on a full moon literacy experiences & skills for young children

a literacy teaching tool

A thesis document submitted in p artial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Design and Technology Parsons School of Design April 2002

by Loretta Wolozin

Faculty Anezka Sebek Advisor John Sharp

2002 Loretta Joelle Wolozin ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Dedication

to Dakota (Piccolo)

& All young learners

Dedication List of Figures Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Argument

.1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 literacy for lifelong development literacy teaching tool methodology debate persistent problem: balanced approach my background thesis statement

Chapter 2 2.1 2.2

Learners 7

focus on young literacy learners assumptions about learners 2.2.1 young learners are in transition 2.2.2 learners build on their prior knowledge and experience 2.2.3 young learners use all of their senses to explore, manipulate, and observe the results of their own actions 2.2.4 young learners construct knowledge of their world by observing and participating with other children and adults 2.2.5 all young learners are at an emergent literacy stage

2.2.6 learners often find the transition from language to code difficult

Chapter 3 Knowledge Design I.15 3.1 knowledge design I: theory and structure 3.1.1 knowledge versus information 3.1.2 why it's critical 3.2 3.3 3.4 design questions knowledge design challenges knowledge design structure 3.4. 1 structure map 3..4.2 principles p1: story-skills structure p2 story structure p3: skills-modalities structure p4: skills-activities structure p4 navigation structure

Chapter 4

Knowledge Design II ..23

4.1 knowledge design II: implementation

4.2 vision: prototype and trajectory 4.2.1 children 4.2.2 teachers 4.2.3 classroom 4.24 curriculum 4.2.5 pedagogy 4.26 assessment 4.27 interface 4.28 animation 4.29 programming 4.30 sound design

Chapter 5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 reflection next steps

Evaluation and Conclusion.41

site-based testing children

Appendices A1 A2 A3 Bibliography samples: K-1 classroom collection analyses story synopsis character dialog

Chapter 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 literacy

Argument for lifelong development

literacy teaching tool methodology debate persistent problem: achieving balance

my background thesis statement

___________

1.1

Literacy for lifelong development

Literacy is the umbrella for all communication: author to reader, writer to reader, writer or artist to self and much more. Literacy is the touchstone of learning and development. Expression validates, challenges, gives body to mutable thoughts. Drawing, writing, designing, speaking, role-play, reading are all forms of literacy. Taking in information about the world, processing it, using it, deriving pleasure from it are acts of literacy in all modalities. Helen Keller read the lips of her teacher with her fingertips. Reading for survival and reading as powerful support for all other communication literacies is fundamental. I care about giving voice to the child in all

of us. With literacy, continuous growth and change throughout the lifespan is possible.

1.2

Literacy Teaching Tool

My project, On a full moon : literacy experiences & skills for young children, is a literacy teaching tool for young

children and their teachers. Intended for classroom use, its primary audience will thus be 4-6 year old children in PreK-Kindergarten through lst-grade classrooms and the educators who work with them.

1.3

Methodology debate: rationale for tool

The debate in education about the best approach to teach reading is the impetus for my thesis project . An

understanding of this debate and its context is critical for understanding my motivation and my rationale for the pedagogical construct I invented. in Chapter 3: Design I. I describe my construct

First, here is a brief description of the context.

My

project lives in the complex world of reading methodology. While that may sound fancy, it is hardly a world for

specialists only. include:

The communities of interest and power

school personnel : teachers, reading specialists, administrators, special educators the research community parents and family politicians & policy makers at all levels (federal, state, district, school, community, industry and other organizations) K-12 education associations; (key reading associations: International Reading Association (IRA), National Council Teachers of English (NCTE), American Library Association (ALA), College Reading Association (CRA); key curriculum associations: Assocation for Survervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD), and many others 4 Publishers (K-12 reading programs; teacher education texts; trade; test/assessment publishers)

The reading debate became hot in the early 1980 's .

I have

documented conditions that gave rise to the methodology debate in my MFADT research paper "How children learn to

read: perspective on methodology & the reading wars." Briefly, educators lined up behind two approaches and two

strong leaders in the reading field: (1) Jeanne Chall (Harvard) proponent of phonics and (2) Kenneth Goodman The

(University of Arizona) creator of whole language. argument:

The phonemics-skills approach "phonics").

(popularly known as

This approach places emphasis on explicit and

systematic instruction of alphabetic sounds and symbols, supporting children's ability to sound out unfamiliar words when reading.

A skills approach is typically broader than phonics alone, and includes such strategies as

words recognized immediately on sight context clues phonics - sounding out structural analysis dictionaries (Burns, 2002)

The whole language approach --

places emphasis

on

children's own language (speaking, mark-making, singing). Educators who advocate this approach will immerse children in story, rhymes, writing, and language activities to build

their concepts about print, word knowledge, and understanding of the meaning or message of narrative and expository text, focussing on

children's

knowledge of how the world works

the possible meanings of the text the sentence structure the importance of the order of ideas, words, letters the size of words or letters features of sound, shape, and layout 2 prior knowledge from past "story" experience

(Clay, 1994)

figure 1.1.

Reading became a national policy issue in the late 1980's on publication of "Becoming a nation of readers" (Anderson, 1985). The methodology debate became a partisan theme.

