by Hannah MacLellan
I remember not so long ago watching in awe as a friend’s three-year-old navigated his way through a game on an iPad at ninja-finger lightning speed. He wasn’t even potty-trained, yet somehow his brain cells had wired and rewired themselves to circumnavigate a piece of - comparatively to a potty- advanced technology.
We are watching Generation Z grow up in a world where technology is at their finger-tips and a huge and normal part of their lives and learning. This is something most of us didn’t experience ourselves at such a young age. It can sometimes (ironically) be the tutor’s own fears of technology that create a barrier to students benefitting from online intervention programs, but the reality is many students nowadays are leaps ahead when it comes to technology, as it is, simply, part of their lives.
There are all sorts of pros and cons of a young life being saturated by technology, but that’s another discussion and a very broad one at that.
In the special educational needs support world, technology does not and should not replace 1:1 live teaching input, but, as part of a support lesson, an online literacy intervention tool can be hugely beneficial to a student.
Why exactly? There are lots of reasons, but I shall concentrate on a few key ones.
Helps focus attention
Improving literacy via an online intervention program can focus attention and help students concentrate. The design of some programs is such that they force the eye onto a single activity without distractions – there is an advantage of tools that have a ‘clean’ design and don’t have pictures and flashing images. A program that gets a student working through a headset, recording their own voice for reading can really help focus attention. Students with Attention Deficit Disorder can benefit significantly from this.
Creates an independent learner
The success of an online literacy intervention program will largely depend on how independent the design of the program allows the student to become. A good program will have an intuitive navigation system, so the student can go smoothly from activity to activity. Once shown how, the student will be able to carry out an activity and self-check without having to ask the teacher for an answer.
Why is this important? Active learning is so much more effective than passive learning: I can bet my bottom dollar that the child who gets lots of help from a parent at home with their homework and gets a top grade will have learnt less than the student who gets a lower grade but did the home work by themselves. Learning is a process of trial and error and if we don’t go through that process, we don’t learn as effectively.
Gives control to the student
With independence can come the feeling of being in control. This might be a very novel feeling to some students with literacy difficulties, whose general underlying experience of education can often be more associated to feelings of panic, stress and embarrassment. With a good computer literacy program, there is no embarrassment; no being put on the spot in front of others; no panic or anxiety. The outcome? A more relaxed learning experience, which means better results and consequently a boost in confidence and self-esteem.
And so….
Provides an oasis
Many a time have I heard a teacher observe how the student, who they struggle to get to complete any kind of work that involves reading, spelling, text books and paper, will work happily away on a computer doing work that has the same outcome.
For the child who finds reading and spelling difficult, but who loves computers, a ‘cloud’ can be a comforting environment to work on literacy in private, with gentle guidance from the tutor.
Hannah worked as a Dyslexia & Literacy Specialist at Dyslexia Action for many years and now works with the Units of Sound development team. She has considerable experience working with and providing advice, training and support to schools, colleges, community centers and parents. Units of Sound has a home version, Literacy that fits, which is designed to get parents/guardians supporting their child at home without all the training that is involved with most intervention tools used in schools.
I remember not so long ago watching in awe as a friend’s three-year-old navigated his way through a game on an iPad at ninja-finger lightning speed. He wasn’t even potty-trained, yet somehow his brain cells had wired and rewired themselves to circumnavigate a piece of - comparatively to a potty- advanced technology.
We are watching Generation Z grow up in a world where technology is at their finger-tips and a huge and normal part of their lives and learning. This is something most of us didn’t experience ourselves at such a young age. It can sometimes (ironically) be the tutor’s own fears of technology that create a barrier to students benefitting from online intervention programs, but the reality is many students nowadays are leaps ahead when it comes to technology, as it is, simply, part of their lives.
There are all sorts of pros and cons of a young life being saturated by technology, but that’s another discussion and a very broad one at that.
In the special educational needs support world, technology does not and should not replace 1:1 live teaching input, but, as part of a support lesson, an online literacy intervention tool can be hugely beneficial to a student.
Why exactly? There are lots of reasons, but I shall concentrate on a few key ones.
Helps focus attention
Improving literacy via an online intervention program can focus attention and help students concentrate. The design of some programs is such that they force the eye onto a single activity without distractions – there is an advantage of tools that have a ‘clean’ design and don’t have pictures and flashing images. A program that gets a student working through a headset, recording their own voice for reading can really help focus attention. Students with Attention Deficit Disorder can benefit significantly from this.
Creates an independent learner
The success of an online literacy intervention program will largely depend on how independent the design of the program allows the student to become. A good program will have an intuitive navigation system, so the student can go smoothly from activity to activity. Once shown how, the student will be able to carry out an activity and self-check without having to ask the teacher for an answer.
Why is this important? Active learning is so much more effective than passive learning: I can bet my bottom dollar that the child who gets lots of help from a parent at home with their homework and gets a top grade will have learnt less than the student who gets a lower grade but did the home work by themselves. Learning is a process of trial and error and if we don’t go through that process, we don’t learn as effectively.
Gives control to the student
With independence can come the feeling of being in control. This might be a very novel feeling to some students with literacy difficulties, whose general underlying experience of education can often be more associated to feelings of panic, stress and embarrassment. With a good computer literacy program, there is no embarrassment; no being put on the spot in front of others; no panic or anxiety. The outcome? A more relaxed learning experience, which means better results and consequently a boost in confidence and self-esteem.
And so….
Provides an oasis
Many a time have I heard a teacher observe how the student, who they struggle to get to complete any kind of work that involves reading, spelling, text books and paper, will work happily away on a computer doing work that has the same outcome.
For the child who finds reading and spelling difficult, but who loves computers, a ‘cloud’ can be a comforting environment to work on literacy in private, with gentle guidance from the tutor.
Hannah worked as a Dyslexia & Literacy Specialist at Dyslexia Action for many years and now works with the Units of Sound development team. She has considerable experience working with and providing advice, training and support to schools, colleges, community centers and parents. Units of Sound has a home version, Literacy that fits, which is designed to get parents/guardians supporting their child at home without all the training that is involved with most intervention tools used in schools.
