Primary English: Knowledge and Understanding - Medwell Jane A. 2014

Electronic texts

TEACHERS’ STANDARDS

A teacher must:

3. Demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge

✵ have a secure knowledge of the relevant subject(s) and curriculum areas, foster and maintain pupils’ interest in the subject, and address misunderstandings

✵ demonstrate a critical understanding of developments in the subject and curriculum areas, and promote the value of scholarship

✵ demonstrate an understanding of and take responsibility for promoting high standards of literacy, articulacy and the correct use of standard English, whatever the teacher’s specialist subject.

4. Plan and teach well structured lessons

✵ impart knowledge and develop understanding through effective use of lesson time

✵ promote a love of learning and children’s intellectual curiosity

✵ contribute to the design and provision of an engaging curriculum within the relevant subject area(s).

8. Fulfil wider professional responsibilities

✵ take responsibility for improving teaching through appropriate professional development.

Curriculum context

National Curriculum programmes of study

This knowledge is designed to underpin the teaching of the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 programmes of study for English, which state, for example, that pupils should be taught

in spoken language to:

✵ ask relevant questions to extend their understanding and knowledge

✵ consider and evaluate different viewpoints, attending to and building on the contributions of others

in reading to:

✵ participate in discussion about other works that are read to them and those that they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say Y2

✵ explain and discuss their understanding of other material, both those that they listen to and those that they read for themselves Y2

✵ retrieve and record information from non-fiction Y3/4/5/6.

Early Years Foundation Stage

The Early Learning Goals specify that, by the end of the Early Years Foundation Stage, children should:

✵ demonstrate understanding when talking with others about what they have read.

Introduction

Traditionally, literacy has been simply defined as the condition of being able to read and write, and for most people this definition is adequate. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that we need to expand our definition of literacy to include the reading and writing not only of printed texts but of electronic texts. Until recently, teachers could safely confine reading and writing activities to printed materials. Increasingly, however, reading and writing can be done electronically with the aid of a computer. Computers are being used to create and revise texts, to send and receive mail electronically, to present texts of all kinds onscreen instead of in printed books, and to access large databases of texts for research purposes. Electronic texts are becoming more prevalent as computers become an integral part of everyday experiences such as working, shopping, travelling and studying.

You need to include electronic forms of reading and writing in the literacy experiences that you offer your pupils. This raises the major question for your knowledge about texts of exactly how electronic texts are different from printed texts. What is distinctive about electronic texts? What do children need to know about such texts in order to use them effectively, and what do you need to know in order to develop their knowledge?

The characteristics of electronic texts

In this chapter, we will discuss three fundamental differences between printed and electronic texts. We will try to go beyond the merely surface differences between the two media. A screen looks different to a page but that in itself need not imply a different way of reading the text in this medium. Writing an electronic text will obviously be different to writing a paper-based text, in that the physical actions needed to create these texts are different. Yet the differences between these two activities can amount to a great deal more than just the difference between writing with a pen and typing at a keyboard.

REFLECTIVE TASK

It would be useful at this point for you to think about the differences between reading and writing paper-based texts and screen-based texts. Start by thinking of some recent occasions when you have read and written electronically.

You might have done any or all of the following:

✵ read a web page;

✵ read a document from the internet in PDF format;

✵ read a text on your mobile phone;

✵ written an assignment on a word processor;

✵ written an email;

✵ written during an instant messaging conversation with a friend;

✵ written a text and sent it.

Focus on one of these experiences and try to imagine a parallel literacy experience using pen and paper. If you chose reading a web page, for example, a parallel would be reading an information book. For writing an email, a parallel would be writing a letter. In what ways was the electronic experience different from how the paper experience would have been? Which of these differences was caused by the nature of the text you were reading/writing?

There are, of course, many electronic texts that are simply print texts put onto a screen, and these may not challenge their writers or readers any more than do print texts. Your word processed assignment may, in essence, look no different, and have demanded no more skill or effort, than producing such an assignment on a typewriter (although it will almost certainly have been easier to produce, unless you are one of these people who always write everything correctly the first time!). More and more, however, electronic texts are being created that do more than just duplicate print, and it is on the characteristics of these, more adventurous, texts that we will focus here.

