Week 4, October 10th

This week for the literacy component I decided to investigate storytelling, as this is an aspect of the ‘participant’ role (as well as early childhood education overall) that I find particularly interesting.

My database search resulted in three key readings that I thought were worth investigating further. Fittingly, my initial examination could be compared to the Goldilocks fairy tale. The first reading, ‘Parental influence on the development of children's storytelling’, was too dry. It was also way too poorly-edited for my liking. Seven hundred and fifty nine word paragraphs? A new record, sure, but no thanks.

The second reading, ‘Listening to Nysia: Storytelling as a Way into Writing in Kindergarten’ was too fluffy. It was written in a highly engaging manner, but it was so qualitative and the evidence was so anecdotal, I would be hesitant to apply it to my own teaching.

The third reading, ‘An enhanced concept map approach to improving children’s storytelling ability’ was just right. It had enough quantitative evidence to feel generalisable, whilst also being based on visual maps and computer software, which are areas I’m comfortable with.

The article suggested that a range of tools now exist to promote children’s storytelling ability. The authors wanted to test whether a tool was reliable on its own for children to produce good quality stories, or if additional scaffolding made a difference. The additional scaffolding came in the form of a simple map outlining the key elements that make up a story:

The results were that teachers graded the students almost 50% higher when they had received the additional scaffolding. Further, the students from the scaffolding group graded themselves around 25% higher also.

As someone who is in general a fan of technology and computers, as well as a self-assessed visual learner, I am attracted to the idea of using technology as an early childhood educator. This article brings home for me the lesson that technology alone probably isn’t a silver bullet. Instead, we need to focus on ensuring children have a solid grasp of the core concepts of whatever it is we’re teaching first.

References:

Horn, M., 2005. Listening to Nysia: Storytelling as a Way into Writing in Kindergarten. Language Arts, 83(1), pp. 33-41.

Liu, C., Chen, H. S., Shih, J., Huang, G., & Liu, B. (2011). An enhanced concept map approach to improving children's storytelling ability. Computers & Education, 56(3), 873-884. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/851226290?accountid=10910

Marjanovic-Umek, L., Fekonja-Peklaj, U., & Podlesek, A. (2012). Parental influence on the development of children's storytelling. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 20(3), 351-370. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1238191159?accountid=10910

For this week’s numeracy reading I chose ‘Emergent mathematical thinking in the context of play’. I was initially drawn to the idea of play and mathematics, as I thought play was relevant given the participant theme and underlying concept of experimentation. Play is also a term that seems to be topical both in my studies and in the centre where I now work.

I wasn’t initially enthralled by the reading, but despite the paper being four years old, I found the following quote mirroring one I’d heard just the day before on the radio:

“mathematics and natural sciences are particularly important for upholding the technological innovations that are deemed essential for the knowledge society and its economy.”

This piqued my curiosity, I was keen to see how they linked the two.

In fact, the link seemed to be fairly peripheral, but the initial premise was worthy of further attention. The central argument the article was suggesting was that play based teaching, such as the ‘Bildung’ and ‘Developmental Education’ methods, were more effective than rote training. For example, in a study of 34 students, the finding was that the play-based curriculum scored above the national norm for numeracy ability. However, they also mentioned that in the last test, the score was in fact equal to the national norm, rather than higher.

The other two key studies that are highlighted in the paper were larger with 239 and 137 participants. The results of these seemed to be positive, but not outstanding, with ‘average’, ‘moderate’, and ‘small but significant’ effect sizes. I imagine this may be the day to day reality of professional academia. Not every result can be outstanding, otherwise it would cease to be outstanding.

In terms of how this study can be practically applied, I found that the study supported the idea of naming the mathematical component of activities and play as children carry them out. This is similar to the naming of feelings that is encouraged at my work, so I see this as a reinforcement and extension of this idea. Not ground-breaking, but a useful reminder to be added to the day to day reality of an educator.

Reference:

van Oers, B. (2010). Emergent mathematical thinking in the context of play. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 74(1), 23-37. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/742871767?accountid=10910