This illustration, heading an incisive report in The Atlantic Monthly is a telling graphic (and poor johnny can't read, has a red nose, very little hair, and teacup ears!).

figure 1.2

In 1998, a report comissioned and issued by the National Research Council mediated an incomplete truce. The 390 page

report, Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children, recommended children learn to read through explicit phonics, but it also urged daily exposure to literature and attention to reading comprehension. The report advocated balance.

During the Clinton administration, The Reading Excellence Act , started under the elder Bush. was signed. mandated: It

Teach every child to read by the end of third grade. Provide children in early childhood with the readiness skills and support they need to learn to read once they enter school. Expand the number of high quality family literacy programs. Provide early intervention to children who are at risk of being identified for special education inappropriately. Base instruction, including tutoring, on scientifically-based reading research (Source: Federal Reading Excellent Act)

1.4

Persistent problem : achieving balance

What might be self-evident was documented by reports named above and research. Noteworthy support for balance was reinforced by the highly-respected, commissioned, metaanalysis of research by Marilyn Adams of Bolt, Baranek and

Newman (a think tank in the Boston area) (Adams, 1991. But many factors prevent teachers' from taking a truly balanced approach. These include

politics of reading & current standardized assessment mandates interpretations of balance assumptions underlying commercial programs constraints of print materials to teach story and skills dynamically habituated practice belief systems: philosophies about learning and learners

1.5

My background

As education editor at Houghton Mifflin for many years, I became aware and troubled by the debate and ensuing politicization of literacy. My background includes a

California Teacher's Credential to teach high school English. Love of story -- reading and writing -- have been an anchor, throughout a tough childhood and many singleparent years. In the early 1990's, I studied design and

drawing at the Boston Architectural Center (BAC) and discovered new literacies. My model for lifelong learning

was my mother, who went back to achool in her fifties. In After earning a B.A. in anthroplogy and an M.L.S (in Library

Science), she

founded a library for Native- Americans in became an ESL Schools

San Jose (CA. When federal money ran out, she teacher to immigrant adults Continuing Education program.

in the Mountain View Working out my own

development, by coming to Parsons to learn a new language so that I could support children's literacy learning, like a perfectly natural thing for me to be doing. seems

1.6

Thesis statement

This project is a pedagogical construct, unifiying story and skills approaches to teaching reading , for use by children and their teachers in pre-kindergarten through lst-grade classrooms.

Chapter 2

Learners

2.1 2.2

the focus : young literacy learners assumptions about learners 2.2.1 young learners are in transition

2.2.2 learners build on their prior knowledge and experience 2.2.3 young learners use all of their senses to explore 2.2.4 young learners construct knowledge of their world by observing and participating with other children and adults 2.2.5 all young learners are at an emergent literacy stage 2.2.6 learners often find the transition from language to abstract code difficult ____________

2.1

The focus :

young literacy learners

The focus of On a full moon: literacy experiences & skills is foremost on learning needs of young children. Regardless of what else swirls in the pedagogical air that teachers, children overarching aim and their parents breathe, my

for my project is guided by young This has meant -- and will young

children's development.

continue to mean -- building on what I know about children's thinking, psychosocial,

and physical needs.

Some key questions include:

What engages children? What worries children? What helps children explore their world?

2.2.

Assumptions about learners

The assumptions below are not meant to be all-inclusive. Rather, they represent core assumptions of special are

importance for development of my thesis project. These

my distillation from multiple research sources on "active learning" perspectives. Active learning is an umbrella for basic assumptions about how (Grabe, 2000). To give you a

cognitive approaches sharing learning happens and deepens

quick idea of why the umbrella is useful,

here are some of

the labels for its variant cognitive positions : constructivist, social constructivist, constructionist, meaningful learning, discovery learning, receptive learning, generative learning, anchored learning, situated learning - and there are more! -

assumption 01 2.2.1 young learners are in transition the Through

Language, Literature and Emergent Literacy

course that I took at Bank Street during the

summer 2001 , I learned that children's transition from their natural language to code was but one An even larger going Children in

big change amongst many.

transition for children of this age is from a home environment to school.

pre-k-kindergarten classrooms are just beginning to experiment with who they are in the larger world.

".Young children experience multiple transitions each day as they move from home to the early childhood setting and also as they move from one activity to another throughou tthe day. It has

been estimated that transitions can take up 30% of the total time that children spend in an early childhood setting" (Hull, quoting Berk, 2001).

Thus, as the teacher builds a literacy program for the classroom, the focus must be on developmentally-appropriate, best practices. Guidelines from the National Association Education of Young Children (NAEYC) are followed by most public and accredited private early childhood classrooms (Bredekamp, 1997 ). Mindful of the

four-six year old child's developmental

transitions, I have brought the theme of routine, placeness, ownership, autonomy, social awareness to the writing of my Piccolo's Lilypad. 4). first story in my project:

(Discussed further in Chapter

assumption 02 2.2.2 learners build on their prior knowledge and experience This assumption forms a bridge from assumption 01 about transition. When teachers hone in on what the child is bringing to the new learning experience, they maximize the opportunities to facilitate learning. Teachers are working with this assumption when they engage children in dialog about a story prior to reading it. Here is a typical such dialog:

hypothetical teacher -directed exploration of children's prior knowledge

"Piccolo's Lillypad.hmmmdoes anyone know what a lilypad is?

