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Using Technology to Teach Reading and Writing

Using Technology to Teach Reading and Writing. Dr. Hsin-chou Huang St. John’s University April 16, 2008. Background and Rationale. Why reading? an essential skill to learn (Anderson, 2003). What should reading be?

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Using Technology to Teach Reading and Writing

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  1. Using Technology to Teach Reading and Writing Dr. Hsin-chou Huang St. John’s University April 16, 2008

  2. Background and Rationale • Why reading? • an essential skill to learn (Anderson, 2003). • What should reading be? • an active and fluent process where readers interact with the text to construct meaning (Grabe, 1991, Grabe and Stroller, 2002) • interactive where bottom-up and top-down processing work at the same time • bottom-up: word recognition, knowledge of syntactic structure, fluency in processing words, sentences and discourse cues • top-down: applying background knowledge, inferencing, and predicting

  3. Component Skill Approach and Technology Integration • Component skill approach (Grabe, 1991) • automatic recognition skills • vocabulary and structural knowledge • formal discourse structure knowledge • content/world background • synthesis and evaluation skills • metacognitive knowledge skills • Technology integration (Butler-Pascoe & Wiburg, 2003).

  4. Automatic recognition skills • What? • the ability that readers can identify letters and words without being aware of the process • Ways to activate automatic access to lexical items • raising phonemic awareness; teaching English sounds, alphabet letters and principles • rate building lessons • timed-reading activities • paced-reading activities • read-alouds in groups and pairs, and a range of rereading activities (Birch, 1998, 2003; Grabe & Stroller, 2002). • How can technology enhance recognition skills and increase reading speed? • Read Please software (2003) • Yoshida (2003) • http://www.manythings.org/vocabulary/games/i/words.php?f=days_of_the_week

  5. Vocabulary and structural knowledge • What is vocabulary knowledge? • Vocabulary knowledge is a critical feature of reading ability (Koda, 1989; Nation & Coady, 1988; Stanovich, 1986) • Knowledge of a new word (Laufer, 1997:141) • pronunciation and spelling • word structure (i.e. free morpheme, common deviations of the word and inflections) • syntactic pattern of the word • meaning at referential, affective and pragmatic levels • lexical associations of the word, including synonymy, antonym, and hyponymy • common collocations

  6. Vocabulary knowledge How can technology facilitate vocabulary development? • Electronic dictionaries with multimedia features • The Internet Picture Dictionary • Live ABC Picture Dictionary • Marriam-Webster • Yahoo.com • Cambridge Online Dictionary • Lingonets (http://www.lingonet.com/web/eng/products/prod_lpe.php ) • Concordancers • Virtual Language Center at Hong Kong Polytechnic University • Collocation Explorer • TOTALrecall

  7. Lingonetshttp://www.lingonet.com/web/eng/products/prod_lpe.php(freeware), Lingonets.Lexical gapfill puzzles to promote learning of word groups associated by common setting or situation (thematic clusters). Recall is prompted by category labels, and students can get help from synonyms, definitions and typical sentence contexts. A password (available by e-mail) is needed to start the browser, and fifty or so puzzles can be downloaded. • Source: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/1-6-6-2.html

  8. Concordancer • (a) Monolingual English concordancer : • 英文單語用語索引程式，像是Virtual Language Center的索引系統 • http://vlc.polyu.edu.hk/ • (b) Bilingual Chinese-English Concordancer: • 中英文雙語用語索引，例如TotalRecall http://candle.cs.nthu.edu.tw/totalrecall/totalrecall/totalrecall.aspx?funcID=1 • (c) Collocation retrieval program: • 搭配詞查詢系統，例如 Tango http://candle.cs.nthu.edu.tw/collocation/webform2.aspx?funcID=9(d) Collocation Checker: • 查詢搭配詞使用是否有錯誤 • http://candle.cs.nthu.edu.tw/vntango/

