Margot Filipenko mfilipenkotelus'net University of British Columbia

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Transforming Early Childhood Curriculum Through
Inquiry and Informational Literacy
Margot Filipenko (mfilipenko_at_telus.net)Universit
y of British Columbia
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(No Transcript)
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What is Inquiry?

• Inquiry is a dynamic process of being open to
  wonder and puzzlement and coming to know and
  understand the world. As such, it is a stance
  that pervades all aspects of life and is
  essential to the way in which knowledge is
  created. Inquiry is based on the belief that
  understanding is constructed in the process of
  people working and conversing together as they
  pose and solve the problems, make discoveries and
  rigorously testing the discoveries that arise in
  the course of shared activity.

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Schools ought to be places of robust inquiry
that

• engage students in meaningful, purposeful, worthy
  work.
• respect and cultivate the dispositions that all
  children bring with them when they first walk
  through our doors.
• respect and cultivate the ability of all children
  to think-with their words, their drawings, their
  bodies, their heads and their hearts.
• help students engage with, and understand,
  difficult matters.
• help students uncover things that have been
  hidden, and bring to life brand new questions,
  ideas and abilities.
• require teachers to co-create meaningful,
  authentic learning tasks and activities with
  students that lead to deep understanding.

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The role of the Teacher and Teacher Librarian in
the Inquiry Curriculum

• In the inquiry classroom, the teacher and teacher
  librarian's role is less involved with direct
  teaching and more involved with modeling,
  guiding, and facilitating.

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Teacher librarians role in the Inquiry curriculum

• The teacher librarian's role is more complex,
  since it is concerned with providing materials
  and maintaining conditions in which children can
  build understanding.

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• They show children how to use new tools or
  materials
• They guide students in taking more and more
  responsibility in investigations
• They help students design and carry out skills of
  recording, documents and drawing conclusions.

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Model how to use the features of information
books

• Table of Contents
• Index
• Glossary
• Graphs, etc.

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Show children how information is organized in an
information book

• Descriptive (author describes a topic by listing
  characteristics, features and examples)
• Sequence (items or events are listed in numerical
  or chronological order)
• Compare and Contrast (author explains how two or
  more things are alike and/or different)
• Question/Answer (author states a question and
  lists one or more answers to the question)
• Cause and Effect (author lists one or more causes
  and the resulting effect or effects).

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Example of a teacher librarian working with a
small group of 5 year-olds

• Watch how this teacher librarian
• Shows children how to use a new tool (Table of
  Contents)
• Guides children in taking more responsibility
  (i.e., to find information on what dinosaurs
  eat)
• Models how to record/document information

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Curricular Implications for Kindergarten/Primary
Years

• Need to take a broader view of literacy and
  learning
• Connect literacy to larger issues of inquiry and
  building world knowledge
• Recognize importance of world knowledge in
  reading comprehension
• Include informational literacy in the early years
  curriculum

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Pedagogical Implications

• Include a broad range of informational texts at
  the kindergarten and primary grade levels in
  school libraries
• Include readalouds of informational texts in
  formal and informal settings
• Provide activities around informational texts

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Finally

• Respect and cultivate the ability of all children
  to think-with their words, their drawings, their
  bodies, their heads and their hearts.

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Descriptive Text StructureWorking on the diagram
for a dinosaur fossil
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Descriptive Text StructureWorking on Dinosaur
Fossil
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Descriptive Text StructureWorking on Dinosaur
Fossil
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Childs labelled drawing for the class big book
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Research on Carnivores
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Tyrannosaurus Rex for class big book
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Brontosaurus Family for class big book
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Dinosaur with eggs (lifecycle)
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References

• Wells, Gordon Dialogic inquiry in education
  Building on
• the legacy of Vgotsky. Available
• http//www.oise.utoronto.ca/gwells/NCTE.ht
  ml