Reading has always been an invaluable skill. Not only does it influence how we interact with the world but it is still the medium by which many students learn. And yet, statistics show that between 46 and 51% of American adults have an income well below the poverty level because of their inability to read. This is a scary fact, and with reading becoming more digital, it is important that educators start looking into how they can teach this important skill in a new digital age.
With the explosion of Facebook, Instagram, and other social media applications, students are actually engaging more with written language than ever before. While this should be a success of sorts, the reading they do does not always push critical reading skills or challenges its readers with new vocabulary. The National Literacy Trust found that students who engaged in social media and blogs held a more positive view on reading and writing and that they were able to read and summarize better than those that were not engaging with the language. Educators need to tap into this new reading culture.
One way this can be achieved is by the use of digital libraries. Students as young as three are being encouraged to read by using digital resources that both push reading skills as much as they do other technological literacies. Epic! is an eBook subscription service that gives readers under 12 access to 20000 books is a great place to start. Similar products give students access to reading materials of their choosing. Educators need to understand that while curriculum set books are important, giving students the autonomy to choose books that interest them fuels a passion for reading. If students enjoy what they read, they will form a positive relationship with the content and see reading as a gateway to information.
In high school, close reading and text complexity have become the new currency by which reading programs and instruction are being measured, and if students in the digital age are to meet this requirement; they need more than digital libraries. Educators need to see the benefits that technology can bring to teaching reading and how forcing a child to sit and read a novel is archaic. Below are some examples of ways that the digital can be incorporated into teaching reading:
The use of online dictionaries and vocabulary lists to help learn new words.
Hyperlinking complex words and phrases with videos, and other explanatory resources
Use of e-readers and other devices made for e-books
Using quizzes and fun, interactive games to test vocab retention and content basics
Edtech that allows for live feedback into reading achievements
What all the above suggestion have in common is that they combine traditionally “book reading” with the resources and benefits that come with the internet and technology. One powerful way that educators can approach teaching reading is by using analytical tools to monitor the way in which students read. By having an understanding of students’ reading habits, speed, and comprehension, educators can gain a better understanding of where the problems lie and tailor their teaching to best suit the needs of their students.
This was previously very difficult to judge, and educators had no other assessment tools than making the student read out loud. The digital age is giving students control over their own reading while at the same time, allowing teachers to follow and jump in where needed.
So, as we move towards a digital age, teaching practices need to embrace the benefits that come with technology. Edtech is being developed to meet these challenges, and through its use, students can feel validated in their choices and can foster a passion for reading. Educators need to move away from archaic reading methods and start to incorporate the skills that students already have, with the new ones they are acquiring. After all, you need to thank a teacher if you could read this article.
There is a pantheon of sitcom cliches that, no matter how many times they’ve been done before, always turn up in new ones. Among the repeat offenders: outrageously stressful wedding planning, pregnancy and baby delivery hi-jinks, new parents shopping for the “perfect” preschool, arguments over dolls vs footballs, and how these early childhood influences will determine the baby’s entire future from school choice to occupation and social status.
The sad reality is that the last two of these absurd situations have a kernel of truth. Does getting into the right preschool really determine whether a given child will go to the best university? Probably not; but when everything from friend groups to hobbies can factor into college admissions — and attending college can determine future career opportunities and professional networks — it is easy to see how major decisions can blur into the web of minor decisions surrounding a child’s future.
Early Childhood Competition
Everything concerning kids in America has gotten more competitive, starting early in their lives. Competition for better-paying (and future-proof) careers leads to more intense competition for any professional advantage at school. Getting into the best schools (by any of a number of definitions of “best”) heaps more pressure on kids while they are still in high school. From participating in sports to getting into AP classes, high school today eschews recreation in favor of workaholism and manicured student resumes.
Altogether, life for modern kids looks less like a series of choices and opportunities, and more like a long line of dominoes, set up and and sent cascading over within weeks of their birth, if not before. How can parents possibly hope to line them up just right for success and happiness?
But the problem isn’t just the hyper-competitive atmosphere surrounding the university system, and all the inputs considered in admitting or rejecting students; it is the preoccupation with the importance of college education in the first place.
When it comes to preparing children for the challenges and opportunities of adulthood, part of the messaging we need to fix — and soon — is the idea of ”college above all others”. Tuition prices have exploded in part because demand has exploded. Even historically mid-range schools face a demand beyond their capacity. For-profit schools have had lucrative success in taking advantage of this gold-rush mentality toward degrees, even as their students fail to graduate and default on their student loans in droves. More than a third of all defaults can be attributed to students from for-profit schools, even though they are just 26 percent of borrowers.
Trading School for Something That Works
The most common jobs in America today are retailers, cashiers, and fast-food workers. None of these requires any advanced education. Even filtering opportunity in terms of careers which require some minimum of post-secondary schooling and licensure, there are nearly as many truck drivers as there are nurses. If that comparison seems inappropriate, consider that trucking can be as essential to providing healthcare as nursing: nurses can hardly hope to treat a patient if they lack the necessary supplies and equipment on which they rely.
