Title of the book: Improving the Quality of Childhood in Europe 2014, Volume 5

CHAPTER 8 by Heikki Lyytinen Title of the book: Improving the Quality of Childhood in Europe 2014, Volume 5 106 Editors: Michiel Matthes, Lea Pulkkinen, Luis Manuel Pinto, Christopher Clouder Published in 2014 by: Alliance for Childhood European Network Foundation, Belgium ISBN: 9789082290905 Alliance for Childhood European Network Foundation private stichting (foundation) and the authors for their chapter Design: Studio Marsel Stoopen Brussels, Belgium studio@marselstoopen.com Print: Printon Printing House Tallinn, Estonia

The majority of Finnish children are in the fortunate position of learning the basic scholastic skills, such as reading, soon after entering school. This provides an important starting point for the acquisition of knowledge through written language which, in turn, facilitates wider opportunities to create success in one s future life. Worldwide, more than 250 million children lack this opportunity because they fail to receive sufficient support in learning to read (Education for All, 2014). In this paper, I will first illustrate the efforts that have led to this strong situation in Finland. I will then focus on the research into reading at the University of Jyväskylä, from which our research team has developed an innovative way to support the acquisition of basic reading skills for most, if not all, children in need of extra support. We optimistically believe, in the long run, that such support will be helpful to all struggling young readers. This learning environment, GraphoGame, 1 is not only theoretically sound and empirically validated to be efficient in instructing children in basic reading skills, but is also designed to be transportable. By this I mean that the environment can be accessed via the internet for use on computer-, tablet-, and smart-phone-based platforms. Its game-like format makes it very easy to use with almost no adult help. After several years of intensive development with the help of up to 20,000 children who use the programme daily, this learning technology has been demonstrated to be, in concrete terms, very helpful in the Finnish context. Currently, all Finnish children in need of this reading support receive it free of charge, via access that has been funded by Finland s Ministry of Education and Culture. We have now turned our attention towards preparing similar benefits for children in need of reading support from other countries. This requires the content of the learning environment to be revised and adapted for the spoken and written language of the locale where it will be used. This revamping of the environment is possible when we find a country with the researchers, and the children in need to participate in the necessary research, and ultimately engage with the decision makers who are open to take up this opportunity that we are ready to offer. Close to 30 countries have joined us thus far in taking steps towards fulfilling the scientific requirements needed for making GraphoGame ready for distribution to their young readers in need of support. THE ROUTE TO FINNISH INNOVATION To begin with, some background information is relevant. The research on which this innovation is based has been motivated by the context of Finnish culture, which heavily favours literacy. To understand how seriously literacy is valued, one needs only one example. After the Finnish writing system was initiated almost 500 years ago by Bishop Michael Agricola and reached its close to current format), Finnish religious leaders decided that, in order to be eligible to marry, one must be able to read (cathechismus). 107 1 GraphoGame is the registered trademark of the University of Jyväskylä and the Niilo Mäki Foundation, a Jyväskylä-based nongovernmental research organization focused on addressing learning disabilities in children. The Graphogame method is designed to assist children in learning letter sound correspondences en route to identifying syllables and, eventually, reading words. For more information on the GraphoGame, consult the game s website (www.graphogame.com) or see Richardson and Lyytinen (2014; this issue).

