Archive of ‘ETL402’ category
The amount I have learnt throughout this subject has simply amazed me. As a classroom teacher, it has been a great insight into the many roles of teacher librarians. Teacher librarians are helping lead learning and knowledge in interactive environments and there are great opportunities for them to assist students with learning how to use different types of media and working in virtual environments (O’Connell, 2012, p. 1). This, linked with working collaboratively alongside classroom teachers can only lead to positive outcomes for students.
I thoroughly enjoyed researching the literature response strategies, particularly as both that I wanted to use and learn more about involved technology. Each subject I complete throughout this course, further emphasises for me the importance of staying abreast of ways to implement learning using technology. A blog post I wrote (Catherall, May 10, 2020) about applications supporting literary learning aligns with the above statement as technology can provide information and a means of communication between students, teachers and parents in a conducive way which also contributes to literary learning. People who visit libraries in the future will have expectations of librarians to up to date with technology and ways this information can be disseminated and used (Krotoski, 2010, p. 633).
This subject has also reminded me of the importance to find ‘quality’ literature to use with students. When reflecting upon an earlier blog post (Catherall, May 21, 2020) I made during this subject, it is evident that I was aware of resources teacher librarians could go to such as Magpies, however the knowledge of these were very basic and it was not until I began the assessment tasks that I gained deeper understandings of their benefits for literary learning. For example, Magpies has a section where the genre of books can be seen so when collecting resources for classes or teachers, this is very beneficial to help teachers understand what genres they have and to find resources of different genres if they haven’t selected enough variation in their texts to promote quality literary learning.
Genres and formats is another area I have thoroughly enjoyed looking into more deeply which can be seen on my blog (Catherall, April 17, 2020). I have discovered a new love of picture books for older children and realised I had not emphasised visual literacy enough with my students. I thoroughly look forward to getting back into the classroom to discuss and explore colours, textures, sizing and placement of text. Assessment two was an excellent reminder of the literary benefits of choosing a varying range of formats and genres that link into all curriculum areas as it makes the literary learning much deeper and this knowledge can then be transferred into other areas of learning. A good library has resources that are of a high quality (Mallett, 2010, p. 373), a range of formats and genres should be included in this, which then hopefully encourages students to read more and learn more.
This subject has undoubtedly influenced my future practice. The deeper understandings that I now have, have provided me with richer information to be a better teacher, to ensure the library is resourced extremely well with a wide variety of books, implementation of technology programs to further students’ understandings and importantly collaboration between teachers as this will lead to greater outcomes for students.
References
Catherall, E. Strategies to increase professional knowledge of children’s literature. (March 21,
2020). [Emma’s Learning Journal- Blog]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/emmasonlinelearningjournal/2020/03/21/strategies-to-increase-professional-knowledge-of-childrens-literature/
Catherall, E. Reflection on assessment one. (April 17, 2020). [Emma’s Learning Journal-
Blog]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/emmasonlinelearningjournal/2020/04/17/reflection-on-assessment-one/
Catherall, E. Seesaw as an application to support literary learning. (May 10, 2020). [Emma’s
Learning Journal-Blog]. Retrieved from https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/emmasonlinelearningjournal/2020/05/10/seesaw-as-an-application-to-support-literary-learning/
Krotoski, A. (2010). Technology: Libraries of the future. Nature, 468(7324), p. 633.
doi: 10.1038/468633a
Mallett, M. (2010). Choosing and using fiction and non-fiction. 3-11 a comprehensive guide
for teachers and student teachers. Retrieved from Proquest Ebook Central
O’Connell, J. (2012). Teacher librarians stepping into the third place. Incite, 33(10).
Retrieved from https://search-informit-com-au.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/fullText;dn=803275632680351;res=IELHSS
Teacher librarians are in a position to provide students with opportunities to work across different platforms in order to help them learn and communicate in schools and the world. The idea of being ‘transliterate’ is a term I believe we will continue to hear more and more about and as information providers it is important that teacher librarians have a strong understanding of this. We can work collaboratively with classroom teachers to ensure students are exposed to this and have an understanding of how a range of different platforms work.
Seesaw is an app which definitely helps with literary learning. This app allows staff to upload information which could be a video, text, spoken language or a picture and a task can be allocated to this. Students are able to respond in a range of ways which includes typing, writing on the screen, speaking, taking a video and uploading this and taking a photo and uploading this with a written or spoken description. Staff and students are able to respond with a comment and record a message. This app provides so many different ways that students can receive information and present this as well which is what is so great about it. It is great for collaboration between teaching staff and library staff as library staff can access teachers’ pages and classes to assist them with their students’ learning.
The learnings I took away from the first assessment task have been extremely beneficial, not only as a future teacher librarian but as a current teacher.
I have always loved picture books and for this assessment I decided to focus on picture books for older children. I am amazed by how much I learnt and I am excited to share this with colleagues of mine. I am surprised that I was not aware of some of the features of picture books as I don’t think I had thought enough about the textures, colours and sizing of pictures and placement of text enough. I was always aware of these but had never explicitly discussed these with my students and I believe I should have invested more of my own time in learning about visual comprehension.
