EDC532: Jennifer Robinson’s Personal Literacy Statement for Teaching and Learning Online Reading Comprehension

My Beliefs About Reading On The Internet – What counts as online reading comprehension?

1. Children need a digital literacy skill set that may be accessed and applied to any online reading platform.

Rheingold notes that tools will change over time.  During his keynote address at URI’s Summer Institute in Digital Literacy, he said, “focus on the literacies, not on the tools.” The chapter from New Literacies defines the term as “literacy that is not just new today; it becomes new every day of our lives” (1150).

2. Children need communication skills to teach, learn with, and learn from diverse individuals across sociocultural contexts.

The RAND model of reading comprehension shows the relationship of text, activity, and reader within a sociocultural context (11-17).  Coiro applies RAND to new literacies in her 2003 article for The Reading teacher. Scholars from the chapter on New Literacies state, “Learning how to learn from others and learning how to collaboratively construct meaning will be increasingly important in the years ahead” (1173). During URI’s 2015 Summer Institute in Digital Literacy, Hobbs reminded us, “You learn from everyone, and everyone learns from you.”

3. Children need to learn how to effectively, efficiently, and critically evaluate resources.

In Net Smart, Rheingold writes, “Skill at evaluating the quality of collective intelligence is essential to knowing how to take advantage of it” (83). He promotes “crap detection” and   “infotention” for making quick decisions while reading and when organizing resources. In her speech to international professionals, Coiro argues that new fluency will be defined not by the number of words read per minute, but by “how many words per minute you can skip to find what you want.”

4. Children need to learn how to synthesize information across sources so they can make connections and create new media.

Creation may happen on any platform. In Puentedura’s SAMR Model of technology integration, the highest level of transformation is redefinition, “the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable.”  Other researchers illustrate a variety of platforms for expression: Jenkins touts the power of participatory culture, Gee notes the reach of online gaming to connect learners, and Rheingold reminds us to be mindful users/creators of social media.

My Emerging Beliefs About Teaching Reading on the Internet – How should online reading comprehension be taught?  

1. Online reading comprehension should be taught in an environment that encourages wondering.

Students should start and end their learning with questions. Johnson outlines the Internet Reciprocal Teaching (IRT) protocol, where questioning is the first step, followed by locating, evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating (25). In her speech for a reading conference in Columbia, Coiro insists, “It doesn’t have anything to do with technology… it has to do with giving them room to wonder.”

2. Online reading comprehension should be taught collaboratively, with teachers and students who share knowledge in a learning community.

The chapter from New Literacies highlights distributed knowledge, where the teacher and students bring expertise from different tools and experiences, and share with each other (1163). Reijo Kupiainen wrote about the home-school connection, reminding us that much learning happens outside of school and our pedagogy could be improved by integrating the knowledge that students bring. Whether the community is in the school or it is global, collaboration builds bridges of comprehension.

3. Online reading comprehension should be taught in multiple contexts, across disciplines, to ensure the literacy skills of every student are developed.

In a  Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) classroom, content areas are intertwined in the context of a theme, with a prescribed framework that establishes prior knowledge, encourages exploration, and promotes understanding through collaboration. Hammerberg writes that a student’s identity as literate “can shift and change according to context and task” (649). For example, Gee celebrates children who are literate in the world of online gaming and have researched, synthesized, and created new content about applied physics.

Personal Reflection:

• What has this assignment and the last four weeks of readings/discussions taught me about myself as an emerging new literacies teacher and/or researcher?

I have learned that while do not yet feel proficient in the field of reading comprehension, whether offline or online, I am starting to make connections. I have learned that I don’t need to be an expert in every current expression of literacy, because “new” literacies are always changing.  What I need to do is to build my digital literacies tool box so I may have the skills to draw from as literacies and technologies evolve.  Similarly, I need to extend the power of adaptability to my students, whether they are middle school students during library classes or teachers during professional development sessions.  

• What research/experiences/readings/ideas, in particular, has informed my personal views of teaching and learning online reading comprehension?

My favorite quote comes from Johnson’s text: “Learning is not a result of development but development itself” (13). My journey through content-area research has been rocky. Though I have encountered the obstacles of new vocabulary, slowed rates of fluency, and gaps in comprehension, I have developed strategies and have forged new tools for my digital literacy toolbox.  I am developing as I go, and that is enough.

• How might my beliefs and attitudes impact the students/individuals with whom I work?  

The most important connection I have made is the ability to relate to the learners that I teach, learn with, and learn from every day. I have learned that students need opportunities to read across formats, to connect home with school, and to express themselves in creative ways that encourage engagement and participation. I have learned that a person who is literate in one situation/content area/tool may struggle in another.  Through a variety of opportunities in a variety of contexts, together we’ll find overlaps in proficiency and close gaps of struggle.

Works Cited

Coiro, J. (2003). Expanding our understanding of reading comprehension to encompass new literacies. The Reading Teacher.

Coiro, J. (2013, December 11). Online Reading Comprehension: Opportunities, Challenges, and Next Steps. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsWDEr2fKxA

Edutopia. (2012, March 21). James Paul Gee on Learning with Video Games. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/JnEN2Sm4IIQ

Hammerberg, D. (2004). Comprehension instruction for sociocultural diverse classrooms: A review of what we know. The Reading Teacher, 57(7), 648-656.

Introduction to the SAMR Model. (2015). Retrieved October 18, 2015, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/videos/introduction-to-the-samr-model

Jenkins, H. (2006, October 20). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century (Part One). Retrieved October 18, 2015, from http://henryjenkins.org/2006/10/confronting_the_challenges_of.html

Johnson, D. (2014). Reading, writing, and literacy 2.0: Teaching with online texts, tools, and resources, K-8. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Kupiainen, R. (2013). Preface, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2 (p. IX – 16). In Media and Digital Literacies in Secondary School.

Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek, & Henry, 2013). New Literacies: A dual level theory of the changing nature of literacy, instruction, and assessment.

RAND Reading Study Group, & Snow, C. (2002). Reading for understanding: Toward an R&D program in reading comprehension. 1-18. Retrieved from EDC532 course wiki.

Rheingold, H. (2012). Net smart: How to thrive online. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Swan (2003). Why is the North Pole Always Cold? In Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI): Engaging Classrooms, Lifelong Learners.