Electronic texts are interactive

Reading is often described as an interaction between a reader and a text. However, readers and printed texts cannot literally interact. A printed text cannot respond to a reader, nor do printed texts invite modification by a reader. To describe reading as an interaction simply reflects the fact that the outcomes of reading are the result of factors associated with the text and factors associated with the reader. What we understand from a text is not exactly what the author put there, nor exactly what we already knew about this topic. Rather, our understanding is a transaction between these two things. When I read a text about, say, Australia, I will probably take something different away from it than an Australian would. For both of us, our previous knowledge (or lack of it) interferes with what we understand from the text.

Because reading is interactive in this sense, a successful reader must be mentally active during reading. Readers vary in their knowledge and their cognitive capabilities and because of this a basic part of understanding the process of reading has come to be seen as understanding the reader. Features of printed texts, such as the use of illustrations, have not been entirely ignored, but it is true to say that the role of the printed text in the reading process has not generally been emphasised in discussion about the reading process. One reason for this greater interest in readers than in texts is that texts are static and inert once they are printed. When a writer’s intended meaning is viewed as frozen in a printed form, it is only logical to focus on a reader’s efforts to construct meaning from this print.

Successful readers of printed texts know that it is their responsibility to derive meaning from those texts, and they approach the task of reading accordingly. A printed text cannot clarify itself if the reader is having difficulty understanding it. Readers may consciously interact with a text by applying their own knowledge to it, but they cannot literally carry on a dialogue with a printed text.

Electronic texts, on the other hand, can involve a literal interaction between texts and readers (Daniel and Reinking, 1987). Using the capabilities of the computer, reading electronic texts can become a dialogue. Electronic texts can be programmed to adapt to an individual reader’s needs and interests during reading, which may in turn affect the strategies that readers use to read and comprehend texts.

RESEARCH SUMMARY

Reinking and Rickman (1990) explored the use of interactive electronic texts, which provided readers, on request, with definitions of difficult words as they were reading. The effects of reading such texts were compared to the reading of printed texts accompanied by conventional resources such as dictionaries and glossaries. It was found that 9 to 13 year olds reading the interactive computer texts investigated more word meanings, remembered the meanings of more words and understood more of the experimental text.

Other research (Reinking and Schreiner, 1985) has suggested that readers’ comprehension of texts increases when they read electronic texts providing a variety of support options, such as definitions of difficult words, illustrations of processes described (sometimes animated) or maps of a text’s structure.

In the future it will be possible to design electronic texts so that they respond to certain characteristics of the reader. Imagine a screen-based text that changes its format, content and speed of presentation depending on the rate at which a reader reads it. Texts are already available which, at some point on each screen, invite the reader to select another text to read. Most web pages function like this, as the reader navigates through the network of texts making up a website by clicking on ’links’. Interactive texts like these provide many potential texts. It is possible to read such a website several times without reading exactly the same text in the same order twice.

For screen texts to have such potential interactivity, of course, they have to be created this way. The structure of such texts makes the job of writing them a completely different experience from writing a single-dimensional paper-based text. Writing web texts like this sounds like a job for the expert, but the Framework for Literacy suggested that Year 5 children should ’Create multi-layered texts, including use of hyperlinks and linked web pages’.

Electronic texts have different structures

The idea that textual information might be structured differently if it is stored electronically is not new. In 1945, Vannevar Bush, a US presidential adviser, proposed that researchers develop electronic means for linking related information in a large database of microfilm documents. In 1960, Ted Nelson introduced the term hypertext in referring to electronic documents structured as non-linear, non-sequential texts (see Lunin and Rada, 1989). Hypertexts have three attributes that separate them from conventionally structured printed texts:

✵ a database consisting of distinct units of text (which may consist of words, pictures, sounds, or moving images);

✵ a network connecting the textual units (the textual units are referred to as ’nodes’ in the network);

✵ electronic tools for moving flexibly through the network.

The technology available when the concept of hypertext was first proposed did not allow easy and widespread implementation of the idea but rapid developments in computing power over the past few years have made hypertext not only possible but virtually inescapable. Web pages are coded in hypertext markup language — HTML.

PRACTICAL TASK

Find an example of a web page in which many features of hypertext have been implemented and that contains a mixture of textual and graphic elements. Explore the page to see if you can find examples of the following features. In each case, what is the function of this feature within the web page?

