DEVELOPMENTAL ASPECTS OF LITERACY AND EDUCATION IN A DIGITAL WORLD 

The development of literacy in a digital world lasts for the entire lifespan and requires a constant interaction between reading and writing, combining information from different sources and different notational systems so as to produce and interpret meaningful texts.

The focus of WG2 is on the lifelong development of the literate mind/brain and how it can be further promoted by education. This WG will crucially rely on the richness arising from the diversity of European languages and in the increasing number of educational practices to which research is adding evidence-based support.

WG2 aims to develop an overall view of literacy development across the entire lifespan, capitalizing on the European linguistic and social diversity as a natural laboratory to examine the extent to which milestones and predictors of literacy development are general across languages and linguistic conditions of the learner (bilingual/monolingual).

Such diverse context will also enable to compare a wide range of teaching practices and to design intervention studies and innovative educational projects.

Objectives

• Integrate the existent knowledge of milestones in the development of literacy from childhood to adulthood as a useful guideline for assessment and curriculum development.
• Connect research that examines the cognitive and linguistic abilities that contribute to enhancing literacy development.
• Gather research focusing on the role of teaching practices on reading and writing achievements.
• Develop databases of texts and rubrics from different contexts and languages so as to characterize the qualities of good writing and writing ability of an individual or a group.
• Gather research that examines the use of different notational systems to construct texts (maps, graphs or diagrams) in the classroom, and how readers and writers integrate this non- linguistic system in text comprehension and text production.
• Create databases by gathering samples of classroom activities devoted to the composition of instructional texts and the selection of available resources (semiotic, material) in literacy activities.
• Develop computational methods for text analysis (in cooperation with WG3).
• Train ESR in cutting-edge research methods for detecting predictors of literacy and in statistical methods for analysing individual differences and growth.
• Develop collaborative research and apply for funding within H2020.

Teams

Working group leaders: Anita Peti-Stantic and Mira Bekar

A. Digital literacy (team leader: Maria José Brites)

Team members: Christine Trueltzsch-Wijnen, Betty Tsakarestou, Martine Smith, Aivars Glaznieks, Maria Francesca Murru, Marco Scarcelli, Ana Jorge, Jasmina P. Djordjevic, Dusan Stamenkovic, Manuel Perea Lara, Maria João Couto, Luís Pereira, and Julian McDougall                                            

B. Multilingual literacy (team leader: Esther Breuer)  

Team members: Eva Lindgren, Anat Stavans, Elke van Steendam, and Liana Konstantinidou 
Edited book “Multilingualism and Literacy”

                                                
C. Academic writing (team leader: Bojana Petric)

Team members: Alma Jahic, Tanja Memisevic, Mira Bekar, Elena Rizova, Natalie Schembri, Ian Bruce, José António Brandão Carvalho, Claudia Doroholschi, Florentina Samihaian, Emilio J. Gallardo Saborido, Francisco Núñez Román, Montserrat Castello, Otto Kruse, Madalina Chitez, Tatyana Yakhontova, Milena Kostic, Savka Blagojevic, Olga Arias Gundín, Orhan Çakiroglu, Vibeke Ankersborg, Karl-Heinz Pogner, Elsy Karina Gonçalves, Diane Pecorari, Anastasi Prodani, Charles Bazerman, Tiane Donahue, Luísa Álvares Pereira and Rómina Mello Laranjeira
Project “Dissertation/thesis writing across Europe: Student writers’ experiences”               

D. Development of reader/writer (team leader: Anita Peti-Stantic)                                                                               

Initiatives