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This
article was first commissioned and published by the Just for
Teachers website and re-appears here by their kind consent. www.justforteachers.co.uk
Playing
with Words
by
Veronica Carter
Computers provide valuable new
opportunities for teaching literacy to younger children. I
thoroughly enjoy sharing their wonder and delight in using modern
technology. We're making regular use of email in my class and
recently I had a memorable moment when one of the youngest members
clicked on 'send' and then her eyes tracked along the cable on the
wall as she 'watched' her message setting off on its journey. She
asked me to explain again where it goes and after I finished said:
“It's very clever, you know, Mrs Carter”. I had to agree with
her and thought to myself that I mustn't lose sight of how clever
it all is just because I'm getting used to it.
I am fortunate enough to have two
computers in my classroom that can be used for word processing.
Over the years I have taken to working through a series of stages
with children in order to give them a useful introduction to the
many skills involved in word processing. They absolutely love to
watch their work being printed out and feel very proud of
themselves for all they achieve. A lowercase keyboard is less
confusing for them at this age but is not imperative. What they
need most of all is time to experiment and the experience of
making mistakes and sorting them out. I try not to have an adult
sitting with them, although some more timid souls may need this
level of support.
Stage 1: learning
that computers can be used for writing and that writing can be
saved and printed out
Periodically, the children should
have the opportunity to watch adults entering text, printing it
and saving it. This could be done as a shared writing exercise as
part of literacy work, something as short and simple as a label
for a display or an email message. This experience needs to be
repeated so that it begins to make sense for the children. It is
possible to make saving more meaningful for them if they see work
called up again at a later date, perhaps by writing a class diary
of their week. In my class, in the autumn term, the children all
taste a range of different fruits one week and we write a sentence
or two about the tasting. The following week they all make
individual fruit salads using their preferred fruits. We go back
into our original writing and add a section about the making and
eating of the fruit salads.
Stage 2: consolidation,
on an individual basis, of the learning introduced in Stage 1
Individually, children dictate to
an adult who enters their text, showing how they make a capital
letter, a space etc and making matter-of-fact use of a full range
of relevant vocabulary. The child then adds his or her name at the
end, using a capital for the first letter. A series of
opportunities for such writing can be used until everybody has had
at least one turn. It is often more practical if the whole class
is not expected to complete the same piece of written work.
Stage 3: introducing
children to entering text themselves
Individually, children choose a
piece of writing to enter. This could be copied from a favourite
text, from displays around the room or, indeed, from anywhere. A
few words is all that is needed. It is too much at this stage to
ask children to be creative and think up something original to
write, to work out spellings and word order. This stage is all
about beginning to find their way around a keyboard. For some of
the children, it also gives them the experience that the computer
will not explode or do anything totally irretrievable whatever
they do.
The personal experience of how to
get just one output each time they hit a key will undoubtedly
provide an opportunity to introduce them to the delete key! I tend
to hover in the background at this stage, ready to jump in if
needed but leaving the child room to experiment and to take things
at their own pace. This is a very time-consuming stage and I tend
to do this when the majority of the class are playing and I can be
relatively free. The children also enjoy watching me add a piece
of relevant clip art, of their own choice, to their work. Some
children want to return to this kind of exercise time and time
again and will come up with their own projects that they want to
work through, working individually or in small groups.
Stage 4: creative
writing at the computer – word processing
Children who have worked through
the above stages over their first term or two at school will be
ready to attempt some original writing at the computer. One of the
powerful things about word processing is the ease with which
mistakes can be corrected and made to disappear forever. As with
all other areas, it is for the teacher to use their professional
judgement and knowledge of the individual to decide how much of
the child's early attempts they should correct and how much of it
should be left in all its original glory.
I often print out two copies, one
to stay in school and one to be taken proudly home. By saving the
work with the child watching and then opening the file again later
to show the rest of the class what their friend wrote, the
individual and the class build up their understanding of what
saving their work means and how saved work can be recalled at a
later time.
On-screen word banks, such as those
that can be made using programmes like Clicker, can allow them to
write at greater length and can help them with thinking up what
they might want to write. Once again, I tend to introduce such
onscreen word banks to them within whole class shared writing
before making them individually available.
Conclusion
I firmly believe that children's
early experiences with computers should be enjoyable, successful
and should follow the same kind of pattern as their other
learning. They should have plenty of opportunity to observe, to
experiment, to work individually or in groups of various sizes and
to hear and make use of correct terminology. A reception class,
with time planned in for child initiated activities (playing!),
can provide an ideal setting for such early ICT experiences.
Veronica Carter
pandas@camelsdale.w-sussex.sch.uk
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