The fact that electronic texts are structured in different ways to printed texts brings the difficulties inherent in electronic literacy into sharp focus. Becoming literate for electronic reading will require that readers become familiar with the non-linear, non-sequential text structures that are the natural form of electronic texts. They will also need to develop appropriate strategies for reading such texts. Reading web pages like this is not straightforward and many otherwise skilful readers readily admit to getting lost quite easily within such material. Such text structures also place new demands on the writers of the texts, who must try to anticipate the way that readers will perceive their texts and make sensible navigation possible. Remember that older primary children can be taught to write in this reader-centred way.

Electronic texts employ special symbols

An important part of being literate is being good at using all of the symbols that are available for communicating meaning in a written language. Readers and writers must know the conventions for using these symbols and understand how they convey meaning in a written language. Such awareness includes being able to use and interpret symbols beyond words themselves, such as graphic aids (e.g. illustrations and tables), organisational units (e.g. chapters), and typographical marks (e.g. underlining or italics).

Electronic texts incorporate more symbols than those used in printed texts. For example, symbols used with electronic texts but not with printed texts include: flashing, animated or moving visual displays, sound effects and video. These elements create new possibilities for communicating meaning and they create the need for new conventions for using them in conjunction with traditional print.

The availability of more symbols is problematic in the development of electronic literacy, partly because agreed conventions for using the various symbols have not necessarily been established. Part of the problem is that the symbols available for use in electronic texts continue to expand rapidly, and the conventions for using them can change with each advance in computer technology and as newer versions of software packages become available. Think too of the rapidly increasing number of downloadable mobile phone applications.

A very simple example of how these complexities can affect the use of electronic texts that you have probably come across is when you have written a file on your own computer but then transfer it and try to open the document on another system and you experience problems because the software may have been set up differently and a different set of symbols used.

PRACTICAL TASK

Explore the use of special symbols used in electronic texts by looking at some computer working environments with which you are currently unfamiliar. You could use the internet to trawl for examples or browse the range of materials available via your local authority’s virtual learning environment (VLE) if you have access to this. Jot down a note of any new symbols or changes in the use of older symbols that you come across.

REFLECTIVE TASK

Thinking about all of the characteristics of electronic texts that we have discussed (their interactivity, use of different structures and utilisation of a widening range of symbols), consider how technological changes have affected your own learning. At what age were you when you got your first mobile phone, PC or laptop? What features did these have?

Compare your responses with the experiences of the children you are currently working with. They may well have access to advanced mobile phones and Kindle technology at a very early age. Their digital literacy may be equal to or in advance of yours. How will you ensure that you keep up to date with the development of electronic texts and ensure that you can use them effectively in your teaching?

A SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS

Electronic texts make fresh demands on both readers and writers.

Although some electronic texts comprise simply of print texts put on-screen, many have distinct characteristics that make them into much more adventurous texts.

Many electronic texts are interactive, allowing readers to navigate through a network of links, access illustrations or definitions and search for additional information.

They have different structures and features from paper-based texts.

They employ special symbols and an ever-changing range of conventions.

As well as the demands that these characteristics place on readers, they have implications for teaching children to be successful writers of electronic texts.

M-LEVEL EXTENSION

The multi-modal dimensions of digital texts have challenged the notion of literacy as being principally about words, sentences and paragraphs. These represent only part of what is being communicated in digital texts. There is often a tension between the act of making meaning with written words, and the meaning-making that comes from layout and from other aspects of digital texts (e.g. hyperlinks). When we think about the forms and functions of writing on-screen and the texts and contexts in which digital literacy is situated, there are some large shifts of emphasis. Some of these shifts are listed below, and you might want to think about the implications of these for your teaching of literacy:

1. The move from the fixed to the fluid: text is no longer contained just between the covers of a book or by the limits of the page.

2. Texts become interwoven in more complex ways by means of hyperlinks.

3. Texts can easily be revised, updated and added to.

4. Texts can become collaborative with replies, links and posted comments.

5. Reading and writing paths are often non-linear.

6. Texts become more densely multi-modal (as multimedia allows for a rich range of modes to be used).

FURTHER READING

Perhaps the best source of information about the new literacies made available by new technology, especially the internet, is the website run by the New Literacies Research Team at the University of Connecticut: www.newliteracies.uconn.edu/ This team is led by Don Leu, who is the world leader currently in thinking about the ways in which new technologies affect literacy. Many of his articles can be read at his personal website: www.sp.uconn.edu/˜djleu/

DfE (2013) Teachers’ Standards. London: DfE. (www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/208682/Teachers__Standards_2013.pdf)