Tangible Multisensory Aids for Collaborative Phonics Learning

2020. Clare Cullen & Oussama Metatla
Companion Publication of the 2020 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

Abstract

Children in the UK start learning to read and write using the phonics method, which teaches them how to link sounds (phonemes) with their written representation (graphemes). However, it is a difficult skill which takes a long time to master. To address this, our research begins to explore how a multisensory toolkit could aid phonics learning and support engagement in the process. In this exploratory study, we use variants of the bouba/kiki stimuli, which have been shown to have pre-existing shape, colour and scent mappings, and explore how they could be applied to phonics learning. We presented a first prototype to four children in order to gain initial insights of their experiences of using multisensory tangible models for phonics, as well as the types of sensory associations and interactions that could be further explored.

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Citation

Cullen, C., & Metatla, O. (2020). Tangible multisensory aids for collaborative phonics learning. Companion Publication of the 2020 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (pp. 245–250). New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery. URL: https://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3418342, doi:10.1145/3406865.3418342

BibTeX

@inproceedings{10.1145/3406865.3418342,
author = {Cullen, Clare and Metatla, Oussama},
title = {Tangible Multisensory Aids for Collaborative Phonics Learning},
year = {2020},
isbn = {9781450380591},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3406865.3418342},
doi = {10.1145/3406865.3418342},
abstract = {Children in the UK start learning to read and write using the phonics method, which teaches them how to link sounds (phonemes) with their written representation (graphemes). However, it is a difficult skill which takes a long time to master. To address this, our research begins to explore how a multisensory toolkit could aid phonics learning and support engagement in the process. In this exploratory study, we use variants of the bouba/kiki stimuli, which have been shown to have pre-existing shape, colour and scent mappings, and explore how they could be applied to phonics learning. We presented a first prototype to four children in order to gain initial insights of their experiences of using multisensory tangible models for phonics, as well as the types of sensory associations and interactions that could be further explored.},
booktitle = {Companion Publication of the 2020 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing},
pages = {245–250},
numpages = {6},
keywords = {bouba, collaborative learning, education, kiki, multisensory interaction, phonics, tangibles},
location = {Virtual Event, USA},
series = {CSCW '20 Companion}
}