The Importance Of Literacy

Literacy is having an understanding that oral language can be brought to life through print. Thoughts, that are translated in text or through writing, are used to inform, entertain or persuade the reader. Literacy (the ability to read and write) is a much-needed tool to survive in today’s society. Without it, one would become a life-long dependent. The building blocks for becoming a successful reader begin with emergent literacy.

Literacy plays a huge role in many people’s lives everyday, whether it is learning how to read and write for the first time or writing a five-page essay for the hundredth time. We experience literacy differently and have our very own unique stories on how it has impacted our lives and had made us who we are today. It is an essential aspect that I use in my everyday life, such as in relationships, daily interactions with others, and learning. It has become such a powerful aspect and human right in which it allows one to speak his/her mind and in some cases express their opinion to the world. My personal literacy history has shaped me into who I am today because without my experiences I would not have been able to gain the confidence and

I define literacy as being able to express my thoughts and emotions. I know everyone has different opinions and emotions. Therefore, everyone will write differently and read in a different pace. Also, everyone likes different types of books, for example fiction or nonfiction. As a result, everyone’s literacy journey is unique. Everyone has a different definition when it comes to literacy which is what makes it special. Some prefer to read and others prefer to write. It all depends on personal preference.

If you were to ask me what literacy meant to me when I was younger I would tell you, that it represented reading a book, and simply writing. The first thing that would come to my mind is English, reading and writing is what I do when it comes to that subject. Being young I was never taught the true meaning of literacy, and if you’re anything like me, you would eventually have to just learn on your own. Growing up I rarely thought what literacy truly meant, yet growing up it was a question I was always curious about, because this is when my writing became more serious. The more I began to write essays, the more it seemed to bother me. I asked myself, how could I truly write a good paper without knowing the basic true meaning of it all?

Literacy is usually understood as the ability to read and write. Becoming literate as a human being is very vital to your success. Without literacy you are bound to fail. Most people began the literacy journey prior to even being born. The human fetus begins to hear at around the seven month mark, although comprehension doesn’t start until a while after the child is actually born. Literacy typically is learned via a parent and or guardian, school teachers in addition to self-teaching. In my personal opinion literacy is a topic that you will continually improve upon your entire life.

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

Literacy is not only knowing how to read and write. I believe it is much more than that. Being literate is more or less being knowledgeable in a specific area. That being said, it is hard to understand anything without first knowing how to read and write and that is why it's so important. I do not believe anyone knows their purpose in life if they are not literate in some area of life.

Literacy has an attribute that includes reading and writing, and is used to communicate, learn, expand your knowledge, and share your thoughts. Literacy is something you learn growing up in your schools, your homes, and throughout your community. The primary source of knowledge, scripture, and language is literacy. These sources are in our everyday lives, whether we are reading books, on the internet, or learning at school. Reading and writing are an essential in our lives; you are able to compose your own writing into art, poetry, or stories. Throughout my life i’ve ran across teachers who have proved to me that reading and writing is an important essential in our lives, therefore we should at least feed our brains with knowledge, and be able to write a scholarly essay. Throughout the essay I will be talking about my literacy experience and how I struggled, but sought help from the people in my life, and realized that literacy was an important asset in my life.

It's often found that people don't take into account that literacy isn't just confined to the ability to simply just read a book, but rather the capacity to simply read no matter what the content is. Literacy comes in many forms and is therefore able to be interpreted in several different aspects. Knowledge, which isn't always obtained by reading, plays a huge critical role in how the mind thinks. Literacy has one of the biggest impacts on the way you feel about certain topics, mostly because it can open the door to so many new opinions. Many of which may not have ever been brought up before.

In the article “10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day”, Lana Winter-Hebert expands on the ten benefits of reading, which include mental stimulation, stress reduction, vocabulary expansion, and more. She made an analogy saying “reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”, and she proves this theory in her writing. When reading a book, all of your attention and focus are in on that book and you tend to forget all about your worries and personal problems, so reading is initially reducing stress levels and brings about inner peace and tranquility. Reading can additionally help you in your future life. Studies have proved that staying mentally stimulated can delay or even prevent diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Reading keeps your brain active hence helping your brain from losing power. Studies show that staying mentally active reduces the risk of Alzheimer, a common form of Dementia, usually used to refer the uncommon memory loss.

We live in a society today that is for the most part illiterate. Literacy isn’t just the ability to read words on a page. Infact, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, Literacy means the ability to use printed and written information to function in society, accomplish one’s goals, and develop one’s knowledge and potential.

Literacy is constantly used in our lives everyday, but are people giving it as much credit as it actually deserves? Literacy gives people an easier education, improves society, and allows people to maintain a healthy state of mind, these reasons are why literacy is very important in our society. Everybody knows that literacy is the base of education, as stated in an article, Regardless of their family background, children who arrive to kindergarten ready to learn to read “are generally more successful in grade school” and “less likely to drop out of high school” than their peers who are not equipped with pre-reading fundamentals by age five” (Lahey). Literacy is essential to getting a good education as stated before, literacy causes kids to be “generally more successful in grade school,” but literacy also gives people the skills to understand information and certain concept that are given to people getting an education, as said by Angie Stevens.

When you think of literacy you think of someone that knows every book in the library, that is super smart and that has flawless writing skill. Well let me tell you this right now, I 'm not that person. I was raised in Chicago where there was a broad range of literacy taught throughout the schools. In the school I was attending, I was taught to write incomplete sentences and never knew where the punctuation should go. When I was forced to move to northern Michigan, all that literacy my teacher taught me went down the drain.

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.