g. ICT and writing
We encourage our student teachers to read and discuss the implications of Guy Merchant’s research in Early Years settings: ‘Barbie meets Bob the Builder at the Workstation: Learning to write on screen’ (Marsh, 2005, 183-200). Merchant’s work suggests that there is a need to reappraise what we have meant by developmental or emergent writing in the past. The traditional print literacies now go hand in hand with digital literacies that young children have access to at home and in school.
Ask your student teachers why they prefer to use a word processor for their own writing. They will probably say that they find drafting and editing is easier and that writing on a screen encourages them to read and re read and also encourages talk and cooperative decisions and has the added advantage that they can add text to images. Then they can consider whether this isn't the same for young children and why the early use of IT might be particularly effective for children with special educational needs.
They will also need to discuss the balance between using ICT and handwriting in the early stages of writing and think about how they will help children to choose which to use.
One of the key findings in the report on Raising Boys’ Achievements in Writing (UKLA/PNS, 2004) is that the integration of “visual approaches was successful in promoting marked and rapid improvements in boys’ writing” (See also 4h. Gender and writing.)
The Primary National Strategy has published a useful boxed set of CD Roms which offers practical ideas and lesson plans for use with children from the Foundation Stage through to year 6. Both Year 2 and Year 1 CD Roms cover working with fiction and non-fiction and provide reasons for using ICT along with the ICT skills and resources needed by the teacher. The Foundation CD Rom addresses the use of technology in the young child’s environment.
Student teachers will find useful ICT updating in every issue of the Primary English Magazine.
See also Cathy Burnett et al. on English and ICT.
 
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