the families. While there were similarities in the uses of literacy across the generations, diversity was evident in the differences in purpose between the Pakeha families and the others. For the Paheka the purpose of reading was for pleasure while the other parents stressed the importance of reading for moral messages and guides to behaviour. Parents spoke more often about reading than about writing, they recalled favourite books, especially those by Enid Blyton, and reported stories they told their own children. It is suggested that teachers might explore their own literacy experiences to better understand the issues of both literacy and diversity.</p>

Situated literacy : a study of family literacy in Aotearoa/New Zealand

<p>This study investigated the family as a site for literacy. The theoretical approach is that all literacy is situated in a social context. Eleven parents were interviewed about literacy use and practices both in their families of origin and in their present families. The parents were from India, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Britain and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The study explored generational differences as well as aspects of diversity among the families. While there were similarities in the uses of literacy across the generations, diversity was evident in the differences in purpose between the Pakeha families and the others. For the Pakeha the purpose of reading was for pleasure while the other parents stressed the importance of reading for moral messages and guides to behaviour. Parents spoke more often about reading than about writing, they recalled favourite books, especially those by Enid Blyton, and reported stories they told their own children. It is suggested that teachers might explore their own literacy experiences to better understand the issues of both literacy and diversity.</p>

Situated literacy : a study of family literacy in Aotearoa/New Zealand

<p>This study investigated the family as a site for literacy. The theoretical approach is that all literacy is situated in a social context. Eleven parents were interviewed about literacy use and practices both in their families of origin and in their present families. The parents were from India, Sri Lanka, Tonga, Britain and Aotearoa/New Zealand. The study explored generational differences as well as aspects of diversity among the families. While there were similarities in the uses of literacy across the generations, diversity was evident in the differences in purpose between the Pakeha families and the others. For the Pakeha the purpose of reading was for pleasure while the other parents stressed the importance of reading for moral messages and guides to behaviour. Parents spoke more often about reading than about writing, they recalled favourite books, especially those by Enid Blyton, and reported stories they told their own children. It is suggested that teachers might explore their own literacy experiences to better understand the issues of both literacy and diversity.</p>

A STUDY ON THE EFFECTS OF EFL TEACHERS’ USE OF THE BIG6 ON LEARNERS’ ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING / NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA VIỆC SỬ DỤNG BIG6 CỦA GIÁO VIÊN EFL ĐỐI VỚI KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT LUẬN CỦA NGƯỜI HỌC

Information literacy has proved to be one of the factors that help learners increase their writing academic in higher education institutions around the world. Therefore, developing information literacy curriculum for learners who speak English as a foreign language is of critical concern for librarians and English as a Foreign Language: EFL educators. However, in general, there is limited research about learners' information literacy experiences in English writing educational contexts. Therefore, this research fills a gap in the research, as it focuses on investigating the effects of EFL teachers’ use of the Information literacy model - Big6 on learners' argumentative writing. In this research, a mixed method combined both quantitative and qualitative designs was conducted to collect and analyze the data, including a pre-test and a post-test, questionnaires, classroom observations and semi- structured interviews. The findings show that there is a statistically significant difference between the writing performances at two time points of the experimental group who was taught English with information literacy skills. In addition, the findings indicate that EFL teachers and learners became more aware of the integration of information literacy skills into their teaching argumentative writing to learners. Key issues about training provision in this area were examined, and options of developing information literacy support for EFL learners were also discussed. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0794/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>