The main purpose of this study is to explore the ways in which elementary students’ out-of-school literacy activities might be connected to literacy education in schools. In order to do so, out-of-school literacy activities of third to fifth grade stu ...
The main purpose of this study is to explore the ways in which elementary students’ out-of-school literacy activities might be connected to literacy education in schools. In order to do so, out-of-school literacy activities of third to fifth grade students were cross-sectionally and longitudinally examined for three years(September 1st 2012 through August 31st 2015). Firstly, the concept and the nature of literacy and out-of-school literacy activities were theoretically explored. Literacy has traditionally been defined as the ability to decode and encode written texts. This study re-conceptualized literacy as socio-cultural practices. Adhering to this view, the literacy activities were seen as “actions in events arising related to the text.” Focusing on spaces and voluntariness, out-of-school literacy activities were defined as “actions that occurred outside the school which was a physical space or occurred voluntarily without any direct relations with formal literacy education.” Secondly, the literacy awareness of elementary school students and aspect of out-of-school literacy activities were examined and analyzed. A survey was conducted on about 6,000 students who were in third to sixth grades. The survey included questions about their attitudes toward reading and writing, what and how much they read and write outside the school, and why they read and write. Genres, frequency, and reasons of out-of-school literacy activities as well as the students’ attitudes toward literacy were extensively examined. In addition, students who were determined to be included in typical and unusual cases were selected among respondents. After that, FGI and in-depth interviews were conducted to analyze the aspects of recognizing values of such activities as well as the contents and methods of specific literacy activities. Thirdly, the developmental characteristics of out-of-school literacy activities were examined based on both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. For the cross-sectional data, differences of out-of-school literacy activities and their relationship with students, teacher and parent variables were examined across grades. In addition, a latent growth modeling strategy was used to examine longitudinal changes in out-of-school literacy for a sample of 4th and 5th graders followed over 3 years, The predictors were divided into four parts: (a) student(gender, attitude toward literacy, time spent for media, literacy difficulty, study time), (b) family (family literacy, family conversation), (c) teacher(teacher guidance), (d) physical environment(number of library books, how often go to library). The results of this study indicated that there was a linear decrease in out-of-school literacy. The initial status and growth rate of the out-of-school literacy were negatively related. All predictors except for literacy difficulty and study time were significantly related to the initial status while attitude toward literacy, literacy difficulty, and teacher guidance were significantly related to the growth rate. Implications for future research on out-of-school literacy were discussed. Fourthly, we developed a structural equation model to systematically understand influential factors on out-of-school literacy activities of primary school students. The effects of home, teacher and student factors on primary school students’ out-of-school literacy were examined. Specifically, we tested the mediating effects of student attitudes toward literacy between home or teacher factors and out-of-school literacy. The results showed that the home and students’ factors had statistically significant positive effects on students’ out of school literacy in either direct or indirect ways, while the teacher factor had only significant indirect effects on students’ out-of-school literacy in terms of students’ attitudes. Also, the mediating effects of students’ attitudes toward literacy were relatively stronger than the direct effects between home or teacher factors and students’ out-of-school literacy. Finally, the results revealed that the home, teacher and student factors can contribute to students’ out-of-school literacy regardless of students’ grade or gender. This research will contribute to the body of literature on the influence that the home and school literacy environment can have on students’ out-of-school literacy, Fifthly, possible links between literacy activities both in and out-of-school were explored. This study aims to help students do significant literacy activities outside the school based on the information on out-of-school literacy activities and to seek useful implications to design and implement school literacy education by examining out-of-school literacy activities. To do this, literacy activities of elementary school students both in and out of school were compared and based on the analysis on the collected various cases of other countries connecting out-of-school literacy activities and school education, in terms of changes in literacy perceptions, the establishment of the third space, and the use of media as wring spaces, the possibility of connecting literacy activities both in and out of school and the measures to do it were studied. Lastly, support measures for out-of-school literacy activities of elementary school students were come up with. The characteristics and problems of outside-of-school literacy activities of elementary school students were explored and the scope of supports regarding this and the methods were specifically suggested. In addition, support plans in the level of other communities beyond school and in the level of education and policy were looked for.