"Ohyou've seen one?

Can you tell us where you saw it?"

"Wateryesthe lilypad was in the watermaybe it was a pond."

This this story is called "Piccolo's Lilypad" I wonder who is Piccolo? Does anyone have any ideas

Cognitive science today emphasizes the concept "understanding" -- which puts the onus on the study of how we come to know. According to the findings of the

recent, highly-respected NRC study on the science of learning :

".Humans are viewed as goal-directed agents who actively seek information. education with a range of They come to formal prior knowledge,

skills, beliefs, and concepts that significantly influence what they notice about the environment

and how they organize and interpret it".(Bransford et al, 1999).

assumption 03 young learners use all of their senses to explore, manipulate, and observe the results of their own actions . Developmental psychologists sometimes

refer to "the whole child" when describing the transactions of cognitive, psychosocial, and physical development. Seminal theorists as Piaget, Vygotsky, learners as Dewey, and Bruner describe young actively testing hypotheses - as

experimenters in their discoveries of the world around them. My rationale for making modalities -

- "listen and do", "write and draw" and "record" - the primary routes to the activities and lessons in on a full moon is (a) to support the young child's avid use of his or her senses in learning and (b) in response to research on reading and writing transactions (Rosenblatt 1938/1983 ) as

powerful movers in children's literacy learning.

assumption 04

young learners construct knowledge of their world by observing and participating with other children and adults. and Vygotsky This is a key tenet of both Piaget

-- with Vygotsky coming down more

heavily on the importance of social mediation. In my project, I will design activities that encourage cooperative learning amongst young children as this is an important strategy for moving children into realms of knowledge construction.

assumption 05 all young learners are at an emergent literacy stage Understanding the difference between how language develops and how reading competency develops is important for understanding the concept of emergent literacy. naturally Language develops

-- as in intrinsic process -- for all

children in all cultures everywhere in the world All babies babble -- the first form of talking. (Chomsky, 1965). Whereas language unfolds

naturally from within the child, reading is "a matter of opportunities to learn about a very This, of course, leads to the common knowledge

that the classroom should be a print-rich environment, with lots of signs, symbols and books that will help children become familiar with the code and conventions of print and literacy.

Some children come to school at ages 4 or 5 knowing a little about reading and writing and some come with virtually no experience at all. Those who know very little may have had 'little opportunity or encouragement.' Perhaps

the young child who has little formal knowledge of reading and writing found those symbols to be confusing in their own right and/or withdrew from some preliminary confusing instruction attempted

by a parent, teacher, or big bird. Whatever the reason, children enter school with vastly different prior experiences Children are all and knowledge.

ready to learn something, but (Clay, 1994).

are starting from different places

As a wise kindergarten in Bordentown, New Jersey said to me recently:

"children don't need to be readied; I need to be ready to teach them given their prior experience" (Liz Brotherton, Kindergarten Teacher).

assumption 05 learners often find the transition from language to abstract code difficult . in this document, young through As mentioned earlier

children are going (As non-

many life-change transitions.

developmentalists, we rarely acknowledge the lifecrisis of the 5-year old!). that Imagine, however,

you are the child in the scenario below. decoding task from the child's

Sense the

perspective:

You

are 5 years-old --

a big person with a backpack ,

stuffed with a special pencil pouch, notebooks ( and your favorite beanie baby). You just started "big school" --

brother's school. You love to talk, invent and listen to stories. You even know how to say your ABCs. you're sitting One day,

on the story rug in reading circle,

listening to a funny story about Babar the Elephant. ___

Miss Vicky says: "LJ what's that word?"

You look

desperately at the picture, and proudly say "elephant" ___ Miss Vicky: "well that is a picture of an elephant, but that's not the wordwhat is the first letter , what does it start with?" ___ You put your hand on your wrinkly pucker, and you ___ "uh, uh mmstart withit starts with a long stick with two stomachs" head, screw up your face into a think, and you think :

The alphabet is code: mysterious symbols.

In the English

language, that code takes on many guises when combined into patterns called words. To the very young child (2-5) at

emergent literacy stages, the code is hieroglyphic: arbitrary, marks with no greater significance than scribbles.

Reading is a complex process of making meaning of print symbols. "Nine aspects of the reading process -- sensory,

perceptual, sequential, experiential, thinking, learning, association, affective, constructive -- combine to produce reading with understanding of intentional or implied meaning of text or image (Burns,Roe,Smith, 2002). To read is to understand. Decoding sounds and symbols in parts or whole

(words) does not a reader make. But the route to meaning requires skills.

In sum,

although there are many

other factors related to I believe the

learners, learning, and learning to read.

core list in this chapter provides a framework for tenets that undergird my project. My intent with its structure (construct), story, activities, navigation choices is to

create a pedagogically sound program that will engage children and support teachers in their literacy instruction in classrooms.