I strongly believe that features of picture books is an area which should be explicitly taught in all year levels and as a result I believe there will be such great improvements across the entire curriculum. Firstly, children will be more engaged with reading, secondly children will have greater literacy and problem solving skills and thirdly children will have the ability to make inferences regarding the text and textual features.
What a fabulous assessment piece that will make me a better teacher and hopefully inspire children further with their reading.
“Read like a girl: Establishing a vibrant community of passionate readers” (Stower & Waring, 2018) was such an inspiring article to read. The impact these teacher librarians had on girls in schools to encourage reading for pleasure was simply phenomenal. To read that the amount of books borrowed in the schools actually tripled over an eighteen month period as a result of this is evidence that encouraging literature for pleasure amongst these girls was effective.
The way in which they exposed girls to different authors and books immediately assisted these girls with exploring different genres to help gain their interest. There were a range of events conducted at the two schools when this began, including: book launches, a book night with fathers or a significant male, International Women’s Day breakfast and writing workshops to name a few.
These events and strategies immediately give students access to a range of books which encourages reading which also expands on what they are reading as well as the amount, assisting with fluency (Allington, 2014, p.15). Further reading went on to discuss that motivation for reading comes as a result of purely enjoying it (Guthrie, Klauda, & Ho, 2013, p.10) which compliments the sentiments of having access to literature and a wide variety of it so that students can find different genres that appeal to them. If children are reading voluntarily and enjoying it shows their scores on comprehension tests increase (Howard, 2011, p. 47) which is fabulous that their understandings of texts are clearly improving by simply increasing the amount they read.
In our library, I would love to increase the events held with family members. I believe that involving the students’ families would be a great benefit as all families would be gaining the same positive experiences at school and hopefully be able to take these back to their homes. Therefore, one would hope that there would be more discussions around literature in the home which would hopefully lead to further reading for pleasure which consequently assists these students in all facets of their life and learning in the future.
Reference List
Allington, R. L. (2014). How reading volume affects both reading fluency and reading achievement. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 7(1), 13-26. Retrieved from https://www.iejee.com/
Guthrie, J. Klauda, S. & Ho, A. (2013). Modeling the relationships among reading instruction, motivation, engagement, and achievement for adolescents. Reading Research Quarterly, 48(1), 9-26. doi: 10.1002/rrq.035
Howard, V. (2011). The importance of pleasure reading in the lives of young teens: Self-identification, self-construction and self-awareness. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 43(1), 46-55. doi: 10.1177/0961000610390992
Stower, H. & Waring, P. (2018, July 16). Read like a girl: Establishing a vibrant community of passionate readers. In Alliance of Girls Schools Australia. Retrieved from https://www.agsa.org.au/news/read-like-a-girl-establishing-a-vibrant-community-of-passionate-readers/
It is vital that Teacher Librarians are abreast of new literature being published. They need to purchase these and promote them to students so that students can extend themselves in what they are reading. Teacher librarians need to be aware of resources to support them in finding a range of different books and genres to assist them with purchasing such as: Magpies the source, Goodreads, subscriptions to publishing companies, blogs and subscriptions to educational magazines.
As I continue to learn more throughout this subject, I hope to add further resources to this list.
Further Resources Discovered:
The children’s book council of Australia website is a must for teacher librarians. I am surprised with myself for forgetting to add this in earlier as it is extremely informative and such a useful resource when looking to increase knowledge in relation to children’s literature.
I believe that children’s literature is definitely in a good place and will continue to be popular. Harvey’s article showed that print books are still popular, as are books linked to media sources and personalised books (Harvey, 2015). It is quite positive to see that print is still a popular choice for children and for parents who purchase these books. However, this article did not discuss the number of patrons who frequent libraries or who buy other types of books.
I believe it is important that ‘parents’ are aware of the benefits of lifelong reading from the moment their children are born. The sooner parents from all backgrounds are empowered with this knowledge, the sooner they will hopefully begin healthy habits around reading with their children. It is also the responsibility of the government to provide programs for parents who may not understand the benefits of reading so that they can go on a journey with their children into the world of reading.
I believe that it is so important for children to ‘just read’. It does not matter what they are reading, as long as they can find something they love and embrace it. Over time, they will eventually find other genres they enjoy, however it is so important for children just to make a start. Therefore, I believe that it is the responsibility of firstly parents to encourage their children for find a passion for reading.
Teacher librarians must continue to work in schools to promote reading. It is vital that students have the opportunity to work and talk with a teacher librarian to pursue their interests of books and help them find books they love so that it is not a chore but something they really enjoy. Librarians in public libraries are also needed to continue the excellent programs they have for children and parents.
References
Harvey, E. (2015, December 8). Five trends affecting children’s literature. In Book Business.