The Diploma thesis 'Development of Reading and Visual Literacy' describes how
important it is to teach children the ways to .... 22. 2.15. The power of Reading .
MASARYK UNIVERSITY IN BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
DEVELOPING READING AND VISUAL LITERACY
DIPLOMA THESIS
BRNO 2008
Supervisor: Mgr. Naděžda Vojtková
Written by: Bc. Lucie Žigárdyová
Bibliografický záznam Žigárdyová, Lucie diplomová práce. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, Fakulta pedagogická, Katedra anglického jazyka a literatury, vedoucí diplomové práce Mgr. Naděžda Vojtková.
Anotace Diplomová práce "Rozvoj čtenářské a vizuální gramotnosti" popisuje, jak je důležité u dětí rozvíjet znalosti cizího jazyka pomocí čtení. Cílem práce je poskytnout učitelům různé strategie, které mohou využít při výuce literatury a při užití autentických knih ve své výuce.
Annotation The Diploma thesis ‘Development of Reading and Visual Literacy’ describes how important it is to teach children the ways to extend their knowledge of foreign langure through reading. The objective of the thesis is to provide teachers with the strategy to teach literature and use authentic books in their English lessons.
Klíčová slova Reading literacy, visual literacy, storytelling, reading projects, strategies
Key words Čtenářská gramotnost, vizuální gramotnost, práce s příběhem, čtenářské programy, strategie
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I declare that I wrote this thesis by myself and used only the literature listed. In Brno 2008. 3
I would like to express my acknowledge to Mrs. Naděžda Vojtková for her inspiring encouragement and helpful support 4
Content 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 7 2. Theoretical part ........................................................................................................... 9 2.1. Literacy .................................................................................................................. 9 2.2. Reading literacy (RL) and visual literacy (VL) in English language teaching ... 9 2.3. Family and its importance ................................................................................... 10 2.4. Reading background in a family ......................................................................... 11 2.5. Cooperation with parents..................................................................................... 11 2.6. Situation at Czech schools ................................................................................... 12 2.7. Reading situation at the Czech schools ............................................................... 13 2.8. Teaching reading – reading literacy .................................................................... 13 2.9. Motivation ........................................................................................................... 15 2.10. School Library ................................................................................................... 16 2.11. Learning strategies ............................................................................................ 18 2.12. Using authentic books ....................................................................................... 20 2.13. Why is literature so important in language-learning process? .......................... 21 2.14. Literature syllabus ............................................................................................. 22 2.15. The power of Reading ....................................................................................... 24 2.16. Use of the mother tongue (MT) in English language teaching ......................... 25 2.17. The teacher and the learner ............................................................................... 26 2.18. What have the students learned? ....................................................................... 28 2.19. Young children learning languages ................................................................... 29 2.20. Visual literacy (VL) and its assessment ............................................................ 30 2.21. Story .................................................................................................................. 31 2.22. Importance of reading in a foreign language..................................................... 33 2.23. Creation of reading projects .............................................................................. 34 3. Practical part ............................................................................................................. 36 3.1. Introduction to the Reading literacy project ........................................................ 36 3.2. Hypothesis ........................................................................................................... 37 3.3. Hypothesis scale .................................................................................................. 37 3.4. Recording of hypothesis and predictions ............................................................ 37 3.5. Questionnaires for children and parents .............................................................. 37 3.6. Use of the mother tongue (MT) ........................................................................... 38 3.7. Timing ................................................................................................................. 38 3.8. Cooperation with parents..................................................................................... 38 3.8. Cooperation with other teachers and pupils ........................................................ 38 3.9. Creating new library ............................................................................................ 39 3.10. Portfolio ............................................................................................................. 39 5
3.11. Difficulties ......................................................................................................... 39 3.12. Examples of individual projects ........................................................................ 40 3.12.1. Project for the year one .............................................................................. 40 3.12.2. Project for the year two.............................................................................. 48 3.12.3. Project for the year three............................................................................ 59 3.12.4. Project for the year four ............................................................................. 72 3.12.5. Project for the year five ............................................................................. 79 3.13. Reflections ......................................................................................................... 91 3.13.1. Meg and Mog............................................................................................. 91 3.13.2. Toot and Puddle ......................................................................................... 93 4. Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 96 5. Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 98 5.1 Collections ............................................................................................................ 