The Importance Of Literacy

Learning to read and write as a child is an experience that all can relate to. The average child learns to read and write at the early ages of three and four. Developing literacy at an early age is crucial to academic development as well as to performance in life. Early development can be just what a child needs to stimulate their minds, which in turn is assisting in the evolution of their future. The early and latter stages of development in a child’s literacy journey are the makings for their reading and writing skills. It also plays part in their analysis of obstacles as well as their developed or problematic literacy future. A child

I have acquired many literacy opportunities throughout my literacy life my parents, grandparents, and teachers ,I hold them very close to my heart because if it wasn’t for them pushing and encouraging me to read and write I wouldn’t be the literate person I am today. I bear a huge family so there are always many voices going through my head so it wasn’t long until I started speaking, as well as comprehending what all these strange words meant recognizing the words was very difficult before I started practicing them. My parents always encouraged me to read and write in a way no child can resist with toys and candy who could say no to that. Every chance they got to help me read they would read with me. I wasn’t forced to read on my own because I didn’t know how.

Literacy instruction is a large focus to the curriculum we as educators follow at Remsen Elementary. Remsen strives for excellence in literacy education and provides a variety of instruction literacy plans in order to support student learning. As stated by our district, “Explode the Code”, Wilson’s Fundations (grade K-3), Leveled Literacy Intervention Curriculum, and Literacy Centers are used with fidelity. Along with these primary instructional resources, interventions and supplemental learning opportunities help teachers to monitor student progress closely through a carefully conceived, supported, and sustained Response to Intervention program (elementary level), and the use of purposeful and comprehensive assessment and progress monitoring program (grade PK-12) to measure student growth and achievement. Furthermore, our “Guide to Response to Intervention (RTI) and Instruction” details our full curricula and materials at REMSEN, PK-12” (REFERENCE WEBSITE).

Since early development, we have been taught that learning reading and writing strategies are essential for our own language and literacy development. We’ve used language to express our feelings and communicate with each other and literacy to become better-educated individuals and familiarize ourselves with problem-solving and decision-making skills. Specifically, in modern society, we apply these skills in texting, emailing, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate with one another. Similarly, we use news articles, blogs, and e-Books as a source of reading material for academic or personal purposes. Some people may argue that they don’t read and write because they don’t have time and it’s “too hard”. Nevertheless, these factors equally contribute to the importance of literacy skills in academic success as it will be examined in my personal experience as a reader and writer.

Rayen enjoys listening and participating in literacy activities. He often makes personal connections to shared experiences and takes risks by sharing them in the large group. Rayen writes in a small group that focuses on sounding out words and recording ideas in ways that make sense. He has demonstrated growth this term in being able spell some high frequency words and uses them in his writing. Rayen is able to communicate his ideas and experiences through illustrations and oral discussions. He uses sentence starters to organize his ideas and produces simple sentences with support. Also with support, he is able to create a story with a beginning, middle and end. Rayen continues to work on consistently using finger spaces in his writing for

Through this week learning resources, I have learned that there are evidences that demonstrate that when a child has limited experiences he or she is more likely to have difficult comprehending what is read. It is why early childhood professionals affirm that oral language is the foundation for literacy development. Everything that children learn about speaking and listening they use for writing and reading and what they learn from writing and reading they use in listening and speaking. In other words, oral language and literacy develop simultaneously. When parents provide rich language and literacy reinforcement at home, children do better in school than those who do not. It is also known for early childhood professionals that for a child with limited experiences is more difficult comprehending what is read. For example, a child who has being exposed to many environments like a farm or like a museum will have more mentally engagement in classrooms activities about things he or she already know that children who have not had experience in those environments. Many researches showed that children that have not have a literacy development or an oral language development years before formal schooling, are less likely to be successful beginning readers, opening an achievement lag that might last through the primary grades. Some of the reasons why parents are not actively involved into their children’s educations are their socioeconomic or legal status. For example, in an immigrant family sometimes both parents have to work and sometimes they have to work two shifts. I have known families where children are the whole day in school and with nannies. Those children do not develop any skills that help them to succeed at the time of attending forming school.