Trucking actually exemplifies the disconnect we, as a nation, have between the pressure we put on our youth to get educated, and the limitations we construct around how they “contribute” to our collective wealth and well-being. Without truck drivers, there is no clean water, no medicine, no food, and no consumer goods for a vast majority of Americans. But the career path into trucking — as with most skilled trades — takes people somewhere outside the world of universities and degrees.
The same impact trucking has, collectively, can be attributed to electricians, plumbers, and other skilled trades on which the modern world relies, yet bestows no particular social capital. Without electricians, all the gizmos and apps of Apple and Google, two of the world’s wealthiest corporations, would be useless. Without plumbing, our entire healthcare industry would be less preoccupied with inventing the next miracle pill or pushing the boundaries of surgical medicine than it would be with mitigating disease spread by poor sanitation. We are not so insulated from these alternatives as the popular imagination would assume; just ask the folks in Flint, Michigan whether plumbing is a worthwhile vocation.
The Value of Education
None of this disputes the intrinsic value of education, or the importance of giving students opportunity by expanding their access to learning. Rather, it points out how we’ve undermined our own drive to provide kids with the best chance in life by undervaluing the careers, and educational pathways, they might well follow to find their own form of success.
Trade school isn’t just a viable option, it can be downright lucrative, as well as rewarding, secure, and meaningful. But, as with all other things, planting that idea means having the conversation earlier, and undoing the damage of generations of parents and professionals marginalizing the trades that keep America running. Universities aren’t a solution to any of America’s challenges. They are merely one of a spectrum of options people face in deciding where they want to make their mark on the world, contribute to the maintenance and advancement of society, and find both purpose and acceptance among their peers.
The more parents encourage their kids to see the alternatives to college as equally worthy, the more the national conversation will pivot away from how we can give kids a leg up on the competition. At a time when our nation’s youth could feasibly have more options to learn, create, and work than at any time in history, it is absurd that they should be under such extreme pressure to conform to the parameters of a few selective universities.
The old sitcom trope of shopping for a prestigious preschool needs to die — not just for the sake of television comedy, but to reflect a society that celebrates the diversity it already possesses.
Almost as soon as they begin school, children start getting tested. With the introduction of tests for four-year-olds and the explicit link between test results and school performance, education policies of successive governments have led to an increased emphasis on results at all levels of schooling.
This focus has led to a stigmatisation of failure, even though it is fundamental to the learning process from preschool all the way to university.
This ill-prepares learners for real life, which does not provide set answers to problems with neat scores to gauge progress. The real world is messy and diverse, and young people need to be creative, resourceful and resilient to succeed in it. One of the best ways to achieve this is through play.
The best kind of learning is “intrinsically motivated”, where students want to learn because it is interesting, purposeful and personally relevant, not because it is assessed. Learning takes place through action, failure, reflection, and practice. But while making mistakes is an inevitable part of this process, our school system fails to recognise this.
Exam grades are often seen as more important than fostering a love of learning – and as a result schools are overlooking the value of learning that does not fit into a specified curriculum.
When students reach university, most have learned that grades (and their impact on job opportunities) are of prime importance. For many, the magic of learning out of interest and passion has been eclipsed. The introduction of tuition fees has only increased the expectation that the role of university is to provide qualifications rather than focus on the intrinsic value of education.
This shift in expectation is hardly surprising given that students have to consider their personal investments and the returns they are likely to receive. This makes perfect sense for an individual student, but does not take into account what is best for society, which needs people to be creative and take risks, not simply focus on scoring highly in a test.
The need to fail
While many students fail university modules and drop out of courses, this is often seen as a last resort and universities are becoming increasingly averse to failing their students. A focus on one-shot assessments does not give students opportunities to fail regularly on a less catastrophic level.
The ability to manage failure, both emotionally and practically, increases the ability to manage risk. It is only by taking risks that we can explore new possibilities and ways of thinking. We are in danger of creating a generation of risk-averse students. The possibility of failure can also actually increase a person’s intrinsic motivation: if success is certain, there is little challenge and so little motivation.
One way to develop a generation who can take risks is through playful learning. Play supports socialisation and decreases stress, develops imagination and creativity, enables learners to have new experiences, and learn from their mistakes.
While it is integral to early years education, a focus on assessment has all but driven play out of schools. The relative flexibility of higher education curricula and teaching approaches provide opportunities to give learners chances to play, experiment, experience, and fail – and, most importantly, learn from those failures.
Make it worth their while. JHershPhoto/www.shutterstock.com
Playtime at university
Several UK universities are already embracing elements of playful learning. For example, the University of Portsmouth uses “pervasive learning” activities, where courses are taught through playful, detailed simulations in which students work together to solve problems and make mistakes away from the real consequences of assessment.
The Great History Conundrum at the University of Leicester, which runs every year for first-year students, uses an online puzzle-solving card game to teach critical historical literacy. Students play as long as they like to collect enough points to pass the course: if they fail on one puzzle they can move on to the next.
