Incorporating Multi-Modal Learning and Literacy Development in Early Childhood Education
To,
The Nursery Manager,
New horizons childcare,
61, Churchwood street,
London, UK
Respected Sir/Madam,
I am writing this letter to emphasize on the importance of including multimodal approach in education children during early childhood settings. I would also mention that music and drama as art forms provides a better approach in developing liberal communication among children. I would provide a critical analysis of PLA program compared to Grasha’s model of learning among adults.
Incorporating multimodal learning approach in early childhood education proves to be beneficial for children to learn and remember easily, thereby developing a holistic environment around them. Literacy skill development forms an essential part of children’s education. Interdisciplinary education leads to developing literacy skills among children; integration and interaction various disciplines and including art in literacy development helps children to learn better and remember easily in an innovative style.
Various researches have been performed on children literacy development with inclusion of interdisciplinary approach in various art forms; music, drama and visual art representations have been performed which showed positive outcomes in children with better verbal communication development. I would explain taking Play and Learn through Arts (PLA) program which has been implemented in early child settings to support liberal communication development.
The PLA program was an innovative approach designed to integrate interdisciplinary activities through various art forms. The program aimed to support literacy development involving art activities to promote a holistic environment where children would perform art activities according to their choice. Children would actively participate in the art activities and collaborate with the program practitioners. A liberal environment would be created due to these art activities which facilitate communication development in early childhood. The basis of PLA program was to develop a teaching methodology with a focus on social interaction skills. Social interactions are important in literacy development and improving knowledge skills (Theodotou 2018). This program was different in that no specific art forms were selected; children could in dependently select and perform any art activity. This enables development of in dependent thinking ability among early children. The children and practitioner collaborated on their performing activity steps. There was no correct or ready-made solution based on this approach; this facilitated in dependent performing ability in children.
The PLA program involves five steps to implement the innovative approach. In the beginning of the program, the children will select a topic according to their interests. The children thereafter will select an art form and investigate on the selected topic. This can be a short drama; the practitioner acts as a facilitator of the art form and the children will discuss about their feelings, ideas or perceptions about the drama (Theodotou 2017). In the next step of emergent literacy, the practitioner acts as the sole listener to the expressions and discussions of the children. The children takes a leading role in this step and develop independent thinking on the topic through collaboration with the practitioner. The next step is the longest one where the active roles are allocated to implement on the decided activities. Finally the practitioner and children reflect on these processes; questions like what the children learnt through these activities, what help they provided to their friends during the activities, what else could be done as a better approach are indicative of learning.
The Play and Learn through Arts (PLA) Programme
The PLA program was implemented in a school as a part of weekly activities. The children took paintings as a selected art form. The implementation of PLA program resulted in progress in literacy development and improved social interaction. Learning through painting s as an art form improved social communication, creativity and problem solving abilities in children. The children developed flexibility and social skills like cooperativity, conflict resolution, sharing and creativity (Theodotou 2017). This play associated learning approach emphasized on remembering facts and lessons, which was achieved in preschool where the PLA program was implemented.
I would therefore say that, early learning should be fostered through multimodal approaches in a multimodal environment. Multimodal learning involves inclusion of various modes or information related codes to provide learning. Modes can be both verbal and nonverbal; printed texts or words act as verbal modes and pictorial representations, animations, act as non-verbal modes (Bezemer and Kress 2015). Sensory receptors (auditory and visual) act as modalities to receive the modes. Therefore, to define multimodal environment, I would emphasize that learning environment needs to include both verbal and non-verbal modes to promote social interaction between children (Blikstein 2013). The multimodal environments are interactive in terms of navigating, searching and controlling interactions.
I would present Grasha’s model of learning styles. Grasha’s model is focussed on learning approaches for adult education through designing instructional approaches. Grasha’s model of learning emphasizes on the preference of learning approach among adults and college students. This model is focussed on the cognitive and behavioral effects of students towards learning approach (Limongelli et al., 2013). The Grasha’s model is mainly focussed on the learning attitudes of students and their attitudes towards instructional approaches by peers and teachers. This model studies the student’s behavioral attitudes towards classroom activities and teaching methods.