Chapter 3 Knowledge Design

3.1

knowledge design theory 3.1.1 knowledge versus information

3.1.2 why it's critical 3.2 3.3 3.4 design questions knowledge design challenges knowledge design structure 3.4.1 the map 3.4.1.1 principles p1 story-skills structure p2 story structure p3 skills-modalities structure p4 skills-sctivities structure p5 navigation structure _________________

3.1

Knowledge design theory

My thinking about project work has been heavily influenced by the theories and projects of David Perkins (Harvard) Rich Lehrer (University of Wisconsin, Madison); cognitive theorists and researchers. work is both are and

David Perkins seminal

Knowledge as Design, Rich Lehrer's early technology

projects on hypermedia and history were my first introduction to cases of the theory (Lehrer, 1987).

3.1.1 Knowledge as design versus information Everyone has information - lots of it - or has multiple ways of getting it, especially media age. in today's information

Information can be as basic

as knowledge of what day of the week it is or as specialized as a the elements on a chemistry chart.

But to view knowledge as design rather than isolated pieces of information would mean to consider it as "structures adapted to a purpose(Perkins, 1986). In

the architecture or product design world, for example, we can easily see what it meant. A screwdriver is an

example of a design adapted to an easily-understood purposeful use as a tool (Perkins, 1986).

To consider an intellectual or cognitive construct as a design is a bit more abstract . But there are some

obvious cases that help make the point about design. These would include representations of mental models such as Einstein's theory of relativity or maps of any

kind, including those we construct in this MFADT program to represent the structure -- hierarchy and

relationships -- of the ideas that make up our design technology projects. A useful logic of knowledge as originator of its theory,

design is offered by the David Perkins:

knowledge is usable use denotes purpose purpose denotes design

3.1.2 Why is knowledge as design critical ? To adopt a knowledge as design perspective is to take an active approach to thought and adaptation of the multiple bits and pieces of information at our disposal. Knowledge as design connotes by its very

definition a cognitive-constructivist approach that assumes learning happens and deepens when users generate knowledge. Viewing knowledge

".as information purveys a passive view of knowledge, one that highlights knowledge in storage rather than knowledge as an implement of action" (Perkins, 1986).

3.2

Knowledge design questions

I organized my thinking and work

for my literacy project by

a knowledge as design perspective, asking four design questions as proposed by Perkins:

1 What is its purpose (or purposes)? 2 What is its structure ? 3 What are model cases of it? 4 What are arguments that explain and evaluate it?

My purpose, as explained in Chapters 1 and 2, is to maximize young children's literacy learning by inventing a pedagogical construct for marrying diverse approaches to teaching reading. Identifying and representing the context

(the first two stages of problem solving models) does not automatically present a solution. In fact, there are few

teachers, researchers, or specialists who would argue with the idea of a cohesive methodology. Many practitioners

strive to achieve this end only with varying degrees of success because of constraints briefly discussed in Chapter 1. I saw the need for a viable structure or framework for

helping teachers achieve greater balance in their classroom

reading methodology.

A sound,

workable structure is the

focus of the remaining portion of this chapter.

3.3

Knowledge design challenges

Using a theory of knowledge design

meant I must account for

the "knowns" in all key domains related to children, teachers, classroom, and curriculum. complex matter. overview. This is indeed a

My education background gave me an

My research in the past year has included

reviewing the most recent Reading Reasearch Handbook (Kamil, 2000). I got much insight and content from many sources,

including the Bank Street College of Education course I took (summer, 2001) on emergent literacy, and the observations I have done in the past several years in classrooms. These My

experiences , however, represent only a beginning.

consultation with experts , specifically, Bill Stokes of Lesley College (Cambridge, MA) , about the pedagogy -- its

scope, balance, accuracy -- has just begun. knowledge design challenge is just that!

In short, the

3.4

On

a full moon

is composed of multiple, interrelated

structures.

These structures represent a purposely-

knit set of relationships -- taken together : a set of principles. I will discuss the structures and

correlate-principles as design.

3.4.1 map and principles This map provides a schematic of the architecture for my project.

figure 3.1

p1

story-skills structure sides:

The program 's interface has complementary (1) story and (2) skills. My intent is to

reinforce the association between the story and the skills, which, by design, will also emerge from the story. Theories of relevance and meaning, such as those of Dewey (project-based learning) or Bruner have been extended by the

(discovery learning),

cognitive researcher, John Bransford, with his research on "anchored learning." An anchor,

briefly, is the departure and return point for structuring (scaffolding) a learning experience .

Bransford founded the Vanderbilt Cognition, Technology, Learning Center, where he and colleagues created anchored learning technology applications such as Jasper Woodbury (a mathematics problem solving DVD) and Ribbit and the Magic Hats -- a multimedia program that had a major impact on my work (Bransford et al, 1987) . Thus, my story,

Piccolo's Lilypad is the anchor for literacy lessons on the skills side of the interface.

p2 story structure Structure of a story is a defining characteristic of the concept of narrative. Learning about the

convention of story structure is an important literature skill. Thus, in my project, children will stay within the story throughout one scene. interface minimally At the end of each scene,

children can make a choice: continue to the next scene or move to the skills interface for literacy lessons. From the skills interface, a return to My key point here is

story is always available.

that each scene in itself retains its integrity as a way to reinforce the concept of a narrative.

p3 skills-modalities structure

figure 3.2

The functions that drive the skills side are: "listen and do", "write and draw", and "record". ( Note: I have decided to combine "write and

draw" shown separately above (Farnan, 1999). ) The modalities -- auditory, tactile, expressive -are especially important for young learners, who are "concrete-operational" (Piagetian key concept) in their ways of knowing. The transition from

natural language to abstract code can be facilitated by using strategies

that involve the

child's storytelling.