Students at Manchester Metropolitan University play the Staying the Course game during induction to highlight the range of university support available. The University of Brighton has also used alternate reality games during induction, which allow students to work together to solve online and physical puzzles, and large-scale multi-player quizzes to engage new students and orientate them to university life in novel ways.
These kind of approaches do not work in every context, and will inevitably meet resistance from some students and academics. We have to make the case that far from trivialising education, playful learning makes it richer, more purposeful, and more useful for life after education.
Playful learning is not an easy option. It is more academically challenging, making students less reliant on rote learning and established ideas. To embrace playful learning, we need to create more opportunities for students to fail safely and focus on the development of intrinsic motivation, passion and curiosity. Crucially, we must radically rethink how, and why, we assess our students.
Teachers have been telling stories for as long as teachers have taught others. Students are still learning from the stories of our greatest teachers thousands of years later like Plato, Confucius, and Jesus, as examples. But that makes story sound like a classic “old school” pedagogical method, and that is not the characterization I think we should promote.
Narrative is our primary tool for understanding the world around us, and it is a fundamental tool in our ability to processes information.
Yet despite our cultural belief in the importance of story as a teaching tool we really don’t use it much anymore. We all have our students read stories, and most of us still carve out time to read aloud to our students, but few of us use stories as a tool to explain or highlight concepts outside of those to platforms.
I spend a great deal of my research time looking for ways to integrate lessons. I do this because I believe – one, that the real world is integrated and education should follow suit, and two, that it is the only way to meet the growing list of demands on teaching time.
I have come to believe that one of the strongest threads tying all our curricula together is story.
Our focus on data, the science of pedagogy and the hard Common Core push into nonfiction, have left us with sharp, versatile tools, and little desire to use them. Those things do make a difference but they are not the difference. The difference is our ability to add to our student’s story. I think we have forgotten the importance of story.
Wait, DON’T STOP READING…. NOT yet, give me at least one maybe even two more paragraphs before you drop this as a rambling rant.
An example: A couple of years ago a fifth grade science class I was working with was struggling with the concept of mass.
We expected some of them to get stuck on this as mass is tricky. Weight is easy enough, but the difference between mass and weight is still shaky in most of student’s heads. To be honest most teachers gloss over it because it’s shaky for them as well. So I shared the story of Archimedes and the King’s crown.
Archimedes, brings the concept of mass alive with a “Eureka” moment and a naked street dance that no 5th grader will easily forget.
Another example: Using my new idea to teach with a story I prepared and then set a trap in math class. And when the complaints and questions about the practicality of our lesson came up, I shared the story of Abraham Wald, who saved hundreds of American pilots in WW2 and explained math is about interrogating the questions asked and the information available to get answers.
Just one more: Oxygen and the elements in general are not truly abstract, but for most if not all of our students they can be. Asking, or even expecting them to jump into STEM classes without seeding their curiosity with story can be a tough sell.
But having them listen to how and why Joseph Priestly discovered oxygen offers insight, understanding and examples of how difficult and how important understanding the unseen can be.
Great teaching has always been centered on giving the student a reason to be curious and teaching them how to explore. I’m convinced stories are where the best seeds of curiosity come from.
When we play the perennial favorite game of Blaming Other Generations, we tend to focus on relative merits and deficiencies: which generation is more or less polite, hard-working, civic-minded, etc. One thing we don’t always talk about is what different generations are afraid of.
In terms of everyday fears and how we manage them, current and future generations have some reasonable fears that no previous generation is equipped to allay.
Digital Bogeymen
Just a few years ago, cyber threats barely made the list of the biggest concerns industry experts had about the biggest risks faced by corporations. Now, in 2017, the new Trump administration has already been dogged by accusations and ambiguity on issues of cyber security both on a personal and a national level. The nation and world are hyper-conscious of the risks–and opportunities–associated with cyber security. This has the appearances of being the new normal.
In the past we’ve had “stranger danger” to warn us about trusting unfamiliar faces; then there was the (mostly apocryphal) threat of razor blades or poisons lurking in Halloween candy; the 1980s brought schools the Just Say No program to handle the epidemic of drug abuse. Sad as it may seem, generations always have their touchstone public safety issues. Yet when it comes to cyber threats faced by kids today, there isn’t quite as snappy a name for what the problem is or what to do about it. And unlike Trick-or-Treating, it isn’t something likely to dissipate as they age–quite the opposite.
It is harder to teach stranger danger to kids for whom both the strangers, and the dangers they create, are invisible, blurred away by friendly user interfaces and the anonymity of the internet. Now that all our devices are smart and internet connected, it isn’t even just online behavior that needs monitoring, since all interaction with a device stands a decent chance of being recorded and shared online without any active indication of doing so. Social media is the new playground, and simply being present is enough to generate troves of personal data and an omnipresent virtual profile that is part public-facing, and part proprietary deposit box.
