Article Review: What Do You Know? By Amy S. Pattee

In her article entitled What Do You Know? Applying the KWL Method to the Reference Transaction with Children Amy S. Pattee seeks to educate educators on how to use the know, wonder, learn (K-W-L) process of inquiry when guiding young children through the reference process.

Pattee begins her article by explaining why children need different information- seeking process then adults. Pattee attributes the difference between adult information- seekers and children to their cognitive growth and development. She further explains that “young children, in the earliest stages of development, may not even recognize their own information needs” (Pattee, 30). As a result librarians need skilled and sympathetic librarians to aid in the reference process. To best aid children librarians can use the K-W-L process to help children articulate what they need and to find the resources that they need.

In the what I know phase the teacher librarian can better understand what the child is looking for specifically in order to guide the child to the right resources. This step is important Pattee explains as children may understand they need to find information but they are clueless in how to go about it.

Pattee writes that the what do I want to know phase librarians have the important task to ask “open ended questions” (Pattee, 36). Open ended questioning helps to allow the child to point the way to the answer of the question.

During the what I learned stage learners are able to find the resources for the question that they developed in the what to know phase. Unlike adults who tend to find and search answers without a librarians assistance, children may need support. The librarians job is to “guide(s) the child through the process of locating material on the library’s shelves, or via the library’s computer system, and extracting information from it” (Pattee, 37).

In conclusion Pattee’s article brings up some very interesting points that I had not thought of. Children do see the world in different eyes and as much as some things can be simplified to suit the needs of children – the information process is not one of them. One must remember Piagetian stages of cognitive development when considering to aid children in the research process.

Using the K-W-L process to search for information is an easy way to adapt the research process for children. As the K-W-L process is used in virtually every classroom young children are very familiar with how it works. To me it is simply a continuation of a familiar learning process- linking the library with what is happening in the classroom.

Reference

Pattee, Amy S. (2008, Spring). What Do You Know? Applying the KWL Method to the Reference Transaction with Children. Children & Libraries 6 (1), 30-39 Retrieved September 12, 2007, from Academic Search Complete database