Philosophy of Literacy Education

Our view of literacy upon commencing this course, was that it is the ability to read and write. Our understanding of it however was partially true because, reading and writing are essential of any person’s literacy, but reading and

For many decades now there has been a scope of definition for what “literacy” incorporates and those are the basics skills like reading, writing, and a variety of social and intellectual practices which involve basic communication skills, and hand and eye coordination. However, with the world of technology continually growing, and the level of diversity in the student population becoming vaster it has become necessary to also include speaking, listening, viewing, and visually aspects to the curriculum. One of the best ways to address a wide range of literacy is to pair the categories with each other based upon their connections in the real world. The categories include written language (reading & writing), spoken communication (listening & speaking), and visual language (viewing & visually representing). (Standards for the English Language Arts p. 6) Many of these can be done with a range of creative activities such as students being able to choose what they write about, share their own personal experiences in their writings, and then read them together; this helps the students stay engaged in the work they’re doing, and also increases their level of retention of the material. The importance of a student being engaged is best explained in the article “Adolescent Literacy: A Policy Brief” with, “The number of students who are not engaged with or motivated by school learning grows at

Teaching literacy is certainly not an easy task; hence, educators must have significant background knowledge and experience in the literacy area in order to provide the best learning experience to students. Educators must constantly promote literacy in their classrooms, especially when the students are young readers. For that reason, it is extremely important that educators make a great effort to get to know their students’ and their reading abilities, their strengths and weakness in the reading area and most importantly, to have an extended knowledge of how to teach literacy. Reading is the foundation of learning; every concept and subject taught requires some form of reading, therefore, building a strong reading foundation will enable individuals to become successful not only academically, but also socially.

My chosen concentration in Literacy stems from my love of reading. However, I have not studied literacy until enrolling in this course. My orientation toward literacy theory and practice is beginning to take some form of shape. Learning the new theories and models as well as reading the post of my peers is very intriguing and interesting. In this proposal, I will expand on my personal ‘lens on literacy” in reference to readings throughout the course while answering the question, “How does this lens influence, to paraphrase Paulo Freire's words, "how you read your world and the words in it?"

I have learned a vast amount of knowledge after taking this literacy course. My perspective on literacy now, have developed into a notion that literacy is needed for a student’s success. My outlook on adolescent literacy is still that it has wide range of different perspectives. Literacy is the basic method of understanding the material. I define literacy to be composed of several components such as: comprehension, communication, reading, critical thinking, and analyzing. According to “Why is literacy important?” (2017, March 24) The power of literacy lies not just in the ability to read and write, but rather in a person’s capacity to apply these skills to effectively connect, interpret and discern the

Literacy is the most important skill when it comes to children’s personal growth, culture and development. Literacy is the ability to read and write, and is tied to everything children do, including their social interactions with others. When children don’t develop strong literacy and language skills in their early years, the impact on future educational attainment and employment outcomes are significant, (King-Smith, 2015, p. 5). It is crucial to help young children be ready for school by working with them to develop the necessary early literacy and learning skills, to become confident and involved learners. Educators are in charge of creating literacy rich environments for children, where children will experience effective teaching

Literacy instruction should provide students with a variety of opportunities to read, write, listen, and speak. Getting to know my students is extremely important to me because I believe students’ interests need to be considered when developing literacy lessons. It also helps when choosing books to read aloud to the class and when choosing books for the class library.

A teacher’s learning instruction is essential and paints the picture for a child’s success in society. A teacher’s literacy instruction provides children with the needed skills to be fluent in reading, writing, phonemic awareness, and math. Phonics and phonemic awareness also help with reading comprehension. Preparing a child for fluency and comprehension means doing the basics and leading up to the high expected skills. Each step in developing reading and writing is built off the other; for example, cause and effect. What is an affective comprehensive literacy instruction? Is one better than the other? This essay will define comprehension literacy instruction and explain how to scaffold a child’s literacy development.

Larson and Marsh (2015) aided my understanding that society, culture, and environment influence a child’s literacy development. Specifically, New Literacy Studies (NLS) taught me that literacy is achieved by participating in the world, which includes learning from both society and culture. In addition, I learned about Critical Literacy, which is the ability to deconstruct a text for alternative meanings or implications. Like NLS,

I have experience a lot of new topics in this curriculum from vocabulary, grammar, free writing, and how to build a concrete essay. Learning these factors help me build a better understanding of literacy. The main topic we went over was learning how to create a thesis statement and supporting details. By reading short stories, cite reading, and answering questions about passages. Learning that in class help me understand the steps of being a great writer. The components of literacy is having a thesis, knowing the problem or question, reflection and most importantly structure. These components are highly important because it makes a flow in a logical way. To continue, I will be explaining the different aspects I learn in class that involves

Literacy lessons need to be a balance combination of reading, discussing and writing activities. Teachers must create opportunities where the students take the role of the educator and educate not only themselves but also their peers. To make sure all students receive the level of attention each one of them need, small group activities must also be conducted with specific group or individual instructions. The small group will allow teachers to assess the need of each students with their strength, weaknesses and most importantly the tools that they need to achieve.

My learning so far for this unit has been very informative, interesting and most of all useful for my everyday work. The focus during week one was on language and the importance of being literate. Language is more than communication and can be seen as cognitive, material or social. We use language to express our emotions, thoughts and to communicate with family and friends. During week two the topics explored context, shared meaning and interaction. There are four concepts that underpin approaches to literacy teaching and learning. These include that language is a socio-cultural practice; there are multiple ways of being literate; literacy involves more than the recognition of symbols and classroom literacies need to be learned in a meaningful

“Our Role as Mentors, demonstrating a Love of Literacy, this says it all! A teacher who foster literacy in his or her classroom will help “expand a student breadth of experience in reading and writing”. Students will start to take on the value system of their teachers. So it is important as educators to be a good role model, especially when it comes to helping children learn to love reading and writing. Teachers who take time to read a book that has nothing to do with the curriculum and allowing students to write about their own life experiences will give students experience in the wonderful world of reading. Teachers who model the value system when it comes to reading and writing, will only heighten the joy students get from literacy activities.

Teaching in the middle, junior high, and senior high grades is a very complex task. As students progress from elementary to secondary, the demands of text dependent reading and writing to build content knowledge increase substantially. Thus, educators at this level are tasked with assisting their students in navigating new and diverse literacies. Since the inception of reading education in secondary schooling, a shifting focus has occurred from reading as remediation towards reading and writing as a developmental process that particularly strives towards building “discourse” knowledge and skills (Ruddle, 2008, p. 6-7). Yet, the complex terrain of secondary literacy is not siloed in academic factors alone, but rather, is influenced by the increasingly global and interconnected-ness that adolescent students bring into secondary school classrooms. New concerns, such as meeting the learning needs of immigrant students and the linguistic diversity that bring to the

Literacy pedagogies have a developing and complex history in education, intertwined with social and cultural change and evolution. Each change has paved a new path for more significant approaches and strategies, which cater to diverse learners allowing them to create meaning and communicate more effectively. These literacy pedagogies brought out by the changes in education have both strengths and weaknesses. As such, educators need to explore and understand the four knowledge processes portrayed by Kalantzis, Cope, Chan and Dalley-Trim; didactic, authentic, functional, and critical literacy approach (2016), to be able to consider how they can influence teaching and learning so they are able to make informed decisions with regards to their students’ literacy learning. Teaching is becoming increasingly complex; this is particularly evident in the area of literacy. This paper will explore the four literacy pedagogies, their limitations and their strengths, and how they have impacted literacy learning within the Australian educational context.