ModAnnie: Welcome to the chat everyone! 

 

gertzerl17: I’m interested in the effect of sign language on English language and literacy skills in hearing, and in bilingualism in general and its effect on literacy.

Mark: These are really interesting questions! I tend to think in terms of information – so sign language MIGHT provide additional information that could aid literacy etc. An interesting research question!

Rebecca: There is a lot of mixed evidence about the effects of bilingualism on literacy. This is a gross oversimplification, but I think the general picture is that learning a second language seems to cause some delays in early vocabulary and literacy. But, bilingual children seem to eventually ‘catch up’ to their monolingual peers.

Annie: A quick search in the questions section of this site showed me one article that concluded “simultaneously presenting words visually, kinaesthetically, and orally enhances a child’s vocabulary development.” It is of course just one paper – http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03634529409378987?src=recsys

Mark: There is a lot of work showing bilingualism can be beneficial BUT we in Bradford we see evidence that English as an Additional language can be (probabilistically) a risk factor. These are the types of issues we are trying to resolve within the ‘Born in Bradford’ study.

Lia: This blog may be of interest – https://thinkneuroscience.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/how-the-brain-processes-language/

Rebecca: I also know Victoria Murphy, a professor in the Education Department at the University of Oxford does a lot of work on bilingual and EAL learners and language and literacy. And she does some work with an organization called NALDIC: https://naldic.org.uk/

Katie: I think Roberto Filipi is doing lots of work on the effects of bilingualism on cognition in general- and it seems to be beneficial to cognition more generally! https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Roberto_Filippi 

Mark: It depends… Lots of evidence that cognition can be adversely affected… the research showing benefits is typically done in higher SEP groups. This is why large scale studies that can control for multiple factors are needed (such as Born in Bradford)

Katie: You’re correct Mark. Big studies where multiple factors can be controlled for will give us a better idea of the impact of bilingualism on cognition!

Sarah: There are a number of researchers in the UK conducting research in this area – Claudine Bowyer Crane and Lynne Duncan spring to mind.

 

elliemc: I’m looking at developing literacy skills in 6 years olds who have been making steady progress in reading and have now turned off to it and don’t want to read for now! Is there an approach you would recommend and is there an age by which learning will become much harder?

Sarah: Hi, this is very disappointing, but also quite common that children’s enjoyment of, and attitudes to reading decline with increasing age (although usually much later – aged 8/9, rather than aged 6). It’s critical that children have the underlying skills (ie word reading, language) they need to be independent readers in order to enjoy reading. After this, research shows that giving children choice of reading material (rather than imposing texts on them) is critical. It can be useful for teachers to know a bit about children’s literature so they can support students to choose books that they might like. Focusing on reading for pleasure is critical, so that children are enjoying reading, rather than simply reading to develop their reading skills. I suspect you know all of this already though! Reading can get harder as children get older if they don’t have the necessary language skills to support their understanding of the texts. Therefore developing language skills alongside literacy skills is important.

elliemc: Thanks Sarah, I’m currently working with one girl in particular who was getting along with fine with phonics and reading short early reading, she has been offered other books text, offered to create her own books to read and would happily be read to for hours but resist every attempt to re-engage with reading herself! 

Sarah: Yes, I think it makes sense. So she’s keen to be read to, but doesn’t want to read independently. At age 6 her word reading skills will still be developing and she won’t be a fluent reader so it may just be that she prefers to be read to rather than to read independently.

elliemc: Would you suggest waiting to see if the approach has given her a love of stories or another approach? 

Sarah: No, I’m not a fan of wait and see! I’d be inclined to speak to her and find out why she doesn’t want to read independently. It’s fantastic that she enjoys listening to stories but is crucial to understand why she’s turned off from reading herself (at such a young age). It may be a case of simply asking her, or you may need to work out what difficulties she’s experiencing when reading independently (ie. fluency issues, word reading difficulties, language).

 

gertzerl17: Is reading on a screen cognitively similar to reading on paper? What about typing vs. handwriting?