The

child's storytelling can take place through language, drawing, writing (mark making), play acting. A great strategy I have observed many

times is that of the teacher writing the child's version of the story as dictated by the child. The teacher then uses the child's own words to deliver instruction. That instruction could be on

any skill from initial /end consonants, sight word knowledge, etc. These modalities or functions in

my project provide parallels to those in analog materials and extends them.

p4 skills-activities structure

figure 3.3

The graphic above shows each modality (bee, snake, cricket ). Butterfly's function (draw) will be combined with write. The butterfly icon will be deleted. Three activity types are now defined for These are:

"listen and do" -- the bee's function. (1) how many beats? (2) sound board

(3) what I have

comes next? (a story structure activity).

completed structures, graphics, animation, sound and programming for "how many beats?".

p5 navigation structure The primary navigation enables users' choice of

story or skills experience: moon: on the story side - - as the story scene progresses, the moon changes from a crescent to a full moon; when the moon is full on the

story side, it is clickable; children can shift to activities or continue with the story; on the skills side -- the moon is always full; children can freely leaf : move back to the story

the leaves on the branch of the tree

denote the scenes in the story; when scene one begins, the scene one leaf has fallen; when scene one ends, the scene two leaf falls; children can choose to continue story by choosing leaf two ( for scene two) or go to

the skills side by clicking the full moon . They can also choose the scene one leaf, to repeat scene one. From the story side, scene one, here are beginning and ending frames showing moon & leaf changes. The full moon is

the major navigation cue for the program,

indicating a change between the story and skills interface is possible. The scene leaves Only at

are inter-interface navigation cues.

the end of whole scenes can children shift to activities. major navigation cues.

figure 3.4

Chapter 4 4.1 vision

Knowledge Design II

4.2 prototype and trajectory 4.2.1 children 4.2.2 4.2.3 4.24 4.2.5 teachers curriculum pedagogy classroom

4.2.6 assessment 4.2.7 4.28 4.29 4..30 4.3 interface animation programming sound design advantage

multimedia

____________

4.1

Vision

My vision for on a full moon is that it be an integral part of the everyday classrooms. learning resources of prek-lst grade

To achieve this end, my program must meet I have provided In

requirements regarding learners and design.

brief background on these topics in Chapters 2 and 3. this chapter, I will show

4.2 Prototype and trajectory

4.2.1 Children .

As described in Chapter 2,

a in

developmentally-appropriate environment is critical early childhood education. In fact, many early

childhood experts say that the true curriculum of education for the 4-year old is development:

cognitive, psychosocial and physical. (Branscombe,2000). This becomes apparent when you

realize how integrated these domains are in so many of the tasks that young children engage in. For example,

learning to tie a shoe is a cognitive, physcial, and social-cooperative task. Consider the difference in

the upper elementary grades, where content domains like math or science create separate (albeit artificial) learning worlds.

>prototype. Here are examples from my protototype that demonstrates my focus on who children are at age 4-6:

Character Design & Story : Piccolo - hand-drawn with ink and water-color wash, Piccolo emerged from a shakyhand and reams of newsprint drawings. He's small-

boned, with overly-long frog legs , but graceful. He has balletic and theatrical ways and a major

difference from other frogs: he does not have a croak voice; only a musical piccolo-like high voice. He is shy but

longs to be part of the frog life on the pond. Piccolo is sad. the periphery, lilypad. His differences have put him on watching daily from his special

This story is now in its second version.

created it originally as part of my Bank Street early literacy course last summer. Feedback I

received from my instructor, Dick Feldman, was enormously helpful in shaping its revision. Themes I have woven into the narrative are of routine, ownership, placeness and security -- all primary in the young child's world.

Cyclops.

Cyclops is a blustery-mythical creature He has one-eye

unlike any native on the pond. and one-horn and

magical power to transport

himself and others to mystical far-away lands. Cyclops, too, shares Piccolo's sense of "weirdness" in

relationship to other creatures, but has learned to use his one-eye to achieve his inner vision. Through his adventures with Piccolo, he helps Piccolo understand a little more about himself. He also gives him encouragement and resources to call on whentrying to make friends and join the others on the pond. Cyclops (ultimately)

represents a hybrid parental-teacher figure, all important for young children in their transition from home. Many teachers of young children affect

the role of caregiver, which is an appropriate role for 4-5-year old children in classrooms. (Hull, 2001). >trajectory : more stories. I envision creating

more stories and also including public domain rhymes, folktale, and easily-permissioned quality, children's stories. These will form a data base

of stories

for unit and lesson plans for the activities on

teaching of literacy through the the skills side.

The animation for this story is having been my first. I

at its very early stage,

anticipate making the animation smoother and more natural, by using movable parts of my characters

instead of only a few whole motion-capture drawings.

