Developing Students' Multi-Literacy Skills: The Search for "Best Practices"

Literature Review

Brian Deyo

ED 690/San Diego State University

March 8, 2004

Introduction

As the information age gives way to the age of developing human capital, children and their teachers will have to acquire emerging media literacy skills in order to compete in the job market.   Children's reading and writing literacy will also have to reach a higher level of competency across a wider range of communication genres such as chat, e-mail, web logs, and discussion boards.   Many teachers are searching to determine what are the best practices and most effective ways to teach media literacy skills.   They also want to find the most efficient ways to incorporate media literacy skills into the instruction of reading and writing literacy.  

This review will examine the aspects of multi-literacy and the best available teaching practices used to instruct students in the development of multi-literacy.   Three main topics will be discussed: (a) Defining reading literacy, writing literacy, and media literacy; (b) explaining how these literacies interact with one another; and (c) defining the "best teaching practices" for teaching multi-literacy.

Subtopic 1: Defining the Literacies

As students progress through their education, they have to develop various types of literacy such as reading literacy, writing literacy, and media skills literacy.   What do these terms mean?   What is involved in developing these types of literacy?   The first literacy to investigate is reading literacy.   Reading literacy involves a student's ability to construct and internalize meaning from written communication.   A student must demonstrate proficiency in different areas of reading such as phonemic awareness, phonics, oral fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary (Education, 1999, p. 218).   Phonemic awareness is the connection a reader makes between a written combination of letters on the page and the sound associated with that letter combination.   Phonics addresses the possible sound combinations that a particular letter or group of letters might have.   Oral fluency is the ability of the reader to read the text out loud with speed and accuracy.   Comprehension involves the reader's understanding of the characteristics of a passage such as genre, setting, characters, plot, and theme among others.   Vocabulary consists of the reader's ability to understand the meaning of a word based upon its context.

While reading literacy deals with the reception of written communication, writing literacy focuses on the production of written communication.   A student needs to demonstrate proficiency in many areas such as the creation of ideas, organization of ideas, revision of one's own written work, awareness of audience, fluidity of genre, and execution of accepted conventions.   Effective writers can express an idea completely and with clarity while including the audience's perspective (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001, p. 50).   Logistically, proficient writers can "organize a written text ... to fit purpose, topic, and audience" as well as revising or editing their work [to show] a "command of spelling, punctuation, word usage, and sentence structure" (Fountas & Pinnell, p. 50)

Media literacy skills include the use of various word processing programs, video productions programs, and file management procedures.   According to the International Society for Technology in Education (2001), students should develop proficiency in six media skills categories: "(a) basic operations and concepts; (b) social, ethical, and human issues; (c) technology productivity tools;   (d) technology communications tools; (e) technology research tools; and (f) technology problem-solving and decision-making tools" (p. 14-15).   Throughout the K-12 educational process, students develop greater proficiency in these areas and are able to "be lifelong learners who make informed decisions about the role of technology in their lives" (International, p. 16).

Multi-literacy combines the areas of reading literacy, writing literacy, and media skills literacy.    "This broadened concept of literacy makes it a term that includes all of the communication and calculation skills needed to survive in today's society" (Cooper & Kiger, 2003, p. 5).   "Multiliteracies encompass interrelations of print, visual, and audio texts of cultural and linguistic diversity and include communicative skills of speaking, listening, writing, and reading" (Hagood, 2000, p. 312).   This multi-literacy is a reality in view of today's ever-changing technological landscape.   Children and adults have to continually develop and refine this multi-literacy in order to stay productive and be contributing members of society.

Subtopic 2: Connecting the Literacies

Teachers need to be aware of how these literacies are merging in the 21 st century.   "Literacy users constantly negotiate the constructions of their literate practices and reconstruct those practices to meet their literate needs in contexts that change and shift" (Hagood, 2000, p. 312).   "Children who have grown up surrounded by TV, mobile phones, computers, and ... the Internet ... have new needs, new capabilities, new capacities ..." (Dudfield, 1999, p. 1).   The Internet, for example, presents a unique literacy experience.   "By selecting links in various orders, a reader creates his or her own path when reading on the Internet" (Schmar-Dobler, 2003, p. 81).   "Internet readers are reading expository text in a hypertext format where ideas are connected by links, headings, icons, and graphics.   Yet, Internet reading appears to apply similar reading strategies as those used with print text reading" (Schmar-Dobler, p. 83).   "Because of technology, our definition of reading has changed to include websites, e-books, e-mail, discussion boards, chat rooms, instant messaging, and listservs" (Schmar-Dobler, p. 81).   Until now, "teachers instructed students on what counted as reading and writing in classrooms through an introduction into the conventions of school literacies ..." (Hagood, p. 316).   With the technological advances of the past few years, "efforts need to be taken to understand and document students' multiliteracies and to create new pedagogies that reflect these ever-growing and changing multiliteracies" (Hagood, p. 320).  