The word literacy to me, is being able to comprehend what a group of letters would mean together, basically is having good comprehension skills. One of many ways we can understand literacy, is to relate the word literature with every writing we do or read. Not only that, but in the world of literacy, having good writing skills can help the reader understand what you’re trying to get across. Even though literacy is associated with letters and words, a picture can also be a good example of it. When we see the logo of Facebook we know what it means, even though if it doesn’t have the complete word, our brain made the connections until your mind associated with the actual word. If you really think about it, we use literature in every part of our

Every day, literacy is used all over the world and we never even give it a second thought a majority of the time. Businessmen skim across the newspaper during their brief lunch break, students groan when given a reading assignment to do, and chatty women everywhere love meeting for their monthly book club. However, when going through all of these motions, does one ever stop to actually think about literacy and the impact it has on our lives? In the scenarios listed above, the answer is more than likely no. Literacy is taken for granted every day. Almost everyone learns how to read and write at some point in his or her lifetime, but hardly does literacy actually get recognized or receive appreciation. We never acknowledge the profound affect it can have on shaping our lives fgdfgdgfd.

As we have learned, intentional teachers are “teachers who have a purpose for the decisions they make and can explain that purpose to others” (Bredekamp, 2014, p. G-4). Literacy is not only writing and reading, but it is the ability to put the two skills together (“What is Literacy,” 2015). I believe that all aspects of literacy is extremely important and is a necessity in every area of life.

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 my senior year began, I finally began to understand the importance of literacy. Just recently, my school held a presentation for our senior class and talked about applying for college soon so we can have early access to scholarships. During this presentation, I gave my future some thought, and went home to talk to my parents about college. My parents went on to encourage me to begin the process of applying for college and stressed, “College is a whole different level compared to high school.” Senior year of high school is supposed to prepare you for the hardships of college, financially and academically. After high school, I know that the real world will strike me with many duties and challenges for myself to accomplish. My aunt is currently

People build themselves in a world that is building them through their choice of words and actions; an important factor of a person’s identity is the way he/she speaks or spoken (Shor, 2009). Critical literacies enable students address social issues in their real world using their interests and experiences from the literacy perspective (p.176). Learning literacy become meaningful for students as they become participants and active citizens, rather than passive spectators, isolated by unfamiliar and meaningless text (p.176). Critical pedagogy help students to intercept real-world problems by crafting authentic texts, aligned with their concerns and interests and communities (p.179). In Michael Apple’s view, this could also be called as ‘democratic

The room arrangement should encourage repeated opportunities to interact with literacy materials and activities to practice skills that students are learning. Through repeated practice assist in building and enhancing skills.

The type of (HLE) a child is in can significantly impacts a child’s emergent literacy development. (Senechal, Lefevre, Thomas , & Daley, 1996; Sawyer, et al., 2014; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Senechal & LaFevre, 2014). HLE is defined by the “frequency of storybook reading and literacy teaching during book reading” (Sawyer, et al., 2014, p. 65). Sénéchal & LeFevre (2002 & 2014) conducted a study to prove that a positive and helpful HLE aids in children’s emergent literacy. The Home Literacy Model used proved the original hypothesis. There was a statistically significant predictor of parent’s creating a positive HLE and frequency of shared book reading that positively correlated to the child’s literacy abilities for the beginning of grade 1. Shared book reading comprises 4% of the significant differences with the child’s vocabulary. The formal literacy measures presented by the parents like, actively listening to the child read and the method the parent uses to teach, was deemed most helpful as a predictor for the child’s reading abilities by the end of grade 1. The study concluded that a positive HLE promoted growth within the child’s vocabulary and word reading skills (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Senechal & LaFevre, 2014).

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.