Responsibility Isn’t Just Personal
We know age and judgement don’t always go together–historically, that led to things like legal drinking ages, guardianship laws, mandatory schooling. Putting age restrictions on the use of internet-capable devices is obviously a non-starter. The risks associated with careless behavior online or around computers can put everyone online in peril. One unsecured user can compromise an entire system; that could be a family computer, a shared phone, a public library, or even an airport or hospital.
Good judgement is even harder to teach online than in driver’s education. Every year, more and more taxpayers are defrauded by simple scams leveraging technology to impersonate authorities. Stranger danger has gone digital, with all the associated risks taken to a global scale.
Equipping kids today with the skills and understanding they need to stay safe online is no longer a matter of personal security or individual responsibility. The threats are just too complex for that. Cyber security and online behavior is now a matter of civic duty, community service, and good citizenship all rolled into one.
Learning to Survive
None of this is to say that we should be teaching kids to fear their phones, computers, or technology. Technology is as powerful a learning tool as it is a liability.
Kids benefit from early exposure to modern tech devices. Blending tech with teaching scales our ability to personalize learning, to reach both at-risk and high-performing students at their level, and get them where they need to be. Teaching modern youths how to do their own research and learn about the world they live in virtually demands the use of computers and phones. Gamification promises to make lessons relevant, engaging, and improve retention, and increasingly relies on technology to work its magic.
And whether it happens at home or in the classroom, modern kids are growing up impressively familiar with their digital devices. But it is a mistake to think that the younger generations, by virtue of being more inherently tech-savvy, are also more conscious of risk, security, and privacy. Very likely the opposite is true, given just how much technology has done to erode not just our privacy, but our expectations of privacy. It is a quick jump from privacy to security online.
Life Lessons
The first thing we need is to stop looking at cyber security out of self-interest, and teach it as a matter of collective importance. The odd employer, university, or public library may set standards to bolster security, but kids would be better served learning to think about cyber security the same way they do about showering. It is good for you, and for everyone around you, and it shouldn’t be up to someone else to remind you to do it.
We might also consider the limitations of the fear-driven approach to education that underpinned everything from stranger-danger to Just Say No. Fear has its limits, especially when the threat is abstract or hidden. Teaching kids to take pride in being vigilant about cyber security early on primes them for a lifetime of awareness and purposeful behavior.
Whatever we do, we owe it to our kids as well as ourselves to teach cyber security as a core subject in school–and at home. It has finally become that important. And unlike the odd literature project or bit of historical trivia, there won’t be anyone asking, “When will I ever use this?”
Recent figures show that there is still a large gender gap in recruitment to the teaching profession – only 38% of secondary school teachers are male, and 26% in primaries. In preschools – or nursery – it’s even worse. Here, men make up just 2% of the workforce.
This gender divide can be found all across the globe, and not just in the UK. We even see it in Scandinavian countries which have made gender equality a national priority. In Norway, for example, there has been an ambitious target set to try and have 20% of men working in childcare, with 10% achieved in 2008. But that figure is now falling. The reasons for this are unclear but are likely to be due to persisting and deeply held gendered attitudes.
But to understand what we can learn from the men who do make this unusual career choice, I have been undertaking research in Swedish and UK nurseries. I have also been listening to their ideas about what puts most men off.
I was particularly struck by the story of Craig, an experienced nursery classroom leader in England, who was forced to relocate to a new town.
I used to live in quite a rough area. It wasn’t seen as a manly thing to do. I lost contact with my partner at the time because it wasn’t a socially admired job, and her friends would take the mick. I lost contact with my dad who would have nothing to do with me and questioned my sexuality. It’s one of the biggest reasons I moved away.
When it comes to nursery work, men may also have to confront suspicion from children’s parents about their motives, working hard to establish trust and demonstrate that they are not dangerous to children. Sometimes we get a sharp reminder about society’s strong prejudices against men doing what’s seen as “women’s work”.
For example, Andrea Leadsom, a short lived contender for PM, said it would be “cautious and very sensible” not to make men nannies because the “odds” mean they could be paedophiles.
And it’s not as if these disincentives are compensated for by a good salary either. Starter salaries for nursery workers are £10,000 to £14,000. So given these economic and emotional obstacles, why would any man choose a career caring for young children?
Everyone as equal
A good place to find the answer is a rather unusual English nursery called Oaktrees. It employs five men who work with the three- to four-year-olds, and the two- to three-year-olds. The men I spoke to at this nursery expressed a tremendous enthusiasm for their work and described their pleasure in “making a difference” to children’s lives and witnessing their development.
Breaking down gender norms from a young age. Shutterstock
It was clear their presence was especially helpful in engaging more fathers to come into the nursery and talk with staff. And parents were appreciative of the gender balanced workforce – pointing out that this represents wider society. They also liked how it helps children to understand that “both genders can be carers” and that “everyone is equal in terms of the jobs they can grow up and do”.
The nursery’s management also gave strong support to the male practitioners – and occasionally they had to intervene and explain to suspicious parents the men’s rights and abilities to take on intimate care jobs such as nappy changing.
