Language and Literacy

Learning provision for literacy development is important for pupils for several reasons. When pupils are developing their language skills they are learning to communicate with others in a variety of ways through speaking reading and writing. The three areas of language interact with each other to promote the child’s self expression and imagination. Children need to be given opportunity’s to use and extend their language in all subject areas so they can develop higher level thinking. [ Louise burnham, Brenda Baker,2010,pg206]

In “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction,” James Paul Gee introduces a new approach for thinking about Literacy. Rather than think of literacy in terms of language (grammar), Gee suggests that we think of it in terms of social practice (5). Gee claims that this approach has important and interesting consequences.

“The more you read, the more things you know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” This is how Dr. Seuss thought of reading, and I think of it in much the same way. Literacy is everywhere and influences us every day, therefore, it plays a major part in each of our lives. I believe that reading is an interactive activity in which learning happens, or as Clay (2001) defines it, “…a message-getting, problem-solving activity” (p. 1). Reading is the process through which one reads information and from doing so, constructs meaning about the material. The more exposure and practice one has with reading, the more knowledge one gains. In this paper, I will begin by discussing my own personal educational philosophy, then continue by stating and explaining four of my beliefs about the reading process and the research that is found to support each of them before sharing the remaining questions I have about literacy. I am an existentialist, and a strong supporter of a balanced literacy approach. My beliefs about literacy come from these foundations and perspectives that I embrace. For students to be successful in their literacy development, I believe that identity acceptance in the classroom is crucial, instruction for all students must be differentiated, direct and explicit instruction is at times necessary, and vocabulary is a significant component in the ‘Big Five’ of children’s literacy development.

Since a child going up, literacy was not my strong suit. Literacy throughout my life seem not to cope with me. Later as I grew up, literacy meant to me that it is one’s ability to read, write, and speak. More importantly there is a more meaning of literacy, meaning that not only writing, reading, and speaking, but able to understand, analyze, and communicate with other peoples’ ideas. Soon enough literacy has made an impact on my life, it has been and will be a lifelong process. Literacy will always be with me, starting from my past and ending in my future.

The learning provisions for development in literacy are extremely important and can be reached by using their language skills. They learn to communicate with others through three main ways: they are Speaking, Reading and Writing. These three areas interact with each other and develop the Childs self-expression and imagination. They must be given the opportunity within all different subject areas to use and extend their language so that their thinking skills progress to a higher level.

Literacy is fundamental to all areas of learning from an early age, as it unlocks access to the wider curriculum. Being literate increases opportunities for pupils in all aspects of life and lays the foundations for lifelong learning and work.

Literature is at the heart of the Australia English Curriculum and is integral to the teaching of language and literacy. Discuss how the children’s literature can be used to develop an understanding of the components of the language?

Literacy, literacies and multiliteracies bears various meanings to different people. Some believe that literacy is developed by cultures, while others believe that literacy and cultures developed an individual. There are single and multiple definitions of literacy, literacies and multi-literacies. Based on research, literacy is very important and continues to be developed through our rapidly changing world. Throughout this essay, we will focus on views of literacy, literacies, and multiliteracies and how their different meanings affect our approach to teaching literacy.

Literacy cannot be learned through multiple lessons taught solely in isolation. Instead, it must be learned in a comprehensive manner, in which various literacy skills are fully-integrated. Vygotsky (1987) is the theorist who appears to have had the greatest influence on literacy researchers working from a social constructivist perspective. Vygotsky’s approach to learning was holistic in nature, and he advocated the study of higher mental functions with all their complexity (Moll, 1990). Research on school literacy learning conducted from a social constructivist perspective suggests that students need to engage in authentic and relevant literacy activities, as opposed to rote memorization or repetitive worksheets contrived for practice (Au, 1998).

Literacy is defined as being literate, that is, being able to read and write in a language. My personal experience with literacy began at an early age, at the age of 4 when I began to sit and read words and letters in the back of my mother’s car. Soon enough, she would bring me a magazine called “Majed” which, in the 90’s, was a popular magazine. With this, I began even more interested in reading and writing and reviewed every word in the magazine associated with each of the short pictured stories. It was the first memory I deeply recall of literacy and it was what laid the foundation for my personal love of reading and writing. The methodology used for this is an interview. There are three interviews which are analyzed and brought together in the form of a narrative. This narrative serves to better explain the emotions and thoughts that the interviewees had about the idea of literacy.

The definition of Literacy to me was being able to simply read and write English. Growing up I had to go through different international schools which made the definition of language very clear to me. Language was how people of the same culture communicated verbally and in text. Both literacy and language are embed and intertwined in our daily lives. In this essay, I am going to analyse my assumptions of literacy and language through skill sets such as the four resource model, understanding dialects, discourse and multiliteracies and how these practices will help me to maximise my students literacy development.

Literacy affects child development. Children have a very time sensitive window of opportunity in which learning comes most easily. This opportunity in a child 's life is caused by the overproduction of neurons and “synapses” (connections in neural cells) of the brain. “Scientists believe that language is acquired most easily during the first ten years of life.

Children need to master academic skills in order to move from one grade to another. Each skill a child learns helps and encourages the child to learn another new skill. Oral language development is the foundation of reading and writing. One core skill a child should master is language and speech. Simple language and speech skills need to be learned before a child can learn more complex language and speech skills such as academic language. According to Dudley-Marling & Lucas (2009), Children’s language plays a crucial role in school success…and school failure”. To succeed in school, children must learn the formal language of schooling.”(p.368). This statement tells us that proficiency in academic language is critical and absolutely necessary for a child’s overall success in school.

The last forty years have brought sweeping changes in literacy education with constant new information available on how children learn language and become literate (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996). But the grounding for all progression, as asserted by Browne (2001) is that ‘learning to read and write are founded upon children’s oral language…pupils learning depends on growing competence in language modes (read and write) which grow out of their ability to speak and listen’. This is also advocated by Fricke et al (2013:280) stating that the promotion of oral language skills are a secure foundation to build on for literacy. The quality of the child’s language is determined by the stimuli of experiences and interests, from both outside and inside the school, which can be used by the teacher to support the child’s involvement with literacy by providing those interests with meaning and purpose, and by explicitly linking them ‘between spoken and written language in order to effect the bridge that is so powerful for literacy development’ (Reid, 1993 cited Riley, 1996).

With the reference to the curriculum, at grade 3-4, the learners have to comprehend the visual, spoken and written forms of the language as divergent forms of communication. Moreover, they have to understand that the choice of features of a language varies dependent on the cultural background, context and the audience. The learners have to understand that knowledge changes when people assume different roles in classroom and social interactions (Doering, Beach & O 'Brien, 2007). With regard to reading, the learners are supposed to be able to read texts that have different sentence structures with divergent punctuation marks. They should also interact with different images accompanied with information. Pertaining to writing, the learners are supposed to utilize writings and images to express and develop