Technology’s Influence on Student Comprehension

Jessica Clar St. John Fisher University, jac02638@sjf.edu

Statement of the Problem

In education, and schools everywhere there is no denying the fact that main goal we want

for our students is to have them become well rounded citizens. They must be academically,

socially, and emotionally ready for any adversities that they may endure throughout their

educational and worldly journeys. There is no one right answer on what is the single most

important thing we can teach to our students or what techniques and strategies will be the most

beneficial. There are however, some tools that teachers can use to ensure that they are helping

their students strive to meet their full academic potential.

Theoretical Framework

When thinking about literacy as a whole many different ideas, theories, practices, and

strategies come to mind. These are all of course are being used to promote student success

within any content area. We know that literacy surrounds us in our everyday activities, and is

the fundamental building blocks on which education rests. In previous years it was thought that

literacy was strictly reading and writing. We now that that literacy is so much more than just

reading and writing and it used in our daily lives in school or the workplace. Although reading

and writing are a major part of literacy still, it is shifting toward using technology to help drive

instruction and further enhance the way we teach our students literacy.

Literacy can be described in many different ways according to many different people.

According to Gee (1989) defines literacy as a “control of secondary uses of language” (p. 23)

whereas discourses are the ways of using language, and the way that one acts and thinks within

ones community in which they can identify themselves. Lankshear and Knobel (2010) have a similar view
on what literacy is as Gee. According to them, literacy is “socially recognized ways

of generating, communicating, and negotiating meaningful content through the medium of

encoded texts within contexts of participation in discourses” (p. 64). When thinking of our

culture today it is obvious that it has become more of a social practice, and we are dependent on

technology and the advances it gives us such as the communication through e mails, instant

messaging etc. So, in schools we have implemented the use of more technology such as

computers, iPads, smart boards, computers and more.

Scope and limitations

The participants from this study included four children from the school listed above.

This group of students contains two boys, and two girls. These students all come from diverse

cultures, and all but one student receive free or reduced lunch. The ethnic make-up of these

students consists of one Black/African American, one Asian, and the other two are White. Of

these four students, one currently receives reading recovery support, and two others had been

pulled for reading intervention services for the first twenty weeks of school.