  9. Exercise: • 中文的「利用」只有一個詞，但是英文的對應可不止是use一個字而已喔。(Tool: TotalRecall) • 身歷其境 • Concordancer activity: conjunctions (http://oregonstate.edu/dept/eli/march1997.html) • Remember vs. Remind http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/conc_01.htm • http://www.geocities.com/vance_stevens/concordx.htm • Collocation Checker http://candle.cs.nthu.edu.tw/vntango/ (Make album?) • Tango http://candle.cs.nthu.edu.tw/collocation/webform2.aspx?funcID=9 (develop vs. 拓展) • Other questions? (personnel, employment, position, job, work)

  10. Structural Knowledge • What? • Grammatical structures provide readers important information about how to decode the texts. • How can technology assist grammatical knowledge in reading? • games that focus on a few grammatical points  comprehensive interactive grammar software that contains all major grammar structures. • Focus on Grammar • Azar Interactive • Grammar exchange →games (See fun with Grammar). • English Your Way • Grammar exercises  The Grammar Help page at and Grammar Safari

  11. Structural Sites • Guide to Grammar and Writing http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ • 英文基礎文法http://www.npc.edu.hk/staff/~ngtungying/english_grammar/ • Hot potato exercise http://testweb.sju.edu.tw/jo/reading/cultural_reading/food/activity/activity4/index.htm • The Educational Division of CNN and Turner Broadcasting http://learning.turner.com/

  12. Formal discourse knowledge • Knowing how a text is organized influences the comprehension of the text • Good readers make better use of text organization than poor readers • L1 reading research shows that readers who can follow the text’s basic organization can do better in recall (Grabe & Stroller, 2002) • Semantic mapping • connecting readers’ understanding of the text in a global way • graphic presentations of one’s ideas, thoughts or attitudes towards a main concept • How can technology facilitate the understanding of English rhetorical patterns? • models of rhetorical structures, such as Purdue Writing Lab, and Guide to Grammar and Writing • semantic mapping tools, such as IHMP Cmap Tools or Inspiration

  13. Content and Background knowledge • Activating readers’ knowledge of the subject matter and cultural aspect of the content contributes to better reading comprehension and recall. • Readers can comprehend and recall texts of their own culture more easily than texts based on unfamiliar and remote cultures despite their equal syntactic and rhetorical complexity (Steffensen, Joag-Dev, & Anderson, 1979). • How can technology provide cultural and content background knowledge? • Hammerly (1986: 513): culture means “the total way of life of a people,” → informational, behavioral and achievement cultures. • Online newspapers and broadcast network informational • editorials on cultural behavior  understanding of behavioral culture, • virtual tools of art galleries  achievement cultural understanding (Lafford& Lafford, 1997).

  14. Content and Schema Knowledge • Kids Domain http://www.kidsdomain.com/kids.html • Eduhound website http://www.eduhound.com/ • Holidays http://www.eduhound.com/cat.cfm?subj=Holidays • CNNSF http://www.literacynet.org/cnnsf/ • USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/

  15. Synthesis and evaluation • Fluent readers are able to evaluate information and synthesize it with other sources of knowledge when they are tying to comprehend a text (Grabe, 1991). • How can technology encourage students to make good use of synthesis and evaluation strategies? • The hyperlinking nature of online reading materials can be an asset to train synthesis and evaluation strategies in reading. • the most crucial set of electronic literacy skills is knowing how to navigate, search for information, critically evaluate the information on the spot and interpret findings (Shetzer & Warchauer, 2000). • MathStar site (http://mathstar.nmsu.edu ) • Reading-writing: knowledge construction (Lin, 2002)

  16. Metacognitive skills • What? • “Metacognition”—thinking about thinking (Anderson, 2002) • knowledge about cognition and self-regulation of cognition” (Grabe, 1991) • When L2 readers researched and reflected critically on their own learning strategies, they increased their metacognitive awareness and control of their reading (Auerbach and Paxton, 1997) • How can technology foster metacognition? • Self-monitor and self-evaluate their reading progress • Reading speed • Comprehension evaluation record • Write in electronic learning logs

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