Gardner, P. & Kuzich,S. (2024,September,5). Edu Research Matters.

This short, succinct post in the AARE Blog, EduResearch Matters, was published in September 2024. The post shines a light on students starting school with poor verbal skills, linked to parents’ use of mobile phones, as well as poor core body strength and both gross and fine motor coordination. The authors claim that young students currently have limited opportunities to hear and use natural language and limited opportunity to engage with quality books in the early years of school. “They’ve been replaced by streams of powerpoints, simplistic worksheets, decodable books and choral chanting of letter-sound correspondences”. Gardner and Kuzich, argue for a focus on spoken language in early schooling as well as more physical activity. Talking should come before phonics.
Key Words: Oral language  Talking  Mobile phones  Gross motor  Fine motor  Speaking  Listening

Beaumont, N. (2022). Poetry and Motion: Rhythm, Rhyme and Embodiment as Oral Literacy Pedagogy for Young Additional Language Learners. Education Sciences, 12(12), 905.

In this article, Beaumont put forward an interesting argument about the integration of oracy, poetry and embodiment as a way to facilitate language development for young children who are learning English as an additional language in school. The analysis demonstrated that the children involved benefited in terms of using English and learning English literacy, with improvements in comprehension and vocabulary acquisition also clearly evident. The paper provides a review of literature in areas such as the use of poetry and rhyme as tools for learning the speak and read in English, the impact of singing on language development, the place of drama in literacy pedagogy. There is a detailed discussion of the approach taken to teaching poetry in the class, which would be very useful for teachers of young children wanting to try some similar poetry activities. This detail is further explicated in a short vignette of practice that illuminates a what the approach might look like with young children. The article finishes with a convincing argument about the place of poetry in early literacy teaching that would be a useful support for early childhood teachers wanting to justify why they might use embodied poetry techniques in their classrooms.

Keywords:
Poetry  Drama  Literacy  Learning English as an additional language

Derby, M. (2023). Talking Together: The Effects of Traditional Māori Pedagogy on Children’s Early Literacy Development. Education Sciences 13(2), 207.

This article provides details of a research project that investigated a home-based literacy intervention trialled with preschool aged Māori children in New Zealand. The project aimed to consider what culturally responsive literacy pedagogy might look like in a preschool classroom where many children were bilingual learners. The program utilised approaches such as story-telling, songs, games, and other oral language practices in the homes of young bilingual learners, and was interested in the impacts of these strategies on vocabulary development and phonological awareness. The strategies used are described well and could be adapted for use in other contexts. However, more than detailing particular strategies, the overarching purpose of the article is to present an argument about the usefulness of home-based activities on the literacy development of young bilingual learners.

Keywords:
Literacy learning  Early years  Vocabulary  Phonological awareness

Brian Cambourne 2021

Bring Me a Book National Conference

  In this article Brian Cambourne shares the various factors including his research as to how he came to develop his now well-known Conditions of Learning. He provides a brief summary of what he refers to as ‘out of school learning’, as well as the literature and research that supports this theory. Finally, Cambourne provides us with the most recent model of the conditions of learning, which now includes ‘processes that empower learning

Key words: Learning   Literacy  Naturalist Research  Oral language Development

Christine Edwards-Groves  -  PETAA Paper 195

As Christine Edwards-Groves reminds us children want to talk. Well-structured talk builds learners’ thinking and forms the foundation for all literacy practices. Learners need to be challenged to express their ideas, clarify reasons for their thinking or critique, share their opinions, actively listen to each other and provide rationales for their perspectives and argue for their beliefs. This article is about the importance of fostering ‘talk moves’ in the classroom that deepen learners’ understanding and draws on recent research.

Key words: Talking and listening  Classroom dialogic talk  Talk moves

Laura Beth Kelly, Meridth K. Ogden and Lindsey Moses

As part of a collaborative study, a first-grade teacher and two university-based researchers, set a goal to facilitate meaningful, student-led discussions about literature. In this article the authors share several strategies they found successful in enhancing the speaking and listening skills of a class of 28 first graders who came from diverse linguistic, economic, and social backgrounds.

Key words: Speaking and listening Talk  Diversity  Literature  Student agency

Touchstones: 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10

Michèle de Courcy, Karen Dooley, Robert Jackson, Jenny Miller and Kathy Rushton  - PETAA Paper 183

More than a quarter of learners in Australian schools are learning English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D). They include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, and migrants, refugees and international students born overseas. This paper highlights recent trends in the theory and practice of EAL/D teaching and learning. It offers a range of suggestions for supporting EAL/D learners in the classroom especially the importance of talking and listening in both their first language and Standard Australian English and the value of using learners’ bilingualism in developing language awareness for all classroom members.

Key words: Oral language development for EAL/D learners  Bilingualism  Language awareness

Tamara Bromley ALEA Vol 24 Number 1 February 2019

Telling stories is something we do every day – it’s a part of being human. In this article, Tamara Bromley, an early childhood and lead teacher in Western Australia, shares how she used her own storytelling to engage her learners and create a sense of belonging in her classroom. As learners became more confident they contributed to her imaginative stories and retellings and began to contribute their own, enriching their vocabularies. Other strategies including text innovation and modelled writing were also embedded within the storytelling. The children’s oral language and literacy development showed marked development.
 
Keywords: Storytelling  Scaffolding children’s storytelling   Oral language and literacy development