Teaching Method Of Multimodal Literacy

As a future teacher of a fast-changing generation that searches restlessly for new interests, I believe that old and new must meet to keep the basic values of a balanced literacy. Focusing on prior knowledge, collaborating with colleagues, peers, families, and community, creating connections with our surrounding, and empowering students’ learning style throughout the process of gaining knowledge of reading and writing. Foremost, my personal philosophy of teaching literacy is based on constructivism and sociolinguistic, where hands on experience and guidance are priority in an informational world. To facilitate a child’s acquisition of literacy skills , as I plan for literacy instruction for my future classroom, I will take into consideration

“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.

Literacy plays a huge role in my daily life. Every single day I read and write. Whether it’s writing an email or reading a text message, class assignment, discussion board, etc. My literacy journey is unique because I have had different experiences. As a result, this is how my literacy journey has let me to be the reader that I am.

Some students may be a combination of these sensory modalities making them a multimodal learner. Over 60% percent of learners fall into the multimodal learner category (Fleming & Mills, 2011). Learners in this category may switch from each of their learning strengths to fit the situation or presentation of

I have learnt that as adults, we already have the skills for reading but using illustrations, sounds and words is a multimodality tool. I tend not to use these different strategies and I think at first, this made my writing in Storybird difficult. I had plenty of ideas but had trouble finding images. I learnt children have far more of a free flowing attitude than adults do, and it took me a while to focus on writing around the images rather than finding an image to match my writing. Children already know much about multimodal texts from their home experiences. As teaching assistant’s it is our responsibility to build on these experiences and the children’s knowledge, recognising the relationships between different modes and use this in our teaching. The future of reading and writing is interwoven with the future of digital technology (UKLA 2005).

Emoticons are used in text messages and emails. Given how the use of such graphics has permeated everyday functions in our society, up and coming generations will feel more comfortable if educational institutions utilize such devices for classroom work. Electronic textbooks also provide resources that traditional texts cannot offer. For example, some e-books include videos or motion graphics to illustrate concepts. Interactive applications are also utilized to help with studying and test preparation.

Over the course of first semester in college I have learned how to read, write, and learn again. That sentence may be hard to understand, since when getting to college you are already supposed to know how, but it is true. Starting off with I Stand Here Writing by Nancy Sommers, I have learned how to enhance my writing by using personal sources to combine personal and academic writing. With the help of The Mind at Work by Mike Rose I got an example of how the teachings of Sommers can be applied in writing. We ended the semester off with learning how to read again. In James Gee book Semiotic Domains: Is Playing Video Games a “Waste of Time”? I got another look at how to view literacy, which I was not aware that there was another way to look at. Literacy should not be the ability to read and write but thought of as a semiotic domain. All that is saying is that from what is written, categorizing the text to certain domain and producing and adding meaning adds depth to what is written while we also get a better understanding as well. Overall I have a gained an alternative perspective on learning and when experiencing new things, changing your mindset will lead you to success in that domain.

This course has provided a window into the resources and strategies available to create rich instruction for diverse needs of all literacy learners. The media segments and virtual field experiences provided models of the strategies and activities being conducted in the classroom. This was very helpful in implementing my own versions of those lessons with my literacy learner and completing the literacy development study. I believe this course has prepared me to be a more efficient educator when teaching students of diverse reading abilities. I plan to continue using my newfound knowledge and skills to create an enriching learning environment for all students in my classroom.

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

It was clear that Seb engaged into play creating roles and ideas while he was making the shark. In this example, educators can promote this learning by building on family and community experiences with creative and expressive art. In Seb's case, children at his age tend to utilise technology. Seb referred to the movie Finding Nemo and a good way to engage children in the classroom is to integrate technology into children’s play experiences and projects by providing a wide range of resources that will allow them to demonstrate meaning using visual arts such as electronic storybooks. This will ensure them asking open-ended questions and becoming active and engaged learners (DEEWR,

As I arrange this reflective analysis paper on topics that relate to a foundational course and specifically searching for the modules that have given me the most information, taught me something new or expanded my knowledge on a specific topic of reading, I have come to realize how far I have come since I began this adventure. I began these courses after graduating from Marshall with my bachelors. I chose this path because of my love for reading and teaching reading. I have come to realize that these courses have enabled me to become a more effective reading teacher and I now have been given the skills, strategies and techniques that I needed to teach a child to read. I know that I will always need to keep up with classes and new techniques, but feel that I am much more capable of teaching reading than before I started these courses. The course 653 Literacy Acquisition helped me to improve and further develop my educational philosophies and beliefs. So, I chose to speak about the first lesson that was expected of me in this class, Module 1 Literacy Theories, Beliefs and Practices.

This chapter discusses the different ways to integrate literacy across different disciplines. Not only is this beneficial but its crucial to promote learning literacy across many different subjects. Now I would have to say that this chapter is easily one of my favorites yet. It gives explicit detail about how to create a lesson that is interdisciplinary. In order to do this one first must recognize the importance of reading and writing. These two disciplines are taught together because they work synergistically. Teacher can often times find different types of text to accommodate instruction of different subjects such as science and social studies. Texts can come from multiple different origins such as poems, magazines, and videos. On that same page, writing can be used as a path for learning. Writing can be done in class of various subjects using learning logs, quick writing, and graphic organizers. These tools are beneficial to begin a unit of study in the classroom. Then when student have begun their unit of study and have learned new information there are multiple different ways to assess the students knowledge. They can show what they have learned through writing about it. This can include reports, poetry, posters, and alphabet books. Another

Creating a literacy-rich environment is one of the key elements of supporting children’s literacy development. Literacy-rich classrooms tend to look quite different than the traditional classroom, covered in pre-made posters and arranged with individual desks in rows, and instead, allow for teachers to design their classrooms with their students’ needs in mind. According to an article on the Sadlier School’s blog, all elements in a classroom must be meaningful, intentional, purposeful, and engaging when creating a literacy-rich classroom. This means that classroom design is created in a way that it provides frequent opportunities to be exposed to text via environmental print, instruction, and hands-on learning as well as encouraging communication and collaboration (Sadlier School, 2017).

As schools promote 21st-century learning, there has been a push for literacies which encourage students to be 21st-century learners. The two overarching literacies, new and digital, has taken over the three R’s literacy, reading, writing, and arithmetic. New Literacies continuously change due to the new technology emerging providing different ways to get information and communicate with others (Leu et al., 2015). In contrast, digital literacy is the ability to use digital tools to access information for understanding and communication (Jose, 2016). New literacies and digital literacies also differ in aspects of use in the classroom. New literacies are the building blocks for digital literacy; which are the skills students need to understand the internet (Maloy, Verock-O'Loughlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2017). New literacies can be taught without the use of technology because students are learning to locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate information. Teachers can demonstrate these skills using encyclopedias and journal articles to gain a minimalistic comprehension. Once students learn the necessary understanding, teachers can transfer these skills to online which will promote digital literacy; furthermore, digital literacy can only be taught using digital tools. Teachers would teach students how to use computers and the social practices of the new literacies to gain an understanding of the digital literacy (Jose, 2016). Furthermore, digital literacies

The first article helps in addressing the how to develop literacy through images. In other words, what elements can one look to in order to assist in encompassing a greater understanding of a piece of art, literature or picture book. Specifically, though the first article discusses specifically the connection between visual literacy and textual literacy in picture books. Visual literacy is a great comprehension strategy for picture books. Picture books offer opportunities for novice readers to develop literacy. I believe that visual literacy is a stepping stone into what is considered the mainstream definition of literacy.