Digital and Multimodal Literacies in Early Reading Development and Motivation
Introduction
This week, I will discuss the impacts of digital and multimodal literacies in early reading development and motivation. For the purpose of this week’s topic, I want to differentiate that early reading development will include ages ranging from infancy to third grade, and both emergent and beginning readers.
Early Reading Development, Motivation, and New Literacies
Early reading development is crucial to later success in both reading comprehension and reading motivation. Schwanenflugel and Knapp (2016) express that learning to read begins at infancy in the home. They also state that factors such as oral language such as the quality and quantity of conversations that children engage in with their families and supported and stimulating play experiences impact early literacy skills. However, they also mention the impacts of screen time on children’s reading development. Schwanenflugel and Knapp cite a study that showed that preschool children scored higher on emergent literacy tests who were exposed to television programming that was “child-audience informative,” rather than general programming such as cartoons (Wright, et al. 2001, as cited by Schwanenflugel and Knapp 2016, pp. 5-6). Television programs provide expose to multimodal forms of text for children; therefore, it is important to be aware to what kinds of literacy and oral language skills that they are being presented with in order to help parents understand the impact of new literacies in their young child’s reading development in order to help them to become more motivated readers.
See an example of a "child-audience informative" program here: https://www.sesamestreet.org/
The authors do state that even though these types of programming are better for children in their early reading development, shared reading experiences with family are essential in increasing children’s’ interest in reading (Schwanenflugel and Knapp 2016, pg. 12). Families who engage in reading to and with young children share with them the value and purpose of reading. More so, families can show their young children that reading can be fun. Schwanenfluegel and Knapp explain that using e-books with young children can be a way to interact in shared reading. They also mention that the focus of e-books should not be on the “bells and whistles,” of what e-books can offer, but that families are including the adult-child interaction with these digital stories to support building children’s interests and motivations to read.
Emergent literacy development includes aspects of alphabetic knowledge, phonological and phonemic awareness, and continued oral language and vocabulary development (Schwananflugel and Knapp 2016). Children learning early alphabetic knowledge may benefit from making connections to environmental print around them. Reading signs and symbols around them signify meaning and involve multimodal literacy. This connection to meaning helps young children understand a purpose for reading which then helps to motivate, engage, and interest them in reading activities. Phonological and phonemic awareness involves discriminating, analyzing, and manipulating the sounds of language (Schwanenflugel and Knapp 2016, pg. 46). There are computer-based reading programs that require students to utilize digital literacy skills such as clicking a mouse and tapping keys on a keyboard that also target phonological and phonemic awareness skills. These skills in combination can help students’ early literacy development, and with increased development in foundational skills such as phonological and phonemic awareness, students may experience more success and motivation to read.
See an example of a computer-based reading program that targets phonological awareness and phonics skills here: https://www.lexialearning.com/products/core5
Children who start to become beginning readers are those that experience learning to read words by means of phonics and orthography. Technology has advanced to include the instruction and practice of these skills in a digital format. Schwanenflugel and Knapp (2016) share that analyses of these types of programs have shown that it is difficult to determine their effects on children’s literacy development when used independently of other instruction they have received (pg. 69). Despite this, these programs and applications continue to be developed and used by teachers and families. Their use as a supplemental program used appropriately may still provide students with ways to engage in learning how to read words that are motivating. The authors do suggest that more understanding and research of the potential effectiveness of these programs is encouraged (pg. 69).
One study conducted by Neuman, et al. (2017) was performed with four-year-olds in order to understand the literacy skills and motivation impacted by the use of digital storybooks. The study concluded that parent-child interactive reading should not be substituted by the use of digital texts but can still be a useful source of learning for children (pg. 1768). The authors of this study refer to the application Speakaboos as an example. Opportunities to interact with digital texts can provide engagement with literacy skills, which can promote positive experience with reading. These experiences can help our young readers develop positive reader identities and motivate them to read.
In an analysis by Morgan (2013), it recommended that teachers utilize multimodal e-books effectively in order to promote literacy skills and motivation in reading. The author mentions that reading difficulties can negatively effect reading motivation (pg. 477). In order to help young readers motivation, it is important for educators to support positive and enjoyable reading experiences for their students. Teachers can do this with the implementation of multimodal e-books. Multimodal e-books have features and modes that allow for students to engage and interact with the text and provide them with positive experiences in reading. The also author shares with us a checklist for selecting e-books in order to determine their effectiveness (see below, pg. 480). Once teachers evaluate the digital and multimodal texts, they can then provide their students with positive, supplemental reading opportunities.
thanks for the information.
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