Reading Reflection # 2: Emerging Definitions and New/Digital Literacies
Key Ideas
Librarians pride themselves on knowing multiple literacies, the ability to understand and instruct about multiple types of literacy from media, print, digital, visual and others. And although this is true, there is still much to learn through the available research and perhaps more research to do about new literacies and how they affect learning as well as comprehension and literacy. Throughout the readings, I have found it helpful to reflect not only on my own reading life but also the experiences of my students. Education tends to be a case of the more we think we know, the less we do. It is imperative that educators at all levels continue to observe, discuss and research as new modalities are introduced.
Baron, in How We Read Now, frames reading through three lenses: the social, linguistic/cognitive and engagement. Coiro brings us the broad view of the heuristic lens, and the idea that digital reading involves multimodel texts, inteactive links along with interactive environments so that the diversity of readers. With this lens readers can be instructed through a more universally designed approach.
Connections
As a school librarian I am often focused on the identity of readers and moving them from a fixed mindset into a much more growth mindset through strategies, motivation and other aspects of creating a culture of reading. As Baron references, the studies often leave out much of the complexity of who our readers are and how to move beyond the generalizations of the research. Professor Coiro states that, "In addition to variation in general cognitive capabilities,readers often vary in their knowledge of and experience with varied types of texts, which in turn influences how they move through and construct meaning from text in digital spaces." This idea also deeply resonates with my practice with students.
Hammerberg tells us that, "sociocultural theories see literacy, first and foremost, as a social practice always embedded within structures of power (Street, 1993). This is an impactful statement when I think about how the demographics within my school have changed drastically over the past 15 years. We also know that literacy scores have dropped significantly. The meaning of literacy should be considered through multiple lenses and points of view so that educators are able to meet the needs of learners.
The chapter from Comprehension Instruction: Research-Based Best Practice: Research on Instruction and Assessment in the New Literacies of Online Research and Comprehension (Castek, Coiro, et al. 2015) illustrates the larger idea of new literacies approached as a problem-based inquiry process that involves new skills and strategies as reading is navigated in an online environment. This allows students to generate independently important questions that are relevant to their own personal learning and then move on to locate, critically evaluate, synthesize and communicate about possible solutions to these inquiries. This differs as it focuses on the idea of self-directed text construction. Critical evaluation is another area where a set of unique skills are necessary as the evaluation extends from the reading itself to analyzing the source and validity of the text. With the continued emergence of new technologies, this research becomes imperative for educators to reflect on and use a best practice approach with.
The article, Expanding our Understanding of Reading Comprehension to Encompass New Literacies, by Julie Coiro (Feb 2003), and the idea of "overviewing" had me reflecting on the process of research and how the instruction around inquiry research with my students focuses on phases. Coiro also points out that many readers are often easily distracted in internet environments and most likely need scaffolding to assist with comprehension. One question she poses, "Is the comprehension process different on the interent?" has been a question that I have grappled with as well. The research suggests ideas around Internet Reciprocal Teaching and suggested strategies as well as the idea that different students need different strategies and different levels of support at differtne points. I believe this to be true with or without these approaches.
Implications
One way that has leveled the educational field in my school is the use of The Guided Inquiry Design Process to address some of these challenges with my students and to allow for diverse needs to be met within each phase of the process. This process can be effective with all levels of learners and allows the opportunity to pause to learn how to learn. Students are able to identify their challenges and successes through the inquiry community that we strive to create within the use of this process. The phases allow educators to approach instruction "just in time" as a way to ensure that all students are successful with locating, critically evaluating, synthesizing and communicating about the information they are finding and ways that they are making meaning.
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