Development of Key Literacy Skills in Early Childhood Education
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the editor
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction: The Importance of Literacy-rich Classrooms (Kamila Urban)
- 1 Role of Shared Book Reading Practices in Early Literacy Development (Zuzana Petrová – Ma. Lovena Moneva)
- 2 Identification of Differences in Key Literacy Indicators Under the Old and the Innovated Preschool Curriculum (Marek Urban)
- 3 Role of Story Listening Comprehension in Early Literacy Skills (Oľga Zápotočná)
- 4 Role of Metacognition in Early Literacy Development (Kamila Urban)
- 5 Preschool Narrative Production as a Precursor for Successful Reading and Literacy Development (Zuzana Petrová)
- Conclusion: The Difficult Journey of the New Literacy Curriculum to Preschool Education: Promising Impacts and Future Perspectives (Oľga Zápotočná)
- Index
Contributors
Kamila Urban, PhD., is an independent researcher at the Institute for Research in Social Communication, SAS, and an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Her current research themes are fostering metacognition from preschool age, self-regulated learning, creativity, and motivation in education. She mainly lectures on developmental and educational psychology. She is a member of several national research projects and was awarded an individual research grant from SAIA and a Fulbright research grant. She was a visiting researcher at the Center for Cognition, Learning, and Memory at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and at the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, USA. Contact: kamila.urban@savba.sk
Oľga Zápotočná, PhD., is a full professor of education at Trnava University in Trnava and an independent researcher at the Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences, with a distinct profile in the field of literacy research and development at the primary and pre-primary levels. Her research and publishing focus is cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives on literacy theories and reading research. She examines literacy in broader economic, social, cultural. and civic-political contexts. She is co-author of the new national curriculum, the State Educational Program for Pre-primary Education in Preschools. and the main author of the “Language and Communication” educational area of the curriculum.
Zuzana Petrová, PhD., is an associate professor in the field of pedagogy at the Faculty of Education, University of Trnava, and a researcher at the Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences, with a particular focus on early literacy development at preschool age. Her research interests include the application of Vygotskian socio-cultural theory in research on the role of speech and language in the cognitive regulation of cognitive processes through the acquisition of written language. Her previous research findings were reflected in the Slovak national pre-school curriculum, the State Educational Program for Pre-primary Education in Preschools, and she co-authored the “Language and Communication” educational area (with Oľga Zápotočná) and implemented it into the educational practices of kindergartens. She is a member of the International Literacy Association (ILA) and the committee of the Federation of European Literacy Associations (FELA). She is ←9 | 10→currently involved in an international research project supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie project under Horizon 2020, changes in reading in the digital age (project no. 86016 ELIT – the Empirical Study of Literature Training Network).
Marek Urban, PhD., is a junior researcher at the Department of Research Methodology, Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences, and an assistant professor at the Department of Psychology and Life Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, lecturing on qualitative and quantitative research methodology, scientific writing, and the psychology of creativity. His research focus is on identifying the individual and organizational factors that influence creative and innovative behavior, especially self-regulatory processes (goal setting, metacognitive monitoring, and regulation) and the role of feedback. He is currently working on application of statistical methods on qualitative data (under the digital humanities paradigm) and the development of a computer-based learning environment for supporting student self-regulation and creativity. As a visiting researcher, he continued his research at the Center for Cultural Studies, University of Bern (Switzerland), and the Department of Teacher Education and Learning Sciences of North Carolina State University (USA). He is also a professional coach, mentor, and supervisor.
Ma. Lovena Moneva is an early stage researcher at the Faculty of Education, University of Trnava, enrolled in the double doctoral program at Trnava University (Theory of Language and Literary Education) and University of Basel (Digital Humanities). Her thesis, “Reading in Early Childhood Settings: Promoting Socioemotional Development in the Digital Age”, is on exploring the use of children’s picturebooks in developing socioemotional skills relevant to today’s world. Her research project comes under the Empirical Study of Literature Network (ELIT) and is funded by European Union Horizon 2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant No 860516.
Introduction: The Importance of Literacy-rich Classrooms
In early childhood and at preschool age, the child’s social environment plays a key role in the development of early literacy skills and metacognition. Key aspects include adult–child interaction; adults asking content questions during shared reading, verbal guidance during problem solving, and feedback on children’s strategy use (Kontos, 1983; McNamara & Magliano, 2009; Ortiz et al., 2001; Thompson & Foster, 2014; Urban & Urban, 2018, 2021). Adult use of metacognitive language can further accelerate early language development during these interactions. Metacognitive language characteristically contains words referring to mental states, such as “think”, “know”, “remember”, “forget”, “hesitate”, “imagine”, and “understand”. The use of metacognitive language aids comprehension and the later use of such words (Harris et al., 2005; Kontos, 1983; Peskin & Astington, 2004; Williams & Atkins, 2009). During these adult–child interactions, adults model appropriate reading behaviors, while children acquire metacognitive knowledge about good use of reading strategies, are able to deduce the meaning of unfamiliar words from the context, and to recall and retrieve words from the text, which aids recognition of unknown words and reading comprehension (Williams & Atkins, 2009).
Chapter 1 (Petrová & Moneva, 2023) describes these adult–child interactions in depth. The authors show how children acquire reading experience during shared reading sessions. They point out the importance of reading a sufficient number of good quality texts and discuss age-appropriate communication strategies for text work during shared reading. In optimal shared reading sessions, adults ask children questions before, during, and after reading. This gives children opportunities to acquire reading skills that go beyond those learnt from everyday life experiences. Children will be able to understand the meaning of the story and explore and explain the main ideas using their own narrative skills. They will also be able to tell and retell high-quality narratives on their own.
In the preschool classroom, early childhood educators require a more complex skill-set. To promote early literacy development, they need good classroom instruction skills (DeBruin-Parecki & Squibb, 2011) and to ensure that children are educated in a literacy-rich environment (Zápotočná et al., 2022). In literacy-rich environments, diverse textual materials (such as stories, ←11 | 12→poetry, and informational texts) are actively used during reading sessions. Obtaining extensive reading experiences of a variety of textual materials helps children to acquire explicit (literal) and implicit (inferential) understanding and metacognitive development. Although our understanding of (comprehension) strategy instruction is based on research with good readers (Houtveen & van de Grift, 2007; Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995), the research shows that weak readers with limited access to print materials at home benefit most from strategy instruction (DeBruin-Parecki & Squibb, 2011; Zápotočná et al., 2020). Moreover, it is important to note that children need to learn reading comprehension strategies before they reach school age (DeBruin-Parecki & Squibb, 2011).
Details
- Pages
- 132
- Year
- 2023
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631886465
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631886472
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631886458
- DOI
- 10.3726/b20261
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2023 (March)
- Keywords
- reformation in educational practice preschool curriculum in Slovakia literacy development
- Published
- Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2023. 132 pp., 5 fig. b/w, 9 tables.
Biographical notes
Kamila Urban (Volume editor)
Kamila Urban is a researcher at the Institute for Research in Social Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences, and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Her current research themes are metacognitive development, self-regulated learning, creativity, and motivation in education.
