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ICT and Literacy - Years 5/6
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Helen Smith, NGfL Adviser
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See also ICT Integrated Tasks for the different Year Groups
Uses of ICT to support Literacy
- Using a word processor to organise different forms of writing
- Writing for specific audiences - ability to adapt and re-draft
- Locating and reading texts in different genres
- Use of reference texts including ICT sources
- Programmable robots - framing precise instructions
National priority: shared writing
- Teaching children how to compose, with attention to sentence construction
- Teacher modelling the process: relate to what they have read.
- The teacher should write. Ask children to pick out the parts that lend themselves to, say, a suspense paragraph.
- Balance of composition, scribing skills.
- Have specific objectives in mind, to focus teaching, e.g. the use of grammar.
- Importance of oral work before written.
- Teachers are less confident in modelling, so much teaching is retrospective.
- Teach parts of 'how to write', e.g. openings, characterisation, settings.
- Practise in the twenty minutes, e.g. every three weeks. Give pupils the chance to do some extended writing.
How can ICT support the teaching of writing? What is unique about ICT as a writing medium?
In the Literacy Hour.
Make sure the overriding objectives are concerned with Literacy, not ICT. There is bound to be overlap as pupils consolidate ICT.
- Highlight main points, re-work and present
- Sentence level work - combine, re-order and change words in sentences
- Mark elements of text - words, phonemes
- ICT assists the teacher in re-capping
- Presenting outcomes in plenary - display, printout, audio tape
Children should be prepared beforehand with the ICT skills they need for the task. Otherwise, ICT takes over!
Ideas for using a word processor
- Add punctuation, capitals to a prepared text
- Highlight particular phonemes or parts of speech
- Use 'Find' to make a collection of words with particular strings
- Add adjectives, adverbs; replace 'went', 'said' etc.
- Change direct to indirect speech (and vice versa)
- Reduce a piece of text to key points only
- Change from third person to first person
- Break a poem into lines in different ways and comment on the effect
Guided writing
- The computer is a good focus for group work led by the teacher
- Emphasis on teacher modelling the writing process
- Editing a previously composed text
- Looking at a published text
ICT supports independent work
- Word banks, talking WP for pupils requiring support
- Spell check, trying alternatives
- Surface corrections are easier to make without trace
- Plan best presentation for audience
- Software to reinforce aspects of spelling and grammar
Presenting information
Many CD-ROMs and web sites are overloaded with difficult text. How can ICT be used to present factual information for ease of reading?
Use a simple sentence structure, beginning with the subject and using active verbs. Bullet points emphasise key ideas. Keep topics together.
From Sea World / Busch Gardens:
While lions are inactive up to 21 hours a day, in the darkest, coolest hours of early morning the "queens of beasts" hunt as a team to catch a communal meal.
Pride lionesses frequently enter breeding season together and later give birth at the same time which allows them to share nursing and other maternal duties.
Although only one out of four hunting events is successful, dominant males always eat first, lionesses next, and cubs scramble for scraps and leftovers.
It's not difficult to see why pupils struggled with this text! Here's a suggestion for improvement.
Use a simple sentence structure, beginning with the subject and using active verbs. Bullet points are optional, but they help to emphasise key ideas. Keep topics together:
- Lions rest for up to 21 hours a day, while the lionesses hunt for food. They go out in the darkest, coolest hours of early morning to hunt as a team. The lionesses catch food on only one out of every four hunts.
- The whole pride shares in the meal. Dominant males eat first, and lionesses eat next. Last of all, the cubs scramble for scraps and leftovers.
- Lionesses often start the breeding season together. This means that they give birth at the same time. They are able to share the work of nursing and bringing up the cubs.
Why is this text so difficult?
In Saxon times Winchester became a seat of government of Wessex and of England. Its strongest association rests with Alfred the Great, and it claims connection with the Arthurian legend.
It was the natural market place for the area's produce. The Itchen provided the means to power grain and fulling mills and to transport the end products.
How can the information be better presented?
How did the river help Winchester?
- Water mills were built over the river. The flow of the water turned the wheels.
- Farmers brought wheat to the mills. Grains were pressed between the heavy millstones. As the water wheel turned, the wheat was ground into flour.
- Weavers also brought woollen cloth to the fulling mills. The cloth was washed and pressed to give it a strong finish.
- Boats transported the cloth and sacks of flour to other towns.
How does multimedia support learning? .
- Information is presented in different ways.
- On its own, multimedia does not convert information into knowledge.
- Pupils must have a clear understanding of the aims of the inquiry.
- A well-designed CD-ROM offers signposts, guiding pupils through the content.
How do CD-ROMs differ from books?
- Text is not continuous.
- There may be hypertext links within the text.
- There is no geographical sense of location.
- You never know whether you've 'read it all'.
- Keyword searching is often needed.
- Text and images may be saved on disc.
- There are issues of copyright.
What needs to be taught?
- Can pupils identify keywords?
- Can they judge whether the information is relevant to the inquiry?
- Can they plan how it will be used?
- Can they incorporate selections into their own reworked ideas?
Taking notes from CD-ROM .
- Children recap (with the teacher or with each other) what they have found out.
- They write key words as reminders.
- They copy any new vocabulary or difficult spellings.
- They record all that they need to develop their notes back into full text.
- Well-focused questions help, especially when faced with difficult text
Web sites to support the teaching of Literacy
Your CLA agreement does not cover electronic copies. Authors may have given permission for their work to be published on the Web. However, copying and pasting into your own teaching materials are not covered.
National Literacy Framework with additional teaching resources
Stories from the Web
BBC ReviseWise
Kids on the Net: publishing children's writing, with projects and advice
CLEO Teachers
For more Literacy teaching resources:
ICT Teachers
Primary Resources
