Dr. Casey's Reading Room

Orange County CUE Conference 1/20/07

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Todays Students: Powered Up for Success

Global Communications

Early Literacy Telecommunication Exchange Pilot Project is the first integrated multimedia, multilingual web based system for young children. It is open and evolutionary; young children 4 and over discover and use the written language by creating stories and drawings and share them with other young children across the world;

This exciting global project involves classrooms in four countries; France, USA, Spain, Andorra with potential for many more.
Research over the past fifteen years working with children and computers has brought us new insights into how children learn to write and read in both their first and second language.
We have discovered strategies to help teachers make the maximum use of the new technologies and empower all the children in their classroom.

The collaboration now going on among early literacy classrooms worldwide has expanded our professional community and increased our level of literacy knowledge.

Key goals:
1. Early Literacy telecommunications will allow young children to discover and use the written language in its communication function from the start;
2. Prevent illiteracy and school failure;
3. Encourage the use of technology from the start for writing and reading;
4. Develop international understanding from a young age by introducing a foreign language and enabling cross- cultural exchanges,
5. Enhance interactive collaborative projects between classes located in different parts of the world,
6. Create an E-Learning community of children, their teachers as well as other faculty members and parents.

U.S. Progress

Computers are in the classroom.
However screens are often black, and unused or used as a reward or game only.

Language Processing happens when students think and write directly into the computer daily.

For more information on project, workshops or consulting or to find out about how your school or classroom can participate contact:

Dr. Jean Casey, U.S. coordinator
E-mail: jeancasey@aol.com
http://www.csulb.edu/~casey/
blog: www.casey.com/jean

Dr. Rachel Cohen, Director
96 Rue du Chateau
92100 Boulogne
France
E-mail: rachel.cohen@wanadoo.fr
Tel et Fax: 33/(0) 148 25 03 19

For more information: http://www.csulb.edu/~jmcasey

Success for your students
Creating the Early Literacy Classroom:

The computer when used as a writing tool offers success to all learners.

1) Exploration- Initially students explore the keyboard and type random letters. (this exploration is an essential learning stage.) As they type a key, they see it, hear it and are actively involved in the process of teaching the letters to themselves. (Alphabet recognition has been shown to be an indicator: http:// of reading success.)

2) Encoding, copying known words- Next the students type their name and words familiar to them like Mom...Dad...Ruff....etc.; they also look around their environment for print and type that print into the computer and hear it spoken and see its form and continually search for meaning and patterns in the letters and words they create on the screen.

3) Writing explosion-Finally students begin to put their own thought together with all these words and the explosion of literacy from one sentence on the screen to long stories occurs very rapidly. At this stage the learner needs to hear the teacher read many and varied examples of good literature.

Casey, Jean M. coming out in 2008: Technology in the Twenty-first Century Literacy Classroom: Meeting the
>> Needs of Powered up Students
Casey, Jean M. (2000) Creating the Early Literacy Classroom, Casey, Jean M. (2000) Early Literacy: The Empowerment of Technology, Rev. Edition (2000), Libraries Unlimited, Englewood, CO. to order books: e-mail jeancasey@aol.com or WWW.LU.COM
Casey’s Software Suggestions:

Your goal will be to empower your students through Language Processing, taking their own language experiences and writing them on the computer.

Recommended Software:
Kidworks Deluxe and BookBy You from Knowledge Adventure
http://www.knowledgeadventure.com/booksbyyou/
Write Outloud from Don Johnston Company
Also these web sites:
http://atto.buffalo.edu/registered/ATBasics/Curriculum/Reading/talkingWord.php#
http://www.cricksoft.com/us/products/clicker/
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/wiggleworks/classic/index.htm
http://www.waterford.org/index.jsp
http://www.seussville.com/games/storymaker/story_maker.html try this one out!
Or Google: Talking Word processors

Powered up Students of Today

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]]> At a conference the key note speaker said he interviewed a boy who said he had to Power-down when he went to school.
The generation today starting at age 4 are learning through technology daily, what happens when they enter a school classroom designed for the industrial revolution with rows and fill-in worksheets? There is not a match between the world they live in and the school that is supposed to prepare them for it.
We as educators must make a difference, make your voice heard. Insist that our classrooms must have the technology available for each child to be empowered in their writing and reading.

Early Literacy

First-grader Dillon Hayen, 6, concentrates as he listens, reads and writes during a lesson in his school's Writing to Read Laboratory at Hayden Elementary School (Blue Ribbon School) in Midway City California..The Achievement Gap-According to the 2003 NAEP results almost 90% of first graders who struggle with a slow learning pace continue to lag behind in fourth grade. On target students typically start Kindergarten with 3000 hours of pre-literacy activities in the home. At-risk students however start with just 50-250 hours of the same activities (Adams 1990). The need to begin literacy teaching from age 3-8 is essential. The talking word-processor can make a difference for all young children. Writing to Read, Waterford Early Reading Program, Dr. Peet's Talking Textwriter and Write Outloud are all names of software products that can be used to bring early literacy to all children.

]]> OceanView School District is a fine example. KidWorks Deluxe from Knowledge Adventure is the best talking word processor for ages 4-10. I am hoping to get it to be available with the revision of my Early Literacy books. Please comment here on how you have used the computer with speech with the children you have worked with.

princesscard

princesscard
Originally uploaded by jeancasey.

From "The Scientist in The Crib" by Gopnik, Meltzoff, Kuhl. "It turns out that even very young babies make some assumptions about causal connections between events." Looks like our 9 month old Princess senses the importance of the credit card to keep her in her beautiful pink tutu! How do children really learn? " When we study children, we are studying ourselves: when we see how they develop, we are seeing how we became what we are. Babies think, reason, learn, and know as well as act and feel. Babies' minds are at least as rich, as abstract, as complex, as powerful as ours." How doe this impact what we as teachers and parents do when interacting with young children?

ECEThe controlpanel

ECEThe controlpanel
Originally uploaded by jeancasey.

Nine month old twins, boy and girl but look it's the boy who already has control of the TV remote!
What influences are genetic or environment? Are their gender differences in early childhood development? What roles do nature and nurture provide in a child's life? In a risk free environments how can adults foster learning? In what kind of environment is learning stifled? Think about it?

PBS Ready to Learn Conference

Today at the PBS Ready to Learn Conference in Arlington, Virginia, I gave this presentation titled Preparing Educators for the Millennium.

Hooked on Books

Certain children's books like the Harry Potter Series, the Captain UnderPants Series, Dr. Seuss book's, Judith Viorst's book's seem to captivate young readers and start them on the road to being lifelong readers. As teachers our job is to Hook our students on books. So let's use this blog space to share books that we have found have worked, made a difference with a child, hooked him/her on books. Tell your story of a student and the book that made a difference here. Hurty Feelings by Helen Lester is "A winning story that perfectly captures a preschooler's fears of independence" My Hippie Grandmother a fine book about grandchild/grandmother relationships by Reeve Lindbergh both of these books are excellent for preschool or kindergarten.

Online Students

Through the years that I have taught online reading courses, I have found that a certain type of student is successful in an online course. The student must be self-motivated to work on materials weekly and respond on the discussion board. The student needs to communicate with peers online, conduct readings and research online and use classroom observations and CD-ROM viewing as a basis for reflection and written contributions.

]]> Students who procrastinate, need face to face explanations and spend minimal time reflecting and responding on the computer are better served in a traditional weekly face to face campus course.