Changing norms
The men thought they had particular value in helping children engage in outdoor activities and take risks in adventurous play on climbing frames and balancing beams – as they felt their female colleagues were more cautious. However, most of the female staff I spoke to insisted that men did not bring any extra special contribution to the job – but they did very much appreciate the high morale of the gender balanced staff team.
In this way, the men’s presence created a unique opportunity to challenge children’s gender stereotypical ideas. And occasionally the men made a deliberate choice to wear pink, put on a Tutu, or let children plait their hair.
Because childcare is not just a woman’s job. Shutterstock
However, they made an interesting contrast with the Swedish male preschool teachers that I interviewed in an earlier study. The Swedish men were much more sensitive to gender issues, and had received training on this. They were more conscious about the need to counteract young children’s gender stereotypes because it is clearly stated in their early years’ national curriculum.
What all this research shows is that the gender gap does matter. We need to recruit, train and retain more men to care for and educate our youngest children. Because this is one easy way to break down gender stereotypes and work towards a more gender equal society.
Some parents are so angry with the testing regime facing their children that they have come together in an attempt to boycott primary school exams. Preparation by teachers for these standardised achievement tests (SATs) in England have involved a narrowing of the curriculum, including a specific focus on spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Parents believe that their children should be stimulated instead by more enriching activities and projects. There is also a worry that the tests may cause undue stress and pressure on their young children to perform well. These beliefs are widespread: more than 49,000 parents have signed a petition to abolish SATs altogether.
An awareness of pressure
Teachers are under considerable pressure for pupils to perform well on SATs. Performance-related pay and position in school league tables depend on test results. Parents believe that exam results will have a bearing on their young child’s future and understandably want them to do well.
But the children are also well-aware that their performance on the SATs is important to their teachers and parents. Teachers may unwittingly transmit the stress they are under to their pupils. Children can also pick up on their parents’ attitudes and associated behaviour and feel under pressure to make them proud.
Too much, too young? Shuravaya/www.shutterstock.com
This pressure from parents is perhaps the largest source of stress for children aged ten to 11 who are working towards their Key Stage 2 exams. One Year 6 pupil my colleagues and I interviewed described the source of the pressure he felt:
You want to get them [SATS questions] right because other people want you to get them right and, like, you don’t want to disappoint people.
Test anxiety
Stress and pressure about forthcoming exams can result in what education researchers have termed “test anxiety”. This can present itself via a number of symptoms.
Children can suffer from negative thoughts such as: “If I don’t pass this test, I will never get a good job”. They can also suffer physiological symptoms such as tight muscles or trembling and distracting behaviours such as playing with a pencil. The effects of anxiety during a test can influence the child’s ability to process and understand test questions and perform at their best.
It is well established that pupils with high levels of test anxiety perform more poorly in their exams. The overall prevalence of test anxiety in primary school children is on the increase and it is fairly common for children at the end of primary school. Year 6 pupils report experiencing anxiety either some or most of the time when asked two weeks prior to their exams.
But there are differences in how SATs are viewed by different children. Some perceive them to be stressful, while others view them as a challenge. As well as pressure from parents, pupils in Year 6 have cited the demands of the testing situation as a cause of stress. This includes completing exams under timed conditions and having no contact with classmates or teachers. There are also concerns about exam results being used to influence which set a child will be put in at secondary school. Another Year 6 pupil my colleagues and I interviewed said:
You look at your booklet and you’ve got like loads of questions left and you’re like, ‘I can’t do this’. You just want to just sit there and go ‘I can’t do this’ and walk off.
The extent to which children aged six to seven, working towards Key Stage 1 exams, feel test-anxious, is unclear. Very little research has been conducted exclusively with them. Some younger children, however, have been found to display clear signs of anxiety or stress during the period leading up to the SATs.
Reducing the pressure
How resilient a child is can reduce the negative effects of test anxiety on performance. Specifically, children who believe they can succeed, trust and seek comfort from others easily and who are not overly sensitive, can be better at combatting the problems associated with test anxiety. Parents may therefore help their children by attempting to nurture and boost their resilience.
Keeping SATs “low-key” is crucial to minimising anxiety and stress among children. Parents should reassure their children that results are not critical and that the most important thing is that they try their best. In the classroom, teachers should direct time and effort towards familiarising children to the format and procedures involved in standardised testing. For instance, practising with past test papers while children sit at individual desks, could help.
Both parents and teachers could also keep a conscious check of how they may subconsciously transmit feelings of stress or tension to young children. Pupils who display signs of test anxiety require more space and understanding, both at school and home – this includes increased tolerance during the testing period.
It did not find any significant improvement in reading, math or science in countries that heavily invested in technology to improve student achievement. In fact, the report found that technology perhaps even widened the achievement gaps.
Does this mean we should abandon attempts to integrate technology in schools?
We are researchers of technology and learning in K-12 environments, and our research suggests this would be shortsighted.
Impact of one-to-one laptop programs
For the last 10 years, our research team has been investigating what are called “one-to-one” programs, where all the students in a classroom, grade, school or district are provided laptop computers for use throughout the school day, and often at home, in different school districts across the United States.