Subtopic 3: Defining the Current "Best Practices"

Connecting reading literacy, writing literacy, and media skills literacy with each other prompts the question, "What are the best ways currently being used to instruct students to develop multi-literacy?"   "Few studies have actually documented how multiliteracies are navigated across various school Discourses" (Hagood, 2000, p. 315).   The goal of multi-literacy instruction is clear.   "Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally" (International, 2001, p. 6).   Where educators vary is in the methodology for achieving this goal.

  According to Cooper & Kiger (2003), "a balanced literacy program combines teacher-directed instruction and student centered activities ... Teacher-directed instruction involves systematically and explicitly modeling or showing students how to use a skill, strategy, or process ... In student-centered instruction, students perform a given task, from which they are expected to learn certain things" (p. 24).

Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock (2001) have developed a list of ten research-based strategies that increase student achievement.   Daniels & Bizar "identify six components of a 'best practice classroom'" (Daniels & Bizar in Wilcox & Wojnar, 2000, p. 5).   Wilcox & Wojnar state that when "designing and delivering lesson plans to integrating technology and Internet resources, activities should emphasize content knowledge and authentic experiences" (p. 8).   These experts all are trying to unify instructional practices.  

While many would probably agree in principle that these constructs overlap in several areas, the terminology varies from expert to expert.   Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock describe their strategies as: (a) "identifying similarities and differences; (b) summarizing and note taking; (c) reinforcing effort and providing recognition; (d) homework and practice; (e) nonlinguistic representations; (f) cooperative learning; (g) setting objectives and providing feedback; (h) generating and testing hypotheses; and (i) questions, cues, and advance organizers" (Figure 1.3, p. 7).   Wilcox & Wojnar use the thirteen principles of best practices as being student centered, experimental, holistic, authentic, expressive, reflective, social, collaborative, democratic, cognitive, developmental, constructivist, and challenging (p. 8-9).   This lack of universal clarity in the educational community also is accompanied by unanswered questions about instructional strategies.   Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock acknowledge that they are unsure which of their strategies are more effective with certain subject areas, grade levels, student backgrounds, and student aptitudes (p. 9).   "In fact, the unexamined use of instructional strategies might produce some unintended negative outcomes" (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, p. 9).  

Conclusion

            The review of the literature illustrates the emergence of multi-literacy in the realm of education.   The evidence is clear regarding the integration of the reading literacy, writing literacy, and media skills literacy.   Students arrive at the steps of schools with new communicative experiences and new multimedia experiences as part of their background knowledge.   Taking into account this new type of student background knowledge, teachers have to take the initiative to develop integrating instructional practices that can best develop a student's multi-literacy. However, the best instructional practices that work with each individual literacy have not yet been combined into a coherent teaching framework for multi-literacy.   Teachers look to effectively instruct their students with the developing multi-literacy strategies.   Yet, the validation of effectiveness as well as the organization of these strategies has not been thoroughly researched up to this point.

            More research is needed to clarify which teaching strategies are the most effective in developing multi-literacy.   When the teacher is armed with effective and efficient instructional strategies that enhance student performance in a multi-literate environment, everyone affected by the educational process benefits.   Ideally, teachers should be able to analyze a particular learning experience, given its varying factors, and apply "tried and true" instructional strategies without hesitation.   Students deserve to experience the most efficient, educational method available so that they can approach the ever-changing world with the most complete skill set possible.

References

Cooper, J. D., & Kiger N. D. (2003). Literacy: Helping children construct meaning (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Dudfield, A. (1999). Literacy and cyberculture. Reading Online . Retrieved February 4, 2004 from http://www.readingonline.org/articles/dudfield/main.html

California Department of Education. (1999). Reading/Language Arts Framework for California Public Schools, Kindergarten Through Grade Twelve . Sacramento: Author.

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Guiding readers and writers grades 3-6: Teaching comprehension, genre, and content literacy. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hagood, M. (2000). New times, new millennium, new literacies. Reading Research and Instruction, 39 (4), 311-328.

International Society for Technology in Education. (2000). National educational technology standards for students: Connecting curriculum and technology . Eugene, OR: Author.

Marzano, R. J., Pickering, D. J., & Pollock, J. E. (2001). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement . Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Schmar-Dobler. (2003). Reading on the internet:   The link between literacy and technology. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47 (1), 80-85.  

Wilcox, B. L., & Wojnar, L. C. (2000). Best practice goes online. Reading Online, 4 (2). Retrieved February 4, 2004 from http://www.readingonline.org/articles/wilcox