I am really intrigued by digital literacy skills. How do students develop digital literacy skills? What is the teacher’s role in developing these skills? Is there a way to measure growth in digital literacy skills or online reading comprehension?
This school year, I developed a survey (pre-test) that wasn’t for a grade to assess the skills of a group of 5th grade students. The survey included the following skills: creating keywords, using search results, website features, reliability, author info, fact versus opinion, synthesizing and citing, and validity. Based on the results of this survey, I grouped the students into guided reading groups that reflected consistency in both online reading, as measured by this survey, and offline reading through DRA scores.
The idea of embedding digital literacy skills in guided reading came from Developing Digital Literacy Skills Through Guided Reading Instruction (Van Allen, 2016). I modified the classroom example from this article to develop my own structure that better meets the needs of my students. My generic structure, thus far, will be:
- Pose a question
- Generate keywords
- Use search engine to find websites
- Synthesize information, answer question, cite sources
- Publish findings
This will look differently from week to week as I scaffold the process for my students. For example, in week 1, I will be the one posing the question. We will work together as a team this week to generate keywords, use a search engine, synthesize information, and publish our findings.
I plan to use content as appropriate from Teaching the New Literacies of Online Reading Comprehension, Teacher’s Activity Guide (Coiro, 2014), the ReadWriteThink lesson plan Hoax or No Hoax? Strategies for Online Comprehension and Evaluation, and the Google Search Education Lesson Plans. I am using The Fontas & Pinnell Literacy Continuum to ensure that my students are still receiving the guided reading support they need.