This was such a strong incentive that soon Finns accepted it as a selfevident rule and prepared themselves accordingly. The results of that foundation can be seen today, for example, in Finland s PISA results. Of course, the road to the Finnish PISA outcomes is slightly longer than this. Again, a few facts can encapsulate how children s opportunity to learn with the support of a well-considered instructional culture is guaranteed today in Finland. Firstly, one central principle in Finnish educational philosophy has been that no one is left behind in the teaching and learning processes. This can be observed in research findings (e.g., Nurmi, Viljaranta, Tolvanen, & Aunola, 2013) that reveal the time that Finnish teachers invest in supporting their special-needs pupils and in the exceptionally low individual variance within the Finnish PISA results. Additionally, the good PISA results can be understood through an appreciation of some features that characterize Finnish primary education (see, e.g., Välijärvi et al., 2007). A central characteristic is the high regard in which teachers are held in Finnish society. The high status of primary school teachers results in teaching positions being highly sought after even before teacher trainees have graduated from university. The ratio of applicants for teachers studies to those who successfully pass the entrance exams to secure a place as a teacher education student makes the teacher education programme one of the most competitive to get into of all the academic disciplines in Finnish higher education. Moreover, through decades of administering teachereducation entrance exams, the education faculty has been able to structure the exam process in such a way as to be able to select the individuals who offer the clearest potential to be excellent teachers. This attitude towards teaching and teacher training practically guarantees the high motivation and background skills of the teacher education students and provides a strong positive foundation for and approach to their training throughout their university career. In Finland, all primary teachers are trained at university level. Due to the strong scholastic and practical capabilities of teachers working in Finnish schools, the Ministry of Education has wisely given teachers a great deal of flexibility and considerable say in how they employ their knowledge and experience in the classroom to meet the general curricular frameworks. Research reveals that this culminates in effective teacher transactions with pupils, leading to the acknowledged good results. Furthermore, remedial teaching is provided to all primary school children in need. At least 12% of first and second graders participate in teaching sessions for small groups of 3 7 children (Tilastokeskus, 2012). The final assurance that basic skills can be learned with optimal support stems from the aforementioned innovative learning environment that we have developed for this purpose (Lyytinen, Erskine, Kujala, Ojanen, 108 The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-initiated international survey that serves as a comparative study of education systems. The testing of 15-year-old students takes place every 3 years and is designed to assess how students learning has equipped them for full participation in their societies. More than 70 countries have agreed to participate in the next wave of data collection in 2015 (OECD, n.d.).

& Richardson, 2009). The LukiMat environment provides basic reading and math skills training for young learners via the aforementioned Ekapelibased games that are available on the internet, and underwritten by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Via the same LukiMat URL, teachers and parents are provided with detailed practical knowledge about basic maths and reading skills learning and the difficulties some children face in acquiring these basic scholastic skills. This website also provides guidance regarding how to engage with the Ekapeli-based training opportunities for optimal use (i.e., who needs this support and when and how it should be provided to the learners in need of preventive training ). ONGOING SUPPORT FOR READERS The development of this reading component of the LukiMat service results from the long-term research at the Centre of Excellence in Human Development and its Risk Factors and subsequently at the Centre of Excellence in Learning and Motivation Research. In such well-resourced contexts, we were able to run an intensive longitudinal study of children at familial risk of dyslexia from birth to puberty (for the most recent review of results, see Lyytinen et al., 2008). This widely known Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Dyslexia (JLD) documented the differences that characterize children who are en route to experiencing reading problems. The JLD demonstrated that the more than 10% of children who need support to avoid experiencing unnecessary failure in the acquisition of reading skills can be identified sufficiently early for the provision of successful preventive support (Lyytinen et al., 2009). It also helped us learn to clearly identify the bottlenecks that typically hinder learning. Most importantly, this research provided insights into ways of helping children overcome these bottlenecks. Support given at the appropriate time can help children to master the skills that have hampered their learning progress. By making our findings and recommendations widely available, parents and teachers have become more informed about the challenges some children face in learning to read and have thus been able to guide every child in need to use our learning game in a preventive way. Decreasing or eliminating negative experiences at the start of schooling can preserve and enhance a child s naturally positive motivation for learning and academic efforts that are typically high as children begin their school careers. Failing to seize this opportunity can have far reaching consequences for the child and his/her future learning: Children who perceive themselves as less capable readers than their peers can develop poor self-esteem and create an identity for themselves as being a poor learner that can have long-term implications for them. Therefore, as 109 Information on the LukiMat environment can be found at www.lukimat.fi Preventive training means here the provision of practice of the basic reading which is sufficient of avoiding a situation where child observes that s/he is less successful learner than her/his classmates. The Graphogame makes this possible if started to be used optimally a week or two before child enters school. The need of preventive practice can be easily observed using the very same game. The risk is substantial if the child has close relative(s) (e.g. a parent or older sister) who has/have faced severe problems in the acquisition of the reading skill. Even without such a risk factor parents and teachers are advised to motivate the child to use preventive practice if s/he has any difficulties in storing letter names still at the time of entering school. Up to 20% of young pupils worldwide need support in learning to read (see Scarborough, 2009). In Finland, with a language that is perhaps one of the most transparent (in sound-to-letter consistency), the number of students in need is closer to 10% (see. e.g., Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003).

