The Importance Of Literacy In Education

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

I am currently a high school teacher of Living Environment in a public school in the Bronx. Over 80% of the students at my school are on reduced lunch. Additionally, over 98% of my students are Latino/Hispanic and African American. As I come to define what literacy means to me as a teacher, I begin to come to realize that my own definition of literacy is highly influenced by my personal experiences in life. I grew up in a single parent home in a rough part of town and attended a school that was majority Latino/Hispanic and African American throughout my academic career until I reached college. The university where I attended was the complete opposite: most of the students were white with only a handful of students of other ethnicities. While in college, I remember being self-conscious about my ability to both read and speak. Public speaking was one of my phobias during my undergraduate career. I noticed that all of my white colleagues were articulate with their speech and never seemed to stumble over words. Myself on the other hand, I struggled with certain root words and for that reason I never wanted to speak out in class. However, I believe the most frustrating part of this whole experience was the lack of understanding from my colleagues. For them, reading and speaking was something that just

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

This year's Just Read Florida theme is Civics-Literacy related, "Literacy Changes Our World". Our Cambridge students participated in an outreach program which combined the 2 subject areas. In LA, Melmood's students brought a copy of their favorite novels and wrote messages inside the covers to the next reader sharing their thoughts. In Civics, Beitz's students made children's books which explain the Bill of Rights in terms that 7th graders can understand. Santangelo even had some extra books from her project. We took the boxes of books to Silver Lakes Middle yesterday, a school chosen for its low SES band of students.

Throughout my first year as a middle school Language Arts teacher, I have developed a theoretical understanding of what I believe are the necessary components to providing a meaningful and generative environment in which students develop and expand literacy skills. The teaching of literacy needs to include a balance of reading, writing, speaking and listening activities, and needs to be a social endeavor that provides a variety of instructional strategies to meet the needs of all diverse learners. My teaching strategies, beliefs and personality that I bring to my classroom can be characterized as a blend of two types of philosophical theories: social constructivism and relational teaching and

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

Everybody has a moment that puts their life into perspective; a moment where everything just clicks, but sometimes that moment can open up more questions than answers. A person’s life can depend a lot on their surroundings, but regardless of the circumstances they’re in, it is up to them to decide how it will affect them. One event could affect each person differently in such a way that there is an indeterminate amount of possibilities in one person’s life, and they will have to be the ones to take it upon themselves to decide. My moment made me decide to learn new languages, to learn about cultures, to communicate. I wanted to live in a world where there would be no hassle in traveling, no language barriers, and no discrimination.

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.

Educators are charged with not only teaching the content of their subject, but also responsible for creating a learning environments that fosters communication, engagement, and reflection so that the students will be prepared for their future careers and learning. Creating a classroom that fosters reading and writing is one way to engage students while promoting that they reflect on the material and communicate their understanding or misconceptions of the content. In order to form a literacy-rich classroom educators need to increase the amount of time students interact with all forms of print and literacy and the classroom environment is an essential key to setting the precedent and model behaviors that will make students more successful and capable of high level learning. (Tyson, 2013)

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).

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.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” (Mahatma Gandhi). Learning is essential to grow as an individual and expand your knowledge. Literacy is key for broadening our mentality and a person will only benefit from it. For me, especially, literacy has been essential for my growth and the challenges I have taken on. Everything in my life has depended on my knowledge and skills that I have acquired, and I am continuously developing new techniques.

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.

Literacy has changed the way that people live since the beginning of time. From cavemen communicating with drawings and hand signals to the earliest form of Latin. At that time reading was a skill that very few had. It was believed to be that only the wealthy and the noble class were taught this skill. Peasants did not need it in their everyday life. Reading was considered a privilege and was also used to suppress the lower class. Knowledge is power. For me, this knowledge has molded the way that I live and communicate.

Reading and writing are both important; you can’t have one without the other. They are skills that are increased constantly due to little things that most times are not noticed. Whether it is from a book to a poem, there will always be a way that it helps out your school performance. Reading and writing in general only helps absorb information, and enhance leisure or school related writing tasks. It has also made life itself so much easier because reading and writing are so beneficial for school and for life. How much you read and write today, will somehow affect your future job, family, position, or even your salary.