4.2.2 Teachers.

Teachers are the pivotal

decision-makers regarding children's learning. All of the mandates and assessments cannot remove the autonomy and power teachers have in their intimate, daily relationships with children.

Therefore, giving them flexible, and modular tools to work with is important. It needs to be easy to

grab a story, a minilesson, or record an activity. Lots of easily-chunked, small lessons that can be tailored to individual needs are a requirement.

>prototype:

"how many beats" is a phonemic

awareness segmenting and blending skills-activity. With the skills activity : "how many beats"

teachers can guide children from easy one-syllable to more difficult two-to-three syllable words.

>trajectory:

In real classrooms, teachers take

the story words and use them as the basis for literacy skills activities: writing, responding, predicting. The lessons I am planning, will build

inan integrative way, flowing from story words and themes. My goalis to create a repertoire of

easily-accessed lessons for flexible adaptation, given individual childrens' needs.

Teachers' administrative function.

An important

part of my vision, is the teachers' presets for both story and skills. For example, on the story

side, teachers will be able to set

story with print words only on the screen story with audio dialog and sound story with sound and print story with pantomime and music only

These preferences will reflect both the lesson plans for whole group instruction and individual child-use and learning need. On the skills side, teachers will be able to select parts of activities such as the word-sets they want children to work with for, say, the activity "how many beats?"

4.2.3 curriculum.

Buckets and bins, shelves and

closets are required in the early childhood classroom because they hold the curriculum! Blocks, unifix cubes, multiple notebooks --

journals, word books, drawing books, writing books -- upright in boxes, puzzles, bins of children's

stories organized by unit themes (ponds, the senses, animal homes, ) represent the teacher's The curriculum is

classroom collection. delivered in small

bites and easily-integrates

(1) disciplines (math, science, literacy, ) (2) modality: writing, speaking, acting, drawing, etc.

>prototype

The skills area purposefully

provides for the multiple senses: auditory ("listen and do"); cognitive/tactile ("write and

draw"); expressive language and song

("record."). While

The curriculum is purposefully modular .

there will be meaningful groupings by type of activity and difficulty, there will not be an imposition of sequence. Unlike mathematics,

there are many sequences and many, many paths that children take to achieve literacy profieciency. Teachers need to choose what's right for the child at the right time!

>trajectory

Knitting together the loose weave of

skills for initial knowledge to deeper understanding of both word and story meaning is hugely-ambitious. As

mentioned previously, I will be consulting Bill Stokes at Lesley College, who is the head of the Hood Literacy Project there and an expert in the domains of child development, special education, literacy, and English as a second language. is Here

a partial taxonomy, I created for

activity-types

across modalities, extending from scene 1 of the story.

Figure 4.1

4.2.4 Pedagogy.

Pedagogy refers to methodology: The

instructional strategies and tactics.

pedagogy in on a full moon is intentionally "active." That is, strategy comes from a

cognitive perspective, facilitating the child's engaged and active construction of his or her own knowledge. This is based on the theories of

Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner and much contemporary many contemporary researchers already cited such as Rich Leher, John Bransford, and David Perkins.

>prototype.

"how many beats" is an example of Children must

cognitively-oriented strategy.

intentionally choose the word, drag and drop it, think, and initiate the beating action. The

child decides when they are done by clicking the bee. Individual difference in children makes it necessary for the child to so indicate. Otherwise, you have the nasty consequences of adult experts or software developers deciding

about the proper time on task.

(For true in-

attention to task, I am planning a time-out voice a bit like the Carmen San Diego radio guy who calls "are you there?"). To further reinforce

the importance of the bee-click when done, I continue to be reminded of the time when Dakota was only 4 and using the Reader Rabbit software, which is intrepidly behavioral. The decoding

chick emerging from an egg (a segmenting-blending activity) decides when it's time-out and tells the answer. Dakota was very annoyed because he With a

hadn't yet answered the question.

frustrated look, Dakota said "what's wrong with that guy: does he think I'm STUPID?"

>trajectory . do" are

The activity types for "listen and

how many beats? (phonemic awareness: syllable segmenting and blending ) sound board (word families, beginning-end consonants, etc) what comes next? (story structure) I have general plans for activity types for the ("write and draw" and

other 2 modalities:

"record").

I have decided to combine "write and

draw" based on an observation I did recently in a kindergarten at The Lambertville School (NJ) and Elementary

research on the transactions of

mark making (Farnan, 1999).

4.2.5

Classroom.

The scale and center-oriented

arrangement of early childhood classrooms makes the desktop computer clearly an appendage -- most often stuck in a corner, unused and even abused with stuff on top of it or stuck to its screen (Kindergarten at Peter Muschal School, Bordentown!). Here is a typical early childhood classroom , reading center setting.

figure 4.2

>trajectory.

My vision is that the physcial

interface for on a full moon will be a touchscreen embedded in an adaptation of KinderTable, invented by Soojin Choi (MFADT, 2001).

I am currently collaborating with Soojin and Sharon Sherman, Chairperson, Elementary Education, College of New Jersey on sitebased classroom research with KinderTable in

several New Jersey public schools. my

Here is

report on some of our early findings:

PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Below are questions guiding some preliminary findings of our emergent classroom research of KinderBoard on KinderTable (Choi, 2001).