evidenced by the playing logs on the LukiMat server, it has become more and more common that these recommendations are being followed carefully for Finnish first graders, and that the games are being played whether or not the child has yet demonstrated any learning challenges in his/her early school career. The number of children playing the game with written permission from their parents has provided us with the opportunity to study reading acquisition on a massive scale. On any given day, up to 20,000 Finnish children can be playing the game. In a first-grade cohort population of fewer than 60,000 children, it is clear that the game is being used by several age cohorts, more specifically, by first and second graders. Although almost all Finnish children become accurate readers before entering the second grade, the activities are also very helpful for more experienced readers because the game motivates them to practice reading skills towards becoming fluent readers. To become fully literate, a child must be engaged in reading for long enough to be able to read quickly so as to remember the beginning of a very long sentence when reaching its end. For full literacy, the mechanical parts of reading must reach full automaticity, thus leaving sufficient cognitive resources for the processing of the messages of the text. As noted earlier, our longitudinal study revealed that children who are at risk of facing difficulties in learning to read can be identified very early on (see, e.g., Lyytinen et al., 2009). The first reliable signs were observed in recordings of the brain s electrical responses to sounds at as early as 3 5 days of age (Guttorm, Alho-Näveri, Richardson, & Lyytinen, 2011; Guttorm, Leppänen, Hämäläinen, Eklund, & Lyytinen, 2010). In addition, problems associated with reading acquisition often are observable in the development of spoken language. Thus, if the child s speech is substantially late (i.e., after age 3) or his/her close relative(s) had problems in reading acquisition, the child s language development should be monitored and support provided if the delay continues. With support, the talking delay frequently is ameliorated among children who have no familial background of language problems. Speech delay that extends to comprehension of speech translates into increased risk, and such children need early support in relation to spoken language. Even for a child without speaking difficulties or familial reading challenges, it is important to motivate the child to become interested in the written world by reading to him/her. Shared reading before school age is beneficial to all children and should be a component of the child s rights, irrespective of the existence of any risk factors. Instruction in reading need not start much before the child is of school age in alphabetic 6 writing environments independent on at what age it happens in different countries However, what is very natural and is something that we recommend is that children are given the opportunity to learn the names of the letters. In Finland, this typically takes place at kindergarten, which is provided nowadays for all children at age 6. Finnish kindergarten activities do not include explicit teaching of letters or reading. 110 6 Alphabetic languages have orthographies that use alphabetic symbols that directly convey the pronunciation of the language.

