TCD Releases Series of Videos to Help Parents Home School Young Children

A series of easy and accessible videos to help parents who are homeschooling young children has been released online by researchers in Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

The project, called ‘Literacy on the Loose’ is in collaboration with colleagues in Marino Institute of Education and Limerick-Clare ETB.

The videos aim to support literacy at home in a simple way and are targeted at children in early primary school and their parents.

Literacy on the Loose features nine short videos focussing on areas such as ‘Literacy in the Kitchen’, ‘Literacy on the Couch’ or ‘Literacy in Nature’ and give parents handy guides to integrating learning into their everyday lives – in a stress-free way.

They were shot by members of the collaborative team at their own homes, many using their own children as subjects.

Literacy on the Loose is being led by the School of Education at TCD and comes out of an Irish Research Council-funded project on Family Digital Literacy in partnership with the National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA).

It is being led by Dr Ann Devitt, who is the Director of Research at Trinity College Dublin and the new Academic Director at The Learnovate Centre, one of Europe’s leading research centres in learning technologies based at TCD.

Dr Devitt said she wanted to create a series of videos to help rather than overwhelm parents who are being bombarded with online links and resources. Dr Devitt says:

“As a result of COVID-19, parents have been thrown in at the deep end in terms of educating their children and are being asked to home school their children in a time of anxiety. Many are doing this while at the same time hold down full-time jobs – or maybe they have lost their job – and feel under pressure.

“Technology has been so helpful in terms of providing resources to parents but many feel overwhelmed by the amount of links being sent to them. We hope that these videos will lighten the load a bit. They are a guide for parents to show they don’t have to be sitting down at the kitchen table with books open to learn. The videos will help them integrate learning in a fun way into normal life.

“Many parents may find that they have already been doing some of what we are going to show them and it might give them peace of mind that they are already helping their children learn in lots of different ways.”

Since being released last Thursday, the videos have already had almost 2,500 views and have been embedded onto a number of other websites. Following a high number of requests on the back of the literacy project, Trinity College Dublin also plans now to release a series of videos on numeracy, led by Dr Aibhin Bray.

The videos can be viewed on Trinity College Dublin’s YouTube channel or at www.tcd.ie/Education/research/Family-Digital-Literacy/LiteracyOnTheLoose/

The full list of videos are:

· Literacy in the Kitchen: Dr Jennifer O’Sullivan and Clara Maria Fiorentini from Marino Institute of Education

· Literacy in Nature: Dr Jennifer Liston, School of Education, TCD

· Literacy on the Television: Mary Flanagan, Clare Family Learning, Limerick-Clare ETB

· Literacy on the Mobile: Dr Ann Devitt, School of Education, TCD

· Literacy with Two Languages: Dr Colm Ross, School of Education, TCD

· Literacy on Devices: Dr Ann Devitt, School of Education, TCD

· Literacy on the Couch: Professor Noirin Hayes, School of Education, TCD