98 5.2 Magazines ............................................................................................................. 99 5.3 Books .................................................................................................................... 99 5.4 Electronic sources............................................................................................... 100 6. Résumé ..................................................................................................................... 103 7. List of Appendices ................................................................................................... 106 7.1. Ketchup on Your Cornflakes ............................................................................. 106 7.2 Is Your Mama a Llama? ..................................................................................... 121 7.3 Meg and Mog .................................................................................................... 124 7.4 The Mice who lived in the Shoe ......................................................................... 137 7.5 Toot and Puddle.................................................................................................. 143
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1. Introduction “Few children learn to love books by themselves. Someone has to lure them into the wonderful world of the written word, someone has to show them the way.” Orville Prescot The aim of this work is to provide a theoretical as well as practical background to the development of reading and visual literacy in English language teaching (ELT) at the primary level of the Czech schools. A range of questions appears when speaking about ELT. There are an inexhaustible number of methods that displaying how to teach children the English language that different authors recommend to a teacher. And it is the teacher who should carefully select his or her method or a combination of them. In this paper it is shown why it is important not only to teach the English language but to develop children’s reading and visual literacy at the same time. The methods described in this thesis offer enjoyable ways how the young learners of English can advance, in cooperation with their teachers. It can be stated that children should be taught “the culture” in order to become more tolerant towards others and to increase the awareness of belonging to one multicultural society. Although it may seem quite difficult to extend the pupils’ knowledge of the culture, it is believed that stories and authentic books offer a solid ground for this. The diploma thesis consists of two major parts. The first one describes relevant theoretical methods that are important in teaching and developing reading and visual literacy. Subsequently, a significant piece of the theoretical part is devoted to using authentic literature in ELT and to various tasks teachers have to undertake if they are to be good promoters of reading and visual literacy. The practical part introduces a series of lessons that are created on a base of five different authentic books. Each book offers various activities, methods and approaches aimed to develop reading and visual literacy. The practical part is distinctly longer than the theoretical one as I have chosen one book for every year of English teaching at the
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primary level and each one offers a great variety of activities. The conclusion of the thesis is formed by the appendix.
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2. Theoretical part 2.1. Literacy Literacy can be described in a variety of words now although it originally meant the ability of reading, writing and counting. Along with changing conditions in society, the content of literacy is being shifted to different positions, step by step it is being extended by additional branches and skills. Nowadays various types of literacy can be found. People are surrounded by a big amount of information and for this reason the best way to deal with the information flow is to support people’s ability to read and put the information from the text to a context i.e. to connect it to their lives and therefore the literacy is “understood as an ability to extract information and meaning from coded messages, which can be visual and verbal, and to express feelings, ideas and thoughts in these code systems” (Klippel 81). The South Australian Curriculum and Accountability Framework defines literacy as “the ability to understand, analyze, critically respond to and produce appropriate spoken, written, visual and multimedia communication in different context1”. It is now clear that ELT teachers should apply these ideas into their lessons and develop their teaching methods in correspondence with the above mentioned theories because literacy has always been linked to language.
2.2. Reading literacy (RL) and visual literacy (VL) in English language teaching This work is focused on RL and VL that can be supported by using authentic literature in English lessons. The first term (RL) covers the complex of knowledge and skills of an individual person which enable him or her to treat written texts that people come across in ordinary life. Straková (2002, 10) says that reading literacy is not only
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The South Australian Curriculum and Accountability Framework. Available at: http://www.thenetwork.sa.au/general/glossary.htm,accessed [Accessed April 24, 2008]. 9
the simple ability to read a text but the ability to find information out of it and transform and reproduce it, think about it and use the information to reach individual goals, to develop individual knowledge in order to become an active participant of a society. When talking about reading literacy it is extremely important to mention its influence on people´s use. Straková (2002 10) stresses that reading literacy should be perceived for a number of reasons1: - the first reading affects the pupil´s progress in the whole educational process - the content of RL is permanently changing according to changing conditions - the quality of RL is maintained and increased by permanent contact with text Information
2.3. Family and its importance Family plays an irreplaceable role during the process of children’s familiarization with the function and importance of literature. Parents transmit to their children their knowledge about the usage of books, create reading habits, inform about the advantage of reading in life and generally they help to familiarize their children with various functions of literature – education, leisure, relaxation, amusement, etc. The development of literacy is the long-term and complicated procedure because the process of constituting literacy is influenced and conditioned by a range of components. Story-reading at home is obviously productive, and it is more so when it transforms into a special ritual because children love being involved in regular repeating activities. Sharing information and feelings about books represents the most suitable way for developing speaking and reading skills. It stimulates children’s desire to read by themselves especially when they are offered picture books.