The largest one-to-one laptop program in the world is OLPC (One Laptop per Child), which mainly targets developing countries, with the mission “to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children.” In the United States, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI) launched a one-to-one laptop initiative in fall 2002, which made Maine the first state to use technology to transform teaching and learning in classrooms statewide. Later, these programs were extended to other school districts as well.
In addition to our own extensive observations, we conducted a synthesis of the results of 96 published global studies on these programs in K-12 schools during 2001-2015. Among them, 10 rigorously designed studies, mostly from the U.S., were included, to examine the relationship between these programs and academic achievement. We found significant benefits.
We found students’ test scores in science, writing, math and English language arts improved significantly.
We found students with laptops wrote more frequently across a wider variety of genres. They also received more feedback on their writing. In addition, we found they edited and revised their papers more often, drew on a wider range of resources to write, and published or shared their work with others more often.
Student surveys, teacher interviews and classroom observations in these studies revealed that students with access to laptops worked more autonomously and gained experience in project-based learning. This allowed them to synthesize and critically apply knowledge.
For example, researcher Chrystalla Mouza found that elementary school students with access to laptops were able to create electronic storybooks and publish reports in language arts classrooms.
One-to-one laptop programs also enhanced students’ 21st-century skills – skills needed in an information age – such as the ability to locate and use internet resources. Students also improved their collaborative learning skills – that is, they were more capable of working collaboratively with others.
Research led by Deborah L. Lowther at University of Memphis found that when students were given a problem and related answer to consider, students with laptops exhibited higher problem-solving skills than those in the comparison group.
A closer look at the OECD report also reveals that students in the United States performed particularly well on technology-based tasks such as online navigation, digital reading and using computers to solve math problems.
Can laptop use reduce educational gap?
However, our study did not find firm evidence on whether these one-to-one laptop programs helped lessen the academic gap between academically advantaged and disadvantaged students.
Earlier studies have found that laptop programs could help shorten the achievement gap between low-income students and their peers. We did not find such positive evidence in all programs.
One possible explanation is that difficulty in using technology sometimes places an extra load on already challenged students. In contrast, wealthier students are usually more tech-savvy so they can maximize the benefits of using computers to support learning.
Not all laptop programs are effective
One issue here is that not all programs are successful. In our study, although most programs were successful, there were some stark failures as well.
These tended to be in school districts that treated computers like magical devices that would solve educational problems merely through their distribution, without sufficient planning on how they could best be deployed to improve learning.
A school district in Philadelphia had to abandon its program after being sued over its use of laptop webcams to capture pictures of students at home. The district claimed it was an effort to track down missing laptops.
For schools and classrooms that are already poorly organized, merely having access to a computer connected to the internet will not improve learning. However, for classrooms that focus on improving students’ writing, analysis, research, problem solving and critical thinking, those same internet-connected computers could be invaluable tools.
Technology to train future citizens
Perhaps we could learn a lesson from the business world. When computers were first introduced into corporations, it took a number of years to increase productivity.
Today it is hard to imagine any field of commerce or knowledge production succeeding while shunning computers.
Well-organized programs that make individual computers available to students are already getting excellent test score results. Such programs are critical for helping students develop necessary skills for the future. These programs deserve our support.
If you are a parent or a teacher, you most probably read stories to young children. Together, you laugh and point at the pictures. You engage them with a few simple questions. And they respond.
So what happens to children when they participate in shared reading? Does it make a difference to their learning? If so, what aspects of their learning are affected?
Shared reading for language development
British researcher Don Holdaway was the first to point out the benefits of shared reading. He noted that children found these moments to be some of their happiest. He also found that children developed positive and strong associations with spoken language and the physical book itself, during these moments.
Since then a number of studieshave been conducted showing the value of shared reading in children’s language development, especially in vocabulary and concept development.
Early childhood researcher Vivian Paley, for example, during her work in the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, found that kindergarten children learned when a story was dramatized in shared reading. Not only did children develop oral language, they imaginatively learned the conventions of a story, such as character, plot and themes. In shared storytelling, children also learned how to use language in multiple ways.
As a language and literacy researcher, I work with teachers to develop reading strategies that develop children’s interest in reading and help them think critically. Kay Cowan, an early childhood researcher who studies the role of the arts in language learning, and I conducted two studies to understand children’s language development in grades one to five.
Grade 5 child generates vocabulary through shared reading. Kay Cowan, CC BY
We worked with approximately 75 children across grade levels. We began our language study by talking with the students about the power of words, and the role they play in and outside of school. Following this, we discussed the pleasures associated with words. We then read “Shadow,” an award-winning picture book by children’s author Marcia Brown, and poems by Shel Silverstein, another children’s author.
Children were then asked to think of an “absolutely wonderful” event that they had experienced, and associate an emotion with it. Children chose a personal event that elicited emotions. They then drew contrasting images of the word that showed opposite emotions, and studied synonyms and antonyms to understand the “shades of meaning.” They then wrote descriptive poetry to convey this emotion.
All children – even those who were at the risk of failing – used vivid language. Children described words like “ebullient” and “melancholy” in ways that related to their own emotion.
