HAND signals used by children to show their understanding of words during a read-aloud class has been found to increase motivation for reading by education researcher Alison Venter.
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Lilydale advanced skills teacher, Miss Venter, conducted research for her Masters of Education that aimed to develop word consciousness and get children to become word inquirers.
Miss Venter spoke about the success of her research at the International Literacy Association Conference held in the US this year.
"I conducted active research in a grade 1 class at Rocherlea Primary School and looked at students who were struggling to identify and label pictures when they were reading books," Miss Venter said.
"They couldn't identify some of the basics like 'this is a caterpillar' or 'this is a cow'. I was interested in getting them to ask questions about words."
She did this by introducing a hand signal system to the students.
She would read picture books aloud to children and when a word was spoken that they had never heard they were told to hold up one finger. When they had heard the word before but did not know what it meant they held up two fingers, and when they knew the word they were told to hold up five fingers.
"We then talked about the words. You could use it as a way to assess the kids' level of understanding and get them to think about what they know and what they don't know."
Miss Venter said the system had been adopted by other teachers, and used in other classes, such as maths.
"My research showed that children were more motivated to engage in literacy," she said.