The contribution of teaching practices and pupils’ initial knowledge to literacy learning

Carmen Buisán,Liliana Tolchinsky,Isabel Rios

doi:10.24452/sjer.33.1.4849

Abstract

The learning of written language results from a shared contribution of the literacy knowledge pupils bring and the pedagogical instruction they receive. The aims of the present study were (1) to assess children’s emerging literacy knowledge, in terms of both notational and textual aspects, at the beginning of the third year of preschool education; (2) to obtain a detailed picture of teaching practices in initial instruction of written language in nine regions of Spain; and (3) to determine the relationship between these two factors and learning outcomes at the end of the first year of primary education. In spite of having identified three clearly different profiles of teaching practices, results indicate that children’s performance in written language was more strongly associated with their initial literacy level of knowledge than with what the teacher did.A detailed observation of classroom interactions in the context of specific tasks not only enabled us to look more closely at different learning trajectories but also revealed several socio-affective and attitudinal aspects that appear to explain the differences in learning processes.

Highlights

The term ‘literacy’ has taken on a broader sense than its etymological meaning: it no longer entails just the ability to read and write, but ‘has instead come to be considered synonymous with its hoped-for consequences’ (Aronoff, 1994, p. 68)
There is, an increasing conviction that these studies provide a partial picture of the learning process and that it is important to consider the role of a range of teaching practices to the different amounts of prior knowledge that children bring to the classroom (Connor, Morrison & Katch, 2004)
- Teachers who match the profile of instructional teaching practices (33.87% of the sample) are those who state that they set aside a specific amount of time in the school timetable for reading and writing activities, who rely on children’s knowledge of letters and the sounds they represent in order to teach reading and writing, who correct children when they guess instead of read, and who use activities to analyse the sounds formed by a spoken word

Summary

Introduction

The term ‘literacy’ has taken on a broader sense than its etymological meaning: it no longer entails just the ability to read and write, but ‘has instead come to be considered synonymous with its hoped-for consequences’ (Aronoff, 1994, p. 68). There is, an increasing conviction that these studies provide a partial picture of the learning process and that it is important to consider the role of a range of teaching practices to the different amounts of prior knowledge that children bring to the classroom (Connor, Morrison & Katch, 2004) Another line of research has attempted to determine the influence of teaching practices on literacy learning. An additional goal was to identify differential characteristics of the interactions and strategies used by children in the classroom setting which may explain the progress or delay shown by some pupils when learning to read and write To attain these goals it was necessary to narrow the scope of three constructs of the study: (1) the definition of literacy learning outcome, (2) of learners’ initial literacy knowledge and (3) of teaching practices. The design combined techniques for obtaining large amounts of data, from quantitative sources, with others that allowed for a more qualitative approach (see Table 1)

Objective

Results

Conclusions