Janet Soler

Computer conferencing with access to a 'guest expert' in the professional development of special educational needs coordinators

This article describes and outlines the implications of a one-year case study of students’ use of the computer conferencing facility of a postgraduate module for special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs) at a distance-learning institution. This facility incorporates a virtual space for a ‘guest expert’. The aim of the study was to inform future development of courses at a time when computer conferencing was just becoming widespread in the university concerned. Quantitative data associated with the volume and patterns of individual participation in the computer conference were collected as well as interview material from students, tutors and the ‘guest expert’. Findings from the study indicate that computer conferencing has the potential to facilitate the professional development of teachers as reflective practitioners and researchers. However, they also point to a number of barriers to student participation that must be addressed. These include access issues related to time constraints, unfamiliarity with the medium, and lack of confidence in expressing personal views in a public arena. A major conclusion drawn from this study is that it may be appropriate to consider future developments which incorporate the assumption that, in computer conferences of large professional development courses, students are much more likely to participate through reading rather than making personal contributions to conference discussions. This opens the possibility of reconceptualising the role of the ‘guest expert’ as two or more discussants with relevant expertise dialoguing with each other while students follow a threaded discussion and/or make personal contributions.

`To be or not to be?': The politics of teaching phonics in England and New Zealand

There is currently intense national and international interest in which particular methods of teaching reading are the most effective for early literacy acquisition. The great bulk of research work that is cited in these debates, however, focuses almost exclusively on the evaluation and comparison of particular programmes underpinned either by phonics or whole language approaches (Soler and Openshaw, 2006). Despite the fact that policy makers and literacy educators around the world are able to draw upon a common body of literacy research, there is a huge variation in the extent to which phonics is adopted as the major programme in different national contexts. This article provides a comparative study of the widely differing reception accorded the teaching of phonics in England and New Zealand respectively.

The socio-political context of the development of Reading Recovery in New Zealand and England

This article uses the example of Reading Recovery (RR) to argue that those who engage in reading debates should focus not only on which reading programme appears to match desirable goals in childrens literacy development but also strive for a more balanced appreciation of the complex socio-political context of debates within which reading failure and its various remedies remain contestable. In turn this will lead to a more critical and more academically sophisticated scrutiny of literacy and its diverse purposes. The development of Reading Recovery in New Zealand and England illustrates how it is not simply the efficacy of individual programmes, but a combination of that efficacy and the political context at the micro- and macro-levels that establishes, expands and eventually destabilizes new reading initiatives.

The Early Literacy Support Programme (ELS) and the blend and clash of national educational policy ideologies in England

In this article we consider the development of key policy issues in England, related to the area of literacy learning and children who are considered to have difficulties in literacy in their early years. We trace the tensions which have arisen since the 1980s between different policies and practices in these areas. These tensions include pressures to raise standards of literacy and to support children with difficulties, and the establishment of a prescribed curriculum for young children. In particular, we focus on the blend and clash of national educational policy ideals in areas related to literacy and children who have been categorised as having ‘special educational needs’, and how these have influenced the development of the Early Literacy Support Programme (ELS) (DfES, 2001a; 2001b). This is a programme set up by the Department for Education and Science in England for children in Year 1, aged 5 to 6 years old.

Past and present technocratic solutions to teaching literacy: implications for New Zealand primary teachers and literacy programmes

Abstract The late 1990s have seen a resurgence of the arguments for a skills-focused literacy instruction programme. This article explores the New Zealand-based public and professional debates surrounding the promotion of a technocratic approach to literacy instruction during the 1940s and 1950s, and the reoccurrence of the reading debate in late 1990s. In the early stages of both literacy crises, the professional competency of education officials and primary teachers was attacked by business interests and their political allies. The aftermath of the earlier crisis highlights the failure of this mechanistic and ‘culture neutral’ view of literacy instruction to cater for Maori children. The outcomes of the earlier debate signals a need avoid a similar conclusion to the current debate by adopting a broader approach to literacy instruction in the new millennium if language and literacy instruction programmes are to cater for complex cultural contexts, and the changing technological environments

The dyslexia debate

they can produce point the way towards a future where simple and one-size-fits-all models of teacher experience are not the answer. The models explored here take different approaches to the balance between theory and practice. Some, such as Teach First and Teach for America, emphasise classroom-based experience. Others, as proposed by contributors such as Grumet, question why we are not encouraging our teacher education students to engage in a broad range of studies such as economics, politics, public policy, urban planning or public health so that their conceptual base is broadened to allow them, as teachers, to ‘break through the myopia of their schools to make common cause with each other and with groups in their communities’ (118). The message we are left with is that there is no one favoured model of teacher experience, but that any models we adopt must take account of the complex political, social, economic and philosophical issues that underpin teaching, learning and schooling in the current era.

Reading Recovery as an Example of Early Intervention in Early Years Literacy in England.

The ways in which the Reading Recovery Programme supports children with reading difficulties is considered in this article within the context of the national development of the programme in England which began in the 1990s. We go on to describe the implementation of this early intervention programme in one London LEA. We then compare the Early Literacy Support Programme and the Reading Recovery Programme and consider how the two approaches attempt to raise standards of literacy, and support childrens literacy experiences in the early years.