In this multifaceted learning environment, letters are presented in various ways. There is no need to start teaching letter names: just let the letters be noticed and learned through the natural interest that most young children have in letters. It is interesting to note that, as a result of this exposure, more than one third of Finnish children learn to read before any formal teaching has been provided (Aro, 2006). Letter names play an interesting role in a simple way that parents and teachers can identify children in need of support. According to our observations, practically all children who faced difficulties in learning to read among the 200 risk or control children in the JLD failed to store letter names in a way comparable to other children. Our further observations tell us that if a child who has had an opportunity to learn the letter names is not able to name at least seven letters by the time s/he enters school, reading problems are highly likely to occur (Lyytinen et al., 2009) if preventative intervention is not initiated. Of course, if the child has a close biological relative who had recognisable problems in learning to read, the risk is even more evident. We have started to inform all Finnish first-grade teachers about how to identify pupils at risk through their low knowledge of letter names. Any school entrant who has not learned at least seven letter names is encouraged to start using our aforementioned learning game. The opportunity to use our Ekapeli game (known outside Finland as GraphoGame) as preventive training is offered in Finland to children via the LukiMat service. As noted above, this site includes an area for adults that provides detailed information about reading acquisition. It includes advice for parents and teachers with regards to how to behave in a situation where a child shows indications of risk and how the adult can motivate the child to use the game. The reading game is very easy to use. Most children need only a very brief introduction and then periodic engagement from the teacher or parents so that the child feels supported and encouraged by the adults important to him/her. Most children are happy to play without needing to be persuaded to do so. Because playing requires the child s careful attention, participation by parents or classmates is not recommended. This will become clearer below as the game is described. THE GRAPHOGAME IN ACTION The GraphoGame teaches children about the connections between the appropriate items of the language that the learner is able to speak and the corresponding units of the written language. In writing systems such as Finnish and Italian, where such connections behave highly consistently at the level of letters and phonemes (i.e., transparent languages), 7 the early part of the training is easy to implement because it comprises learning the sounds of the letters. In many writing systems, a sound may be represented by more than one letter; therefore, it is better to speak 111 7 Alphabetic writing systems vary to the degree in which the letter represents the same sound consistently independent of the context in which the letter occurs. Most local African languages and Finnish have transparent orthographies because each letter represents its own unique phoneme and each phoneme is represented by its own letter (or grapheme of more than one letter). In nontransparent orthographies, however, most letters can represent different sounds, depending on the context. English is an example of a nontransparent writing system.

about grapheme phoneme learning, where the phoneme is the smallest meaningful sound of the spoken language in question. After learning these sounds, the learner can begin to read by pronouncing the sounds in the order of the letters presented. In this way, any pronounceable item can be produced simply by following the sequence of letters: The meaning of the word need not be known. Children are thus able to sound out unfamiliar words in the same manner as they read familiar words. This is in direct contrast to how reading should be taught in writing systems where the spoken language has changed after the writing system has been fixed, as is the case in English and French, for example. In English (a nontransparent language), none of the letters correspond to the same sound in all written contexts. Additionally, meaning can affect the pronunciation. As a result, the way English should be instructed is different. I will come back to this point later in the paper. 112 For languages with consistency between spoken and written forms, which include most African local languages, the simple way to teach reading is by following the so-called phonics approach implemented in the GraphoGame. The player of GraphoGame sees letters falling from the top of the screen and simultaneously hears the sound of a phoneme. At the beginning of the game, the learner hears, one-by-one, only phonemes that are not close in sound to any other phoneme (thus not /n/ and /m/ at the beginning) and then chooses from the few options displayed the one that corresponds to the phoneme heard. If the choice is correct, the child receives positive feedback; if the selection is incorrect, the trial is repeated in such a way that the child is prompted towards selecting the correct alternative. During the subsequent trials, the audible items slowly become more difficult: For instance, more similar-sounding phonemes are included in the mix and players are shown alternative letters that may have visual similarities, both of which are easily confused by early readers. Once all letter sounds have been learned, larger units of language, such as syllables and words, are introduced. Over time, the child learns to recognize whole words. Eventually, the identifications of syllables and words are repeated faster and faster so that the learner becomes sufficiently fluent in reading to remember the beginning of the sentence when the end of a long sentence is reached. This process is different when the game is implemented to teach, for example, English, where consistencies, when they occur, are much more complex. Rather than single letter sounds, the learner must start with relatively large units. An example of this would be the letter combination -ing, which sounds similar wherever it occurs in written English. Although two-letter units can have a high frequency of being sounded out in the same way, research has found it to be more effective to emphasize large units that are sounded out in the same way very often if not always, as shown in our experimental comparisons of the influence of the unit size (Kyle, Kujula, Richardson, Lyytinen, & Goswami, 2013). As a result of collaboration with our Cambridge University colleagues in developing the game for helping children to learn to read English, we have documented that the GraphoGame s efficiency is better than any other even more expensive training regimes. And this successful outcome occurs without adults ongoing intervention: It simply offers a way to motivate the child to