One child described her word “ebullient” as “bright,” and “merry,” and “never asking for anything.” “Ebullient” was also “warm,” and “gypsy-like,” and so on. Another described loneliness as “…making me feel cold/Like an icicle/wanting to melt away.”
Following this exercise, children noticed that their writing was much better. It showed us how wide and varied reading, repetition and varied encounters with words were extremely important for children to have a depth of understanding as well as verbal flexibility – being able to express the meaning of word in different ways.
Why home matters
The quality of exchanges between children and adults during shared reading is found to be critical to their language development. So, the role of home in shared reading is crucial.
Long-term studies by linguistic anthropologist Shirley Brice Heathand otherliteracy scholars have documented children’s ability to read as related to their families’ beliefs about reading, the quality of conversation at home and access to print materials prior to their entry into school.
For 10 years, Heath studied two communities a few miles a part, one black working-class and one white working-class. She documented how family practices (e.g., oral storytelling, reading books, talk) influenced children’s language development at home and in school. For example, children read and talked about stories, were asked questions about the stories or told stories about their lives, events and situations in which they were involved. Parents engaged their children in these experiences to prepare them to do well in school.
Similarly, researcher Victoria Purcell-Gatesworked with an Appalachian family, specifically mother Jenny and son Donny, to help them learn to read. With Jenny, they read and talked about picture books, listened to and read along with books on tape and wrote in a journal. With Donny, they shared reading, labeled pictures and wrote stories. Jenny was able to read picture books to her sons, while Donny learned to write letters to his dad in prison.
Other researchers have found that when parents, specifically mothers, knew how to interact with their children during shared reading using positive reinforcement and asking questions about the story, both children and mothers benefited.
Mothers learned how to ask open-ended questions, and prompted their children to respond to stories. Children were more engaged and enthusiastic about the shared reading experience. They also were able to talk more about the story’s content, and were able to talk about the relationship between pictures and story.
Children more readily learn math concepts like numbers, size (bigger, smaller) and estimation/approximation (lots, many) when parents engaged in “math talk” while reading picture books.
Shared reading in a digital world
While shared reading is often associated with print books, shared reading can be extended to digital texts such as blogs, podcasts, text messages, video and other complex combinations of print, image, sound, animation and so on.
Good video games, for example, incorporate many learning principles, such as interaction, problem-solving and risk-taking, among others. As in shared reading, children interact with their parents, teachers or peers as they engage in stories.
South African children share reading on computer. Amy Seely Flint, CC BY
Literacy researcher Jason Ranker’s case study of eight-year-old Adrian shows that young children can actually “redesign” how stories are read, discussed and told when they engage actively with video game narratives.
Adrian, who played a video game, Gauntlet Legends, created a story in Ranker’s class, to which he added many drawings to show the movement of characters.
In this case study, Ranker found that children like Adrian who play video games learn how to produce stories that do not follow the linear pattern found in print stories (exposition, climax, resolution). Rather, children experience stories at “levels” that allow characters and plots to move in many directions, eventually coming to resolution.
Similarly, children with access to certain apps are coordinating their storytelling on a touchscreen. They choose characters for their stories. They move them around with their fingers, and drag-and-drop them in and out of the story. If they want to create more complex stories, they work with others to coordinate characters’ movements. Sharing stories, then, becomes collaborative, imaginative and dynamic through these digital mediums.
Children, in essence, have redesigned how stories are told and experienced, demonstrating imagination, vision and problem-solving.
One thing that is clear across research is that rich complex language development does not happen merely by pointing at letters or pronouncing words out of context. It is engagement, and guided attention to language conventions, that matter in shared reading.
Ultimately, what is important is that shared reading must be a joyful experience for the child. Sharing stories must allow for a personal connection and allow for interaction and a shared learning.
Have you ever felt deserving of an apology and been upset when you didn’t get one? Have you ever found it hard to deliver the words, I’m sorry?
Such experiences show how much apologies matter. The importance placed on apologies is shared by many cultures. Diverse cultures even share a great deal in common when it comes to how apologies are communicated.
When adults feel wronged, apologies have been shown to help in a variety of ways:
Apologies can reduce retaliation; they can bring about forgiveness and empathy for wrongdoers; and they can aid in the repair of broken trust. Further, sincere apologies have the physiological effect of lowering blood pressure more quickly, especially among those who are prone to hold on to anger.
How do children view and experience apologies? And what do parents think about when to prompt their young ones to apologize?
Children as young as four understand the emotional meaning of an apology. Funkyah, CC BY-NC-ND
Recent studies have tested the actual impact of apologies on children. In one such study, a group of four- to seven-year-olds received an apology from a child who failed to share, while another group did not get an apology. The participants who received the apology felt better and viewed the offending child as nicer as well as more remorseful.
Another study exposed children to a more distressing event: A person knocked over a tower that six- to seven-year-olds were building. Some children got an apology, some did not. In this case, a spontaneous apology did not improve children’s upset feelings. However, the apology still had an impact. Children who got an apology were willing to share more of their attractive stickers with the person who knocked over the tower compared to those who did not get an apology.