The Grasha’s model discusses six learning styles which are competitive, collaborative, avoidant, participant, dependent and independent styles. In competitive learning style, students tend to fair better in their learning skills in comparison to other students. Thus they try to come out as competitive in their course of learning. Class activities, group performances are developed which show that the students dominate and develop as leaders during learning development (Baneshi et al. 2014). In collaborative style of learning, students tend to perform through sharing of creative ideas with teachers and their peers. They take active participation in small group projects and group discussions. This results in creative learning and developing individual abilities to solve problems. Avoidant style of learning shows that students are reluctant to participate in any learning skill development approach. They tend to remain uninterested in classroom teaching (Bomer 2015). They show a dislike for enthusiastic instructional approaches and teaching methods. Participant style of learning involves students who enjoy attending classroom teaching, actively takes part in teaching lectures and learn through discussions and lecture sessions. In dependent learning style, students are dependent on their teachers and peers to learn from their teaching methods. The teachers appear as authoritative figures to these students; students tend to follow as their teachers guide them through learning course. In independent learning style, the students prefer to think independently and work on self-designed projects. They prefer to perform independent study approach and take as much as they require from the teacher’s instructional method of teaching (Kurilovas, Kubilinskiene and Dagiene 2014). They are confident and prefers to take up self-paced independent assignments. This fosters critical thinking ability in these students.
The Five Steps of the PLA Programme
I would therefore say that both PLA program and Grasha’s model of learning have similarities as well as differences in their designed approach. Both are similar in that they are intended to develop learning skills and knowledge enhancement in multimodal learning approach (Gregory et al. 2013). Both PLA program and Grasha’s model of learning incorporates multimodalities in learning skill development among students. Creating interactive multimodal environment is central to both PLA and Grasha’s model. However, among the differences between PLA and Grasha’s model, PLA program enable learning development and communication skill development among early childhood settings. PLA focusses on verbal and non-verbal modes of information so as to improve literacy development among children. Grasha’s model of learning focusses on the cognitive and behavioral attitudes of college students towards learning styles. Grasha’s model of learning emphasizes on the student attitudes rather than the teacher’s teaching methods, whereas the PLA program focusses on the modes of teaching approach like pictorial representation, art activities like drama, paintings, music.
I would like to say that PLA program implemented among early childhood settings has a better impact on childhood learning process. Their literacy development and social interaction skills are improved to a much greater extent through various art forms of learning activities. According to my perception, learning development during early childhood settings enables easier and faster development of learning and communication abilities compared to Grasha’s model where student’s learning attitudes are emphasised. I would therefore like to say that multimodal learning approaches should be incorporated during early childhood settings to improve their learning measures. Early childhood learning through art activities have a better impact on children to develop independent critical thinking approach while taking up independent assignments as per my thinking (Sigrist et al. 2013). I feel that learning development among adults therefore fosters a coping ability in a competitive manner enhancing leadership among students. Therefore, I would like to say that PLA program in early childhood settings has a beneficial impact on a child as a whole compared to Grasha’s model of learning which emphasized how students approach towards learning measures.
Yours sincerely,
Student
References
Baneshi, A.R., Tezerjani, M.D. and Mokhtarpour, H., 2014. Grasha-Richmann college students’ learning styles of classroom participation: role of gender and major. Journal of advances in medical education & professionalism, 2(3), p.103.
Bezemer, J. and Kress, G., 2015. Multimodality, learning and communication: A social semiotic frame. Routledge.
Blikstein, P., 2013, April. Multimodal learning analytics. In Proceedings of the third international conference on learning analytics and knowledge (pp. 102-106). ACM.
Bomer, R., 2015. Literacy classrooms: Making minds out of multimodal material. Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts, Volume II: A Project of the International Reading Association, p.353.
Gregory, E., Choudhury, H., Ilankuberan, A., Kwapong, A. and Woodham, M., 2013. Practice, performance and perfection: learning sacred texts in four faith communities in London.
Kurilovas, E., Kubilinskiene, S. and Dagiene, V., 2014. Web 3.0–Based personalisation of learning objects in virtual learning environments. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, pp.654-662.
Limongelli, C., Lombardi, M., Marani, A. and Sciarrone, F., 2013, July. A teaching-style based social network for didactic building and sharing. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 774-777). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Sigrist, R., Rauter, G., Riener, R. and Wolf, P., 2013. Augmented visual, auditory, haptic, and multimodal feedback in motor learning: a review. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 20(1), pp.21-53.
Theodotou, E., 2017. Examining literacy development holistically using the Play and Learn through the Arts (PLA) programme: a case study. Early Child Development and Care, pp.1-12.
Theodotou, E., 2017. Literacy as a social practice in the early years and the effects of the arts: a case study. International Journal of Early Years Education, 25(2), pp.143-155.
Theodotou, E., 2018. Using different art forms to investigate the impact on children’s involvement in literacy activities. Education 3-13, pp.1-15.
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