play. In the Finnish context, we found that Ekapeli is far more efficient in advancing reading ability than an equal amount of time spent in face-toface remedial reading teaching. Thus, research suggests, when Ekapeli replaces as little as a quarter of the time that struggling Finnish children receive in small-group remediation, these children usually become mainstream learners by the end of the third grade (Saine, Lerkkanen, Ahonen, Tolvanen, & Lyytinen, 2011). LOOKING TO THE FUTURE OF GRAPHOGAME Now that all Finnish children in need of reading support are receiving it, as evidenced by the large majority of the approximately 20,000 daily users of the LukiMat service engaged in the reading area, our research team has turned its attention to children in need outside of Finland. More than 20% of children in any language environment typically need more individual attention than ordinary classroom teaching can offer (see Scarborough, 2009). These children could benefit from an opportunity to use the GraphoGame, as is the case for children today in Finland. Further details regarding our initial preparations to provide such opportunities to children in need around the world can be found on the GraphoGame website, but here is a short summary. Recent research commissioned by UNESCO (see Education for All, 2014) informs us that about 250 million children around the world do not receive sufficient instruction to learn to read. Most of these children are in developing countries. For instance, a recent study conducted in Zambia (Sampa, 2014) reveals that very few children have learned even the basic reading skills before the end of the second grade. Thus, in this case, we are not talking about 10% in need of reading support, but closer to 100%. Zambia is one country where we have conducted our studies to prepare for the provision of support using GraphoGame via inexpensive mobile devices. Similar solutions are also being investigated in other countries, such as Chile. The researchers at the University of Jyväskylä and the Niilo Mäki Institute created a declaration that outlines the criteria for how the GraphoGame application will be revised and made ready for expanded distribution, 8 and this declaration has been signed by a number of research experts from toprated universities such Cambridge, Yale, and Zurich. We will distribute our science-based training programme to a language population only after its implemented content for the learners of that language has been validated (i.e., documented in quality international publications) as producing efficient learning. Accordingly, we now have accepted for publication such a Zambian validation study, with help from the Finland Zambia collaborative Centre for the Promotion of Literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa (CAPOLSA; Jere-Folotiya et al., in press). The research effort documents the efficiency of GraphoGame for developing reading skills in cinyanja, the most widely spoken language in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Moreover, the results reveal that the more the teacher understands the initial steps in learning to read and thus does not convey any instructions to the pupils that are 113 8 The text of the GraphoGame declaration can be downloaded from info.graphogame.com/wp-uploads/2011/04/graphoworlddeclaration110216.pdf

incompatible with learning to read in the local language, the better the results. The effects were especially good if the teacher had also played the game him/herself. This reveals that one bottleneck to reading acquisition in some countries is the inadequacy of the instruction received by the children (Jere-Folotiya et al., in press; Ojanen et al., 2013). 114 We have observed this situation in other African multilingual countries as well, where English the language of higher education, government activities, and many business practices is the final target of reading acquisition. The preference for English (a nontransparent language) compromises the success of the reading instruction of local languages, which are widely used for introducing the initial reading skills and are typically transparent. Therefore, local languages should be instructed in ways very different from how English is instructed. Typically, the problem seems to start with the habit of reciting English letter names. This practice results in learners incorrectly cueing the letter sounds of cinyanja. As an example, the name of the first alphabet letter a in English is recited as /ei/. That same letter is recited as /a/ in the African local languages. This inconsistency especially concerns the common vowel sounds such as /a/ and /e/: Those sounds are represented by the a and e letters in cinyanja. As a result, the child attempting to read in the local language confuses the mental images of the English a and e letters as the sounds for the e and i letters in the local language. This happens particularly because the Zambian teaching practices have not emphasized explicitly the sounds (or appropriate names) of the letters in the local language, which is a necessity in learning to read fully transparent writing (Ojanen, Kujala, Richardson, & Lyytinen, 2013). Therefore, to reach the distribution goal of GraphoGame, the documentation process requires much more than experimental reporting that the game can help under laboratory-type conditions. It is more important to confirm, in the same sustainable scientific ways, how the training environment can reach and remain in the hands of the children for a sufficiently long enough time to make a difference and how teachers can be motivated to use the tool appropriately so as not to confound children s learning. For this purpose, we must execute real-life pilots in each country interested in employing the GraphoGame, taking the local cultural practices into account. These pilots are designed to simulate the processes and conditions under which the distributed GraphoGame is intended to operate successfully and to determine if the results reflect whether the young learners behave with GraphoGame in such a way that the goal will be achieved. Children must develop accurate reading skills and sufficient fluency to become interested in reading independently. We believe that it should be possible to gain skills in accurate reading during the first grade in most alphabetic languages with a transparent writing system. In the same vein, we aim to successfully motivate teachers to learn (i.e., via video clips) the recommended ways to instruct reading and to play GraphoGame themselves in order to learn the correct sounds of the letters. All this should be possible using the very same GraphoGame platform and through reading material that can be updated regularly via devices connected to the internet (at least connected during updating and feedback). What is most essential is the need to have interesting and engaging books and other reading materials available in the target

