Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T20:12:53.990Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

Chapter 5 - Multiliteracies: growing the next generation of readers

from Part 1 - Literacy acquisition: the child, the family and diversity in the modern world

Claire McLachlan
Affiliation:
Massey University, Auckland
Tom Nicholson
Affiliation:
Massey University, Auckland
Ruth Fielding-Barnsley
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Louise Mercer
Affiliation:
Queensland University of Technology
Sarah Ohi
Affiliation:
Deakin University, Victoria
Get access

Summary

Chapter objectives

  1. To define and examine the concept of multiliteracies.

  2. To consider the notion of literacy in a changing world.

  3. To reconceptualise literacy in the classroom.

This chapter explores multiliteracies as part of examining how children come to centres and schools with diverse literacy experiences, which may or may not match the literacy environment of the centre or school. The chapter encourages students and teachers to reconsider how the nature of readers and the contexts in which reading occurs are changing with the advent of technology. Ideas to support an ever-increasing array of text types and multimodal applications for various ages in the classroom are investigated.

What are multiliteracies?

The term multiliteracies is used to capture the complexities of the range of types of texts in which gestural, spatial, verbal and visual elements are included and which use a wide range of communication channels that inl uence people’s literate practices (New London Group 1996; Makin, Jones Diaz & McLachlan 2007). People today live in an increasingly globalised world, in which finance, global capital, trade, information, communication and media technologies merge across economic, political, cultural and social i elds, all requiring understandings of specific forms of literacy. People of all ages, including children, are drawn into globalisation, consumerism and interaction with technology, media and communication systems. Globalisation has led to shifting conceptions of what constitutes literacy and this shift in thinking has important implications for teaching the next generation of children. New technologies emerge daily, bringing with them new everyday functional community literacies, such as changes in the internet, email, MP3s, mobile phones, electronic maps, signs and advertising. The internet, according to an advertisement on New Zealand television at the moment, has been in New Zealand for more than 20 years; in this period it has brought about enormous changes in the ways people connect, interact and communicate.

Type
Chapter
Information
Literacy in Early Childhood and Primary Education
Issues, Challenges, Solutions
, pp. 65 - 81
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

http://edtalks.org
http://www.educate.ece.govt.nz/learning/exploringPractice/ICT/PedagogyAndICT.aspx
http://www.readingonline.org/international/inter_index.asp?HREF=/international/turbill4/index.html
http://tonitwiss.com/mobile

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×