These are examples, touching on the larger issue (or picture of) how KinderBoard on KinderTable could be used in classrooms. How is the table interface and touchscreen appropriate for the classroom learning environment is the overarching question. does KinderTable support collaborative work amongst children? KinderTable seems to support a maximum triad of children for on-task collaborative work. Interestingly, it also invites on-lookers, sometimes children spread-eagle across the table to see what's going on. We have observed that teachers need to thoughtfully pair children (per commonly-known research on cooperative learning.) For the most part, children are cooperative with one another - a

value of the classrooms in general. The range of reasons for some children overextending at the table include: END EXCERPT

4.2.6

Assessment.

Assessment is a big policy

deal even in early childhood classrooms. Standardized measures of isolated sound-symbol and word knowledge are being mandated in almost every state. During my observation in the fall, 2001, I

saw a wonderful PreK-K teacher in a progressive, public school administer a decontextualized, phonics assessment from the McGraw Hill Literacy Assessment System to a 4-year-old boy. Noticing she

my dismayed look when she sat the child down, said to me:

'I was supposed to do this in September. until December. I make it like a game.

I waited Yes, I

know, it doesn't match my instruction. But I have to do it. ' (anon).

>trajectory.

I plan to create a formative assessment Formative assessment

component for my program. collects information

throughout the learning process

and is most useful for instructional planning and decision making (Salvia-Ysseldyke, 2001) . My goal is

to get permission from Marie Clay to adapt some of her

seminal observation surveys and to develop a print component for teachers to use while working with children with On a full moon . (Clay, 1993).

4.2.7 Interface. The graphical interface also represents a pedagogical principle. I have decided to use the

natural environment of the story, including setting the activities in pond-plant-life, to reinforce the organicism that I am trying to achieve with the entire construct. Thus, for

"listen and do" the activities are embedded in the wild roses. In the "listen and do" activity "how

many beats?" the child clicks the middle flower and word-petals are strewn around the environment. A drum also emerges simultaneously (in a child's world and in a multimedia world these fantastic occurences make perfect sense!).

I have done the drawing by hand for the program. I started to draw as an adult, studying at first

with a printmaker on Martha's Vineyard some 10 years ago. For 2 years at that time, I studied the BAC spent many

design and drawing at night at

a lunch hour drawing sculptures at the Boston MFA and becoming intensely "drawn" to this novel (for me) way of thinking and expressing myself. As my

professional job became more and more demanding, and I couldn't figure out what to do with my new found zeal, I stopped drawing. This December

end, in a panic, I realized that I wanted and needed my program to have the verisimilitude of

story that I love, that children love, that all of us love. some With the help of an artist, I received

coaching (a pencil pouch, a drawing pad) and

some models to work with over the Christmas break. Piccolo and his world were born.

My intent for the use of hand drawing is to maintain an authenticity and feeling of the spirit of children's books. In my case, I believe there

to be a naivete in my drawings that children seem to respond to. My longer-range vision is to work

with an artist-animator who can both draw and animate project. other stories to be included in this Story is the anchor for learning in On

a full moon.

Technical note:

the pond is a scanned piece of high-rag

water color paper; then broken apart with the trace bitmap function. Once broken, the rag wedges (now blown I placed a dark grey background shaped it into an ellipse to form

up) became a lacework. under the lacework and the pond.

The tree, in this story, is the anchor graphic for both the story interface and the skills interface. other stories, in the future, I would expect a dual interface to grow from it has for Piccolo's Lilypad. from the skills-side interface. examples from the story-side the story setting just as Below is a screen dump Chapter 3 includes For

interface.

figure 4.2

4.2.8

Animation

To prepare for my simple animation of Piccolo's Lilypad, I studied character design using Faith Hubley and others as inspiration. I drew and drew

- a character pose a minute for 30 minutes each day during the Christmas break. The characters I was having

and the setting started to emerge. fun.

figure 4.3

I decided to draw my main characters in several whole motion-sequences. In retrospect, I believe I should have done the parts-motion approach as I think the animation lacks variety. This was my first animation, and

I am eager to take on animation seriously as I realize (a) how great a tool it is for telling

stories (b) I enjoyed every grueling minute of putting it together.

4.2.9 Programming The programming is with Flash 5 functions (animation) and action-scripting. A primary

challenge for me is to use Flash more efficiently to reduce memory. Although I instantiated objects

for commonly-used graphics, I believe I can improve in this area withexperience, especially with animation. The drawings were purposefully done in black ink to keep color at a minimum.

Interfaces (story and skills) are black and white. BUT, I did get carried away drawing my tree with lots of ink on a stick, and memory-hogging color was introduced in the flora of the skills side. I want to look at all factors before making any decisions about how to reduce file size.