language to encourage the ongoing practice of developing reading skills. African learners, in particular, have had no suitable, child-engaging printed materials to encourage and motivate children who have just learned to read toward independent reading. Thus, it is very important that a sufficient amount of reading material in the child s native language can be provided digitally for children s ready use. For the teachers, we have planned a certification system. 9 In achieving Level 1, the teacher can demonstrate knowledge of the sounds of the letters in the local language, as documented automatically in the GraphoGame log data. Each level completed results in a certificate, which is granted by the local education authorities. The final-level certificate in implementing the GraphoGame technology is awarded when the teacher becomes successful in motivating all his/her first-grade pupils to read accurately and to read the pack of material provided for enjoyment. A real challenge for the GraphoGame development team will be securing the necessary funding for all of these aims to be accomplished. One of the principles listed in the aforementioned declaration is that the reading and teaching support should be made freely available to the end users. Thus, we need to continually acquire resources so that all countries in need, specifically African countries, can provide reading development via the GraphoGame technology. Ideally, such support would follow the model applied by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Ultimately, however, the responsibility for the provision of efficient instruction of basic scholastic skills lies with the education ministries of individual countries. The GraphoGame project is an ongoing, always developing and expanding endeavour by researchers and educators committed to helping every child reach his/her potential in reading. Our website provides continual updates on the project s progress. 115 9 The GraphoGame Learning Diploma Programme is a training programme for teacher educators from four African countries (Zambia, Kenya, Namibia, and Tanzania), launched by the Niilo Mäki Institute in 2012 and funded by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The focus of the GraphoLearning Diploma Programme that continues to be developed is to offer teachers the latest scientific knowledge and best practices in teaching as well as in the process of learning to read. Through this diploma programme, trainees also familiarize themselves with the GraphoGame technology and how it can be used to support reading skills.

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BIOGRAPHY Heikki Lyytinen, UNESCO Chair (2014-), Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology, led EU-COST A8 Learning Disorders as a Barrier to Human Development action from 1994-1998, co-lead with Lea Pulkkinen the Centers of Excellence Human Development and its Risk Factors 1997-2006 and with Jari-Erik Nurmi Learning and Motivation 2006-2011, both funded by the Academy of Finland. Directed the Jyväskylä Longitudinal study of Dyslexia (JLD) from 1993. He was vice-president of the University of Jyväskylä 1997-2000. Today chair of the boards of the Agora Human Technology Centre of University of Jyväskylä (agoracenter. jyu.fi) and that of Niilo Mäki Foundation maintaining the Niilo Mäki Institute whose goal is to concentrate on research for the development of means to help children with learning difficulties (www. nmi.fi). Member of the Academy of Sciences and Letters (of Finland, 2003-). His present research concentrates on the development and empirical validation of the efficiency of the preventive training tools for children at risk of facing problems in the acquisition of the reading skill. All correspondence should be addressed to Heikki Lyytinen, The Agora Center, University of Jyväskylä, P.O. Box 35 40014 University of Jyväskylä, Finland heikki.j.lyytinen@jyu.fi heikki.lyytinen.info 117