Literacy Is The Most Important Skill We Teach

Summary of chapters: Tompkins, E Gail. (2014). Literacy for the 21st Century A Balanced Approach

The text by Donnelly (2011) provides our research with a delineation of several new and progressive avenues for media literacy training in an educational context. Here, Donnelly outlines a number of programs being sponsored by an array of respected media or cultural entities. With partners such as PBS, the Federal Trade Commission, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Common Sense Media, the array of media literacy programs identified here provide our research with a number of tangible avenues down which to explore opportunities for students to gain a better foothold in using this variant of media.

Content area teachers can implement strategies and scaffold learning when planning and designing instruction so that students will actively engage in literacy. According to Dobbs, content area reading instruction includes: the information present in the text, and the instructional plan teachers use to help students understand the content (2003, p.3). Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz explain that in order to plan instruction effectively, teachers must be aware of the explicit and functional dimensions of content literacy. The explicit aspect of content literacy involves the development of skills and strategies that enable students to comprehend what they are reading. Functional instruction focuses more on the application of strategies needed to derive knowledge from a variety of sources of information.” (2014, p. 134). Forget defined literacy as “listening, thinking, reading, and speaking in such a way that information and ideas are processed and communicated to the benefit of self and society” (2003, p. 5). Content area teachers need to plan and design lessons so that students will actively engage in literacy. Forget goes on to discuss that poor performance in schools can be do to a lack of basic literacy skills. Therefore, teachers need to implement the skills and strategies found to be successful in literacy to ensure

For this reason, careful research and understanding of what the standards are asking educators to teach is required. Houck (2008) informs balanced literacy is a combination of teaching methods and strategies involving both whole language and skill development. Used correctly, balanced literacy has the potential to meet the needs of all students at their own individual level. All components of reading, including phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, speaking and listening, and writing are taught using this framework. Balanced literacy provides instruction by various methods. The use of read aloud, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, word study, and writing are all used to provide students with a release of responsibility model in which they go from guided to independent work (Frey, 2005). The need for all components of reading to work together in order for comprehension to take place makes balanced literacy an instructional reform plan worth implementing (Beringer & Abbott, 2010).

According to CMS Superintendent Ann Clark regarding literacy as our North Star, it “is the most important skill we teach. Literacy is the foundation for academic success from pre-kindergarten through high school.” Literacy is key to achieving academic success and the responsibility of literacy encompasses every educator and discipline. Many media coordinators have been trained in Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and district adopted reading initiatives, such as Balanced Literacy and Reading Apprenticeship. However, most struggle with linking our programs with literacy initiatives. According to the 2015 Nation’s Report Card percentages of fourth graders and eighth graders reading on grade level continues to decline, especially among urban school districts (nationsreportcard.gov). “That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read.” (National Assessment of Educational Progress). And, furthermore, principals are trading media coordinator positions at an alarming rate as evidenced by the more than 30 schools which no longer

The need for basic literacy skills is vital in order for our nation to continue to operate successfully. With approximately 5 million students, graduating below the National Standard for Literacy and unable to read, we must take a look at the curriculum and teaching techniques to assess whether the current systems need to be revised to better assure ALL students are successful. (Adolescent Literacy: A Policy Research Belief p. 1) The issue begins first with the definition of “Literacy”, and the fact that there are several aspects of literacy which are not currently included in the curriculum. Another issue is the “old” standards which are in place do not support the level of diversity which is now seen in many school systems. Then

This chapter detailed the processes utilized to answer the main research question, “With what frequency and consistency do students and professors use the literacy support services available at River Community College?” In order to answer this question, I conducted an action research project involving the students, faculty, and the College Success and Retention Department at a community college in West Michigan. A triangulation matrix detailed how data was collected, which included: surveys to determine the knowledge and use of the literary support services available at the college, interviews with retention services personnel, archival data from Blackboard use, and archival data of student retention and success after contact through the Early Alert System. Additional artifacts were gathered from students who used my guided reading prompts and rubrics. The analysis of this information reflected the use of literacy services by the faculty of the college and the students in the my courses. The sub-questions that demonstrated how the literacy support was used included: what types of support and resources are available?, what knowledge do students and professors have of these supports?, what are the professor referral rates to the Early Alert System? and what are the barriers to professors’ and students’ effective use?

