Questionnaire 1 (1 August 2011)

My goal for this semester is to learn more about what information literacy and inquiry-based learning looks like in Preparatory Year (for students 5-6 years old).

1. My thoughts and feelings about my topic.

To begin with, I have more questions than answers.

How do you begin to teach information literacy to students who are only beginning to read?

What is the difference between literacy and information literacy?

What does inquiry learning look like in Prep?

To what degree is open inquiry possible in Prep?

I’m quite confused about the difference between literacy and information literacy, and wonder why there needs to be a distinction. Term ‘information literacy’  is sometimes used as a label for a set of skills and processes for dealing with information, and sometimes it’s used to describe a state of being — a confidence with and capability for accessing, organising, analysing, evaluating and communicating information.

So, what does information literacy involve in Prep? Is it about developing understandings about the representation of thoughts, feelings and ideas as images, symbols and scripts?

This is my first year of involvement with Prep students. As a beginning teacher-librarian, I’ve played it safe with the Preps. So far, our 30 minutes a week in the library have included letter recognition and alphabetical order; book sense (a picture book has an author and illustrator, text is generally read left to right, top to bottom, picture clues can be used to decode text); looking after books (bring your library bag on library days); how books are stored in the library (location of picture books and non-fiction); selecting books; and library borrowing processes (recognise your name, find your borrower barcode, present books for borrowing with the library barcode showing, bring your books back to the library when you have read them).

I’ve always thought that information literacy is integral to resource-based and inquiry-based learning. I believed that both learning approaches provided opportunities for students to learn and practice information literacy skills within a broader content-specific learning context.

What is inquiry-based learning like in Prep?

In any stage of learning, I think that inquiry-based learning should start with a problem to be solved or a question to be answered. This approach should be compatible with negotiated learning and play-based learning approaches advocated in Queensland. Our Prep teachers negotiate learning with their classes, generally each class is exploring a different topic or set of topics each term.

I also think that, where possible, inquiry-learning should be experiential. Fore example, in Term 1, all of the Prep classes were learning about the local community. One of the facets of the community that they explored was the library. We organised for them to visit the local Brisbane City Council library and to compare it with our school library. Then the Prep students set up their own library in their classroom, where they played at being librarians and borrowers.

2. My interest level for this topic

Not at all ☐    not much ☐    quite a bit R    a great deal ☐

I am very motivated to learn more about the information literacy needs of preparatory students and about how inquiry learning might be implemented with a preparatory class.

3. My knowledge level about this topic

Nothing ☐     not much R    quite a bit ☐    a great deal ☐

I’ve chosen this area of schooling because I have the least amount of experience with this age group. By expanding my knowledge and expertise in this area, I will have a better understanding of how I, as a teacher-librarian can support the Prep teachers and enhance learning opportunities for the Prep students.

4. Things I find easy when researching

Thinking of keywords for searches

Google and Google Scholar searches

Talking to colleagues

Finding Queensland and national curriculum materials and policy documents online

5.  Things I find difficult when researching

Academic searches

Evaluating reliability of sources

Analysing and synthesising information quickly

Writing reflectively


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Reflection is a very important learning process. I used this questionnaire as a reflection tool at the beginning, middle and end of the information learning activity.

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