Sarah: There’s a really interesting paper on multimedia learning by Mayer and Moreno that might be helpful http://www.uky.edu/~gmswan3/544/9_ways_to_reduce_CL.pdf

Rebecca: Here’s an open access paper on e-readers versus paper: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075634. I believe the possible advantages are that you can control things like spacing and font size with e-readers. I haven’t read the full paper, but I don’t think there were any negatives, per se. Just that not everyone showed an advantage in reading speed and comprehension with using the e-reader. The authors suggested that it could help overcome visual attention deficits, with the shorter line lengths. But that not might be what all students who struggle with reading have trouble with.

gertzerl17: I find that my students seem to prefer reading on the small screen of the phone to the bigger screen of a laptop. And I wonder whether it might have adverse effects in terms of recalling material – I always find it easier to recall text when I can map it to a physical location in a book rather than an e-reader (but perhaps that’s a function of my age!). My 5-year-old, who is required to do online reading as part of his homework, likes the interactive nature of online quizzes following the reading, but he seems to prefer reading to me over reading to himself on the computer.

Matt: That’s interesting. Is it becoming more common practice to have online reading homework for primary children?

gertzerl17: I don’t know if it’s common practice, but most of the local schools seem to do it (I’m in suburban New York State).

 

Lia: What pieces of research from your respective research areas do you think could have the biggest impact on teaching/learning if more people knew about them? 

Rebecca: I think the biggest thing I’ve been taking away from my own work and communicating with teachers is that maths concepts, like number symbols can and should be introduced in the early years, but through fun, play-based activities. There seems to be this false dichotomy in early education – like in that article the learning zone linked to in the Guardian, about Ofsted’s report about math in early years and those arguing against too much direct instruction and formal lessons in the Early Years.

Lia: That’s really interesting, thanks. Is there good evidence for introducing such concepts earlier that you could link to?

Rebecca: The DREME network has lots of great resources. Here is one article: https://dreme.stanford.edu/news/play-mathematics-and-false-dichotomies. Here is another great article on the topic: http://www.kappancommoncore.org/it-all-adds-up-learning-early-math-through-play-and-games/

 

Mark: The importance of children being physically active during the school day for ‘staying on task’. Here is press release (will try and dig out references) https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/777/exercise_in_schools_can_help_children_pay_attention_in_the_classroom. Here are the actual references – Hill, L.J.B., Williams, J.H.G., Aucott, L., Thomson, J., Mon-Williams, M. (2011) How does exercise benefit cognitive performance in primary-school pupils? Dev Med & Child Neurology. Hill, L., Williams, J.H.G., Milne, J., Thomson, J., Greig J., Mon-Williams, M. (2010) Exercising attention in the classroom. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 52, 929-934.

Katie: I think teachers could encourage children to think spatially, engage in spatial activities, and use spatial language. Spatial thinking has been shown to be important for maths ( and indeed it is important in its own right) but is often forgotten in the classroom.

Mark: We just had a paper accepted in psych science that shows children’s ability to intercept a moving target has a relationship with their SATs maths scores – so very much in agreement with your suggestion!

Katie: There are lots of fun ways to introduce spatial thinking in the classroom like encouraging the use of gesture, spatial language, models and diagrams, maps.

Mark: And let’s not forget the number line…

Sarah: I think focusing on reading for pleasure is important to develop reading skills. Finding out what motivates children to read is the best way to encourage children to become independent reader who choose to read (and therefore practice their reading) outside of the classroom.

 

elliemc: I’m previously Montessori trained and as a result believe that maths should remain as hands on, large -scale and tactile as long as possible through early and middle childhood – would you agree?

Rebecca: Yes! I read a book recently about the Montessori approach to maths. And this article came out recently about the Montessori approach (but not maths-specific): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-017-0012-7

As fun and helpful of those manipulatives are, though, it is important that children develop a good understanding of number symbols!

Mark: Traditional playground activities are good (as are Forest school activities) – but fine motor skills useful for developing ‘pen skills’

ellimc: I use home made Montessori sandpaper numbers for initial and further teaching and then once they recognise them the written numbers on card so that they don’t have to wait to be able to write to able to access to maths and solve number problems. We do mud kitchen, clay play, whittling and mark making in sand and water – any other pincer grip/fine motor activities you can recommend for outdoors? 

Mark: They all sound great. It’s less important what activities but ensure there is good diversity, lots of practise (there are big dosage effects) and make the practise distributed (do it often rather than for a long time).

 

ModAnnie: Please do make the most of the ASK function where you can pose a question and get more in depth answers from a range of scientists. Thanks for contributing, hope to see you Tuesday.