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It is translated from the original version
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2.4. Reading background in a family Reading as an activity practiced by the members of the family represents a very stimulating environment children love being a part of. By sharing their own knowledge of the world parents and other relatives can extend children’s perception of the world to a large extent. There is another significant point that can be mentioned here in connection with sharing reading: adults can talk about their favourite books - what they think of them, if they agree with all the information mentioned there, they show where to find more information if the children are interested, etc. For this reason it is important to support children´ s own desire to read. Teachers should study to learn how to develop their teaching methods and so contribute to their pupils’ reading literacy.
2.5. Cooperation with parents It follows from the above mentioned facts that reading at schools should be involved in reading programmes and parents should be asked for their active support. At the present time when people are surrounded by an enormous amount of information a great number of parents have not realized the importance of being a good reader. It seems they often have to be told how significant this ability for their children is. It is obvious that children should be encouraged to read every day. One of ways how to reach the goal is to present the school reading programme to the pupils’ parents. It should be explained that the improvement of the children’s reading skills requires only five or ten minutes a day for certain period of time but it should be an everyday routine.
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Some authors think that it should be twenty minutes a day and therefore parents should be informed that just twenty minutes spent reading with their child significantly improves his or her reading. Twenty minutes every day or twenty minutes once or twice a week – it will make a difference.
2.6. Situation at Czech schools It can be said that many people nowadays do not have a desire to read and that only a minority call themselves passionate readers. Unfortunately, this can be said both about the adults and the children. Children often argue that they do not need to read and that they have others preferences like the TV, the computer and the internet. For lots of people it is significant that they cannot interconnect data covered in ordinary texts and they do not realize how disqualified they may be in life. The contemporary society is dependent on reading and the treatment of reading materials as never before. A person who cannot make sense of a certain text, operate with the information written in it and deduce proper consequences for himself or herself has a very difficult position. He or she may not find a job, fill forms in the right way or make up his or her own opinion. Pupils in Czech schools are taught how to read which means that teachers help them develop reading skills. Unfortunately this is true only on the elementary level. According to outcomes of recent research Doleželová (2005) it can be said that a majority of Czech pupils attending primary school are able to read in appropriate level and are able to understand information given in a text. However, it is important to continue in this process in higher years at school. Some teachers wrongly suppose that the process of development of reading literacy was finished on the primary level and do not pay their attention on its development at higher years. The development of reading literacy is a long term process and therefore the cooperation between the school, the teachers and the parents is crucial. Teachers should have appropriate knowledge and attend if it is possible special methodological courses aimed at this problem. The attitude towards education will have to be changed. The prevailing mechanical thinking should be transformed to the critical one. For this reason it is obvious that both teachers and pupils have a long way in front of them. When 12
teachers are well prepared, they will be able to use their knowledge and also to create a good, functional and rich “Framework Education Programme”.
2.7. Reading situation at the Czech schools It is expected of schools that they substitute or compensate insufficient family reading background and give children number of possibilities to extend their reading competence. As it is obvious from the results that reveal situation at Czech schools From Najvarová’s research (2008) - 71% of children called themselves as an average reader and only 15% said that they consider themselves as an excellent reader. 41% of children claimed that they enjoy reading. Children read different reading materials in this sequence: books, magazines, comics. Some of them (30%) read newspapers or advertisements. Teachers should support reading and in addition they should explain their pupils’ how important is being a good reader for them. It is very surprising and warning that only 13% of pupils state that teachers of foreign languages bring additional reading materials into their classes. Vojtková (2006 113) claims that “teachers enjoy using stories” in their lessons in order to motivate and stimulate children and develop their listening and reading skills. Unfortunately, they “do not use the full potential of stories” that means they do not bear in their minds the importance of other relevant pedagogic principles e.g. “cross-curricular and intercultural potential, tradition of storytelling and reading (113).”
2.8. Teaching reading – reading literacy According to Louisa Moats1 teaching reading is a complex process that requires an extensive knowledge base and a variety of strategies. It means that teaching reading is a “job for an expert”. “Contrary to the theory that learning to read is natural and easy,
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Reading Rockets : The Challenges of Learning to Teach Reading.” 24 Nov 2008