Related to the pedagogy

and programming,

I need

to think way-ahead about what makes sense from the teaching and learning perspective. For example,

it is critical to program the bee as an intentional click when the child is done with the

beats activity:

To give the child feedback (right

or wrong) for the beats activity, it's necessary to know that the child is done! To assume a fixed

amount of wait time -- which many commercial software programs do -- countermands sound instructional practice. Thinking through as many

variables as possible is important, but I realize that the true test will be with children and teachers. made. I expect adjustments will need to be

4.30 Sound design. I spent a lot of time thinking through and experimenting with alternative treatments story animation, functions like the skills side. transitions, insects for the

support for major

(modalities) on the

Although the sound for the

prototype is a scratch disk, I believe I have a model. For the story side, I chose Glenn Gould

doing Mozart (like no one else does) frenetically, which works well for Piccolo's race around the pond. For the

skills side fade up and accents, I chose some Thelonius Monk sounds. My plan is to

commision a composer and ultimately own original music for the program.

The character dialog was recorded with a Sony DAT. All sound editing was done with Pro Tools.

4.3

Multimedia advantage

I believe that multimedia provides advantages for my construct. These distinctive advantages include

transition from story mode

and skills teaching mode is

relatively seamless: providing balanced materials based on story Typically, requires time and work for teachers. the teacher reads a story on the reading

corner rug and follows that up with a table-top activity. Teachers dedicated to a literature-language approach will create those lessons and materials. But increasingly,

especially with the isolated skills-teaching mandates, teachers concommitantly resort to isolated, decontextualized worksheets. My program makes it possible

for teachers to move back and forth between story and skills and choose from a palette of skills that includes

phonemics and/or story-meaning activities.

(There will

be many other literacy experiences provided as well).

flexibility regarding children's individual needs, curriculum fit, or learning style: multimedia offers tools such as record; senory experiences with sound, perceptual motor with clicking and/or touchscreen manipulation, recording and tactile experiences with

drawing and writing tools.

animation , sound, engages children Children

and playing with computer-objects

love to push buttons, manipulate objects, sing In my opinion, multimedia was

and hear their own voices. made for children.

provides a dynamic framework for children's and teacher's choices within a pedagogically sound structure. education. Choice is a high-priority concept in early All daily curriculum includes some form of

"choice time" (variously called: learning center, stations, work place (Branscombe, 2000). Teachers,

also, need to be able to choose within a repertoire of strategies for children's individual learning needs.

multimedia feature for future development would include print, portfolio function for aggregating work within skills,

the program, and a robust data base for sorting

stories, words, and resources for teacher education.

Chapter 5

Evaluation

and

Conclusion

5.3 5.4 5.4 5.5

reflection next steps site-based testing children

________

5.1

Reflection

evolving doorThe amount of time dedicated to concept formulation, research, classroom observation, knowledge

design and implementation for On a full moon has been less than one year. An indicator of how much its concept has First it was Red

evolved might be its name changes. light/green light.

Then it was Once upon a little bird; and Good thing, too. I'll bet those

now it's on a full moon.

birds would have been tough negotiators.

What didn't change

was that it's all about trying to facilitate balanced

literacy instruction through easily navigable sides: story and skills. It's all about navigation?

light begins to dawn my thesis advisor talks, start to hear and/or see the implications of fundamental experience design concepts. session, points,

and I really some

In our most recent decision cuing pace and

we talked about user expectation,

visual syntax , controller vs representer,

in both aural and visual ways on the same object, pass through, cue on the

weighting emphasis even moreso with an added -- the obvious big guy in the program;

moon

gathering up all instructions so they don't spill over objects (when they're not supposed to); behavior

vocabulary; whether or not the sequencing system of the "beats" activity is intuitive or notit's so interesting and so hard to operationalize these ideas when immersed in both "newness" and process; but I do realize it's a recursive process. I think my advisor understands emergent literacy.

Will children like it?

Liam wrinkled his brow in a worried

frown during the story. That's a good sign.

Will teachers use it?

I envision the need for an easy-to-

use data base -- and teacher support: more than just print; probably workshops. If the kids use it,

they'll show the teachers.

Will the blend of activities and tool functionality be widely-embraced? Teachers will need to use the program to

generate curriculum -- not just rely on content provided.

I need a lot more learning: animation and programming. Drawing, too.

5.5

Next Steps

Development:

Prototype Scene 1

Graphical charts For all parts below development. Skills: -- place-holders while scene 1 is under

Activities for the mode, " Listen and Do": "sound board" and "what comes next?" are under development. Story Scene 2 Flesh out narrative Write character dialog Draw characters - parts Record with Dakota Select /create sound design Digitize and edit Animate Guide to the Program Navigation guides

5.6

Site-based testing

Site-based testing of the prototype will be of the utmost importance.

Child-testing I will concurrently with the above, test the main page,

titlescreen page, story-scene1, and skills interface with "how many beats?". This will take place June-August.

5.7

Children

"Young children are at-risk if they start relying on a narrow range of strategies , inventing from memory, pecking at isolated bits of information visual details paying little attention to

looking so hard for words he/she knows,

guessing words from first letters, forgetting what the message is about (Clay, 1993)."

This is a fearful spectre -- especially in today's politicized education climate. Children are the reason for on a full moon.

__________
Appendix A3 Character Dialog

Appendix A1 Classroom Collection (Bank Street Literacy Course) Classroom Collection Children's Book Analysis Appendix A2 Story Synopsis

__________
Appendix A3

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