Abstract

PictoPal is the name of a technology-supported intervention designed to foster the development of emergent reading and writing skills in four and five year old children. Following the theoretical underpinnings and a brief description of PictoPal, this article describes how children worked with the technology; how the intervention elicited their engagement with literacy concepts both on the computer and off; and effects on early literacy learning. Observation results indicate that children are able to work independently with the program after a few instruction sessions. Observation data yield insight in the nature of adult guidance and the way the results of computer activities were implemented in off-computer classroom activities, as well as areas where this could be improved. Comparison of the four pre–post test experiments used to assess learning effects, suggest that the on-computer activities in PictoPal can yield a statistically significant learning effect, but only when integration with off-computer activities is present.

Citation

McKenney, S. & Voogt, J. (2009). Designing technology for emergent literacy: The PictoPal initiative. Computers & Education, 52(4), 719-729. Elsevier Ltd. Retrieved September 24, 2023 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/67383/.

Keywords

• Beginning Reading
• Beginning Writing
• Class Activities
• Computer Assisted Instruction
• Computer Software
• early literacy
• educational technology
• electronic learning
• Emergent Literacy
• instructional design
• Instructional Effectiveness
• Intervention
• kindergarten
• learner engagement
• Learning Activities
• Observation
• Pretests Posttests
• teaching methods
• technology integration
• Young Children