In search of finalizing and validating digital learning tools supporting all in acquiring full literacy
Ikusi/ Ireki
Data
2023Egilea
Lyytinen, Heikki
Louleli, Natalia
Lyytinen H and Louleli N (2023) In search of finalizing and validating digital learning tools supporting all in acquiring full literacy. Front. Psychol. 14:1142559. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1142559
Frontiers in Psychology
Frontiers in Psychology
Laburpena
Unlike many believe, accurate and fluent basic reading skill (ie. to decode text) is
not enough for learning knowledge via reading. More than 10 years ago a digital
learning game supporting the first step towards full literacy, i.e., GraphoGame
(GG) was developed by the first author with his colleagues in the University of
Jyväskylä, Finland. It trains the acquisition of basic reading skills, i.e., learning to
sound out written language. Nowadays, when almost everyone in the world has
an opportunity to use this GG, it is time to start supporting the acquisition of
full literacy (FL). FL is necessary for efficient learning in school, where reading
the schoolbooks successfully is essential. The present plan aims to help globally
almost all who read whatever orthography to start from the earliest possible
grade during which children have learned the mastery of the basic reading skill to
immediately continue taking the next step to reach FL. Unlike common beliefs,
support of FL is mostly needed among those who read transparent orthographies
(reading by the majority of readers of alphabetic writings) which are easier to sound
out due to consistency between spoken and written units at grapheme-phoneme
level. This makes readers able to sound any written item which is pronounceable
with only a little help of knowing what it means. Therefore, children tend to
become inclined to not pay enough attention to the meaning but concentrate
on decoding the text letter-by-letter. They had to learn from the beginning to
approach the goal of reading, mediation of the meaning of the text. Readers of
nontransparent English need to attend morphology for correct sounding. The
continuing fall of OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
results, e.g., in Finland reveals that especially boys are not any more interested
in reading outside school which would be natural way to reach the main goal of
reading, FL. What could be a better way to help boys towards FL than motivating
them to play computer games which requires reading comprehension. The
new digital ComprehensionGame designed by the first author motivates pupils
to read in effective way by concurrently elevating their school achievements by
connecting the training to daily reading lessons. This article describes our efforts
to elaborate and validate this new digital tool by starting from populations of
learners who need it most in Africa and in Finland.