While reading "Literacy Matters" it came to my attention a teachers role in the class should include teaching students different forms of skills whether they might be conceptual, literacy skills, or strategies that can be enforced in every subject. Being literate in today's world is important in order to enhance the students communication skills, knowledge and comprehension of our lesson. Effective teaching is when a teacher knows his/her content, can explain the process, follows the Common Core State Standards and differentiates their instruction with the content being introduced in a lassroom setting. Effective teachers must challenge the students in their class by letting them engage and explore with the content that way the students can

I am Carla Sittig. I will be doing my internship at HJ Macdonald Middle school in New Bern, NC. I am excited to experience a middle school media center. I am no stranger to middle school, but have never experienced it from any other aspect other than a classroom teacher. In my current position I have the opportunity to advocate for media coordinators at the district level. My goal is to better understand the challenges of middle school media coordinators and understand how to integrate information literacy skills in the curriculum at the secondary level.

In the past, much of the blame for adolescents’ literacy problems has been placed on elementary teachers, but recent research suggests that secondary teachers must share in the responsibility for teaching literacy.” This statement was astonishing to me. It’s odd to me that even high school students struggle with literacy. On the other hand, after learning about social promotions in my other classes, it doesn’t seem that uncommon. I feel that elementary teachers have all of the pressure to make sure students have literacy skills, so it was interesting that this article states that secondary teachers must share that responsibility. It really makes me wonder how these students have come so far without improving in literacy. This article also made it apparent to me that the Common Core State Standards view literacy as a shared initiative, and that all teachers at every grade and subject are responsible for literacy achievement (Wendt, 2013). I wouldn’t have thought that a science or math teacher would be responsible for literacy skills, but after thinking about it, it only makes sense. Students need literacy for all subjects, so it shouldn’t just be on the shoulder of the reading teachers. Another valid point is made when the article states, “Therefore, the current method of focusing on academic learning is not effective when students are unable to comprehend and apply new knowledge due to lack of reading and literacy skills.” (Wendt, 2013) How can students be expected to learn new subject area skills if they aren’t even proficient in reading? That’s the issue; they can’t. In the article Selecting Texts and Tasks for Content Area Reading and Learning,

Literacy Redefined “Literacy practices are what people do with literacy. However, practices are not observable units of behaviour since they also involve values,, attitudes, feelings, and social relationships,” (Barton, Hamilton, 2017, p.299, ). As Barton and Hamilton (2017) wrote, Literacy practices are incorporated through several methods within literacy events (p.299). Just as Literacy practices, the definitions of literacy events, reading, writing, and texts stretch beyond their connotations. The terms previously mentioned are essential to redefinining literacy because they are the building blocks of literacy.

Ontario schools are preparing students and teachers to meet the literacy needs of the 21st Century

Literacy is the cornerstone to all learning; it is imperative to future academic success. (Tracey and Morrow, 2012). Due to the significance of literacy instruction, there are a myriad of ways to teach literacy. Literacy is a complex subject, honing in on balancing reading, writing, speaking, and listening. As a result of the complexity of literacy instruction, we arrive at the age-old debate of what is the best literacy instruction. My philosophy of literacy instruction centralizes around the Whole Language Theory and Balanced Literacy; however, I also blend in additional theories/approaches to teach effective literacy.

Media literacy is defined as "the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages in a variety of forms" (Know TV). In more practical terms, media literacy means questioning the media and interpreting its many messages accordingly. Students are exposed to mass quantities of media on a daily basis. They watch television and movies, read books, newspapers, and magazines, listen to music, and in more recent years explore the Internet. This extreme exposure to media outlets leads to the need for education about the media. Media literacy is one way to help educate students about issues in which they are already actively engaged. Media literacy should be implemented into

Reading requires a habit. Without much practice, students do not have good reading skills. With a lot of reading, students will be able to find out past events, current, and can predict the events that will occur later. Students who have reading habits are capable of using time to read activities. Demand for information needs that continue to grow over time can actually be facilitated through reading activities. But this fact becomes different when the reading habits of students are still low.