This finding suggests that an apology led to forgiveness in children, even if sadness about the incident understandably lingered. Notably, children did feel better when the other person offered to help rebuild their toppled towers. In other words, for children, both remorseful words and restorative actions make a difference.
When does a child’s apology matter to parents?
Although apologies carry meaning for children, views on whether parents should ask their children to apologize vary. A recent caution against apology prompting was based on the mistaken notion that young children have limited social understanding. In fact, young children understand a great deal about others’ viewpoints.
When and why parents prompt their children to apologize has not been systematically studied. In order to gain better insight into this question, I recently conducted a study with my colleagues Jee Young Noh and Michael Rizzo at the University of Maryland and Paul Harris at Harvard University.
We surveyed 483 parents of three- to 10-year-old children. Most participants were mothers, but there was a sizable group of fathers as well. Parents were recruited via online parenting discussion groups and came from communities all around the U.S.. The discussion groups had a variety of orientations toward parenting.
In order to account for the possibility that parents might want to show themselves in the best light, we took a measure of “social desirability bias” from each parent. The results reported here emerged after we statistically corrected for the influence of this bias.
We asked parents to imagine their children committing what they would consider to be “transgressions.” We then asked them how likely they would be to prompt an apology in each scenario. We also asked parents to rate how important they felt it was for their children to learn to apologize in a variety of situations. Finally, we asked the parents about their general approaches to parenting.
The large majority of parents (96 percent) felt that it was important for their children to learn to apologize following an incident in which children upset another person on purpose. Further, 88 percent felt it was important for their children to learn to apologize in the aftermath of upsetting someone by mistake.
Fewer than five percent of the parents surveyed endorsed the view that apologies are empty words. However, parents were sensitive to context.
Parents reported being especially likely to prompt apologies following their children’s intentional and accidental “moral transgressions.” Moral transgressions involve issues of welfare, justice, and rights, such as stealing from or hurting another person.
Parents viewed apologies as relatively less important following their children’s transgressions of social convention (e.g., breaking a rule in a game, interrupting a conversation).
Apology as a way to mend rifts
It’s noteworthy that parents were very likely to anticipate prompting apologies following incidents in which their children upset others on purpose and by mistake.
This suggests that a focus for many parents, when prompting apologies, is addressing the outcomes of their children’s social missteps. Our data suggest that parents use apology prompts to teach their children how to manage difficult social situations, regardless of underlying intentions.
For example, 88 percent of parents indicated that they would typically prompt an apology if their child broke a peer’s toy by mistake (in the event that the child did not apologize spontaneously).
Indeed, parents especially anticipated prompting apologies following accidental mishaps that involved their children’s peers (and not parents themselves as the wronged parties). When a child’s peer is a victim, parents likely recognize that apologies can quickly mend potential interpersonal rifts that may otherwise linger.
We also asked parents why they viewed apology prompts as important for their children. In the case of moral transgressions, parents saw these prompts as tools for helping children take responsibility. In addition, they used apology prompts for promoting empathy, teaching about harm, helping others feel better and clearing up confusing situations.
However, not all parents viewed the importance of apology prompting in the same way. There was a subset of parents who were relatively permissive: warm and caring but not overly inclined to provide discipline or expect mature behavior from their children.
Most of these parents were not wholly dismissive of the importance of apologies, but they consistently indicated being less likely to provide prompting to their children, compared to the other parents in the study.
When to prompt an apology
Overall, most parents in our study viewed apologies as important in the lives of children. And the child development research described above indicates that many children share this view.
But are there more and less effective ways to prompt a child to apologize? I argue that parents should consider whether a child will offer a prompted apology willingly and sincerely. A recently completed study sheds some light on why.
In this study – currently under review – we asked four- to nine-year-old children to evaluate two types of apologies that were prompted by an adult. One apology was willingly given to the victim after the apology prompt; the other apology was given only after additional adult coercion (“You need to say you’re sorry!”).
We found that 90 percent of the children viewed the recipient of the prompted, “willingly given” apology as feeling better. However, only 22 percent of the children connected a coerced apology to improved feelings in the victim.
So, as parents ponder the merits of prompting apologies from children, it seems important to refrain from pushing one’s child to apologize when he or she is not ready, or is simply not remorseful. Most young children don’t view coerced apologies as effective.
In such cases, interventions aimed at calming down, increasing empathy and making amends may be more constructive than pushing a resistant child to deliver an apology. And, of course, components like making amends can accompany willingly given apologies as well.
Finally, to arguments that apologies are merely empty words that young children parrot, it’s worth noting that we have many rituals that involve rather scripted verbal exchanges, such as when two people in love say “I do” at a wedding or commitment ceremony.
Just as these scripted words carry deep cultural and personal meaning, so too can other culturally valued verbal scripts, such the words in an apology. Thoughtfully teaching young children about apologizing is one aspect of teaching them how to be caring and well-regarded members of their communities.
