Visual Literacy Paper

My early reading experiences reflect the history that Vogt and Shearer (2011) describe in the first chapter of Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches in the Real World. The basal reading programs of the 1970s and 1980s included “leveled readers, phonics activities, and a great deal of comprehension skill practice, usually found on the pages of the accompanying workbooks. The programs also included highly structured, detailed teacher’s guides, with different lesson plans for each of the three instructional groups” (Vogt & Shearer, 2011, p.13).

Thank you for sharing some great resources. The first two articles you chose I felt were outstanding to begin understanding visual literacy. I loved the information contained in within them as they presented us an overview of what visual literacy is and its importance. It appeared that "the need for visual literacy instruction in the K-12 education" was a very popular resource for the three of us. Did you find elements of it useful that you intend to incorporate into your learning or use with students? I believe Topiel did an excellent job giving readers general information and application for visual literacy, which I found very helpful.

The Portland Public Schools uses a reading program called Reader's Workshop to guide K-6 students through the process of learning to read and reading to learn. Reader’s Workshop is a research-based program developed by Teacher’s College. As part of Reader's Workshop, all students are assessed at the beginning of each school year using a reading screen called Fountas and Pinnell. The Fountas and Pinnel reading screen allows teachers to identify each student’s reading level. Once reading levels are identified, teachers work collaboratively to design an individualized program of literacy instruction that builds student fluency, accuracy and comprehension. Through Reader’s Workshop, as opposed to each student reading the same text in a one-size-fits-all instructional model, each student reads a personalized text that engages students at their current ability level and scaffolds text complexity as students develop the ability to engage fiction and informational text.

were given the choice of intervention strategies they wanted their parents to use to assist them at

Whitehurst, Arnold et al. (1994) employed the evaluation of intervention reading program at the beginning of school year where an adult reader, both a parent and teacher, engaged with children during the reading process at the home and school. This method of interacting with parent and teachers encouraged children to respond questions by their own words. Consequently, at the end of the year, students increased their vocabulary capacity. Moreover, the intervention of the program increased children ability to expose reading more books, (Whitehurst, Arnold et al., 1994). Wasik and her colleagues (Wasik & Bond, 2001; Wasik, Bond, & Hindman, 2006) employed similar technique of shared reading with other activities in the classroom in aim to strengthen vocabulary through evaluating an early literacy intervention program at the beginning and end of the year. The findings of the study showed the children in the high poverty who participated in the intervention performed better on tests than students in control classrooms (Wasik & Bond, 2001; Wasik et al.,

Visual literacy is a type of literacy that everyone uses in today’s world. By looking at a simple object, be it a painting or simple object, we all use our critical thinking to interpret what the object’s purpose is. I can relate to this type of literacy because I have an open mind and I’m always creative when it comes to writing and drawing. Coming up with theories is an everyday routine when working at jobs, attending meetings and completing assignments at school. This applies to Visual Literacy because it is basically using your mind and sharing what the object is interpreted as.

Textbooks provide teachers and learners with materials and act like a guiding map for the teaching process and lesson planning. Moreover, being usually designed by experts in the field, they tend to be conversant with current theoretical approaches and methodologies However, textbooks may not achieve all the goals that it is set for it if not localized to the context and culture of their users.

What is Visual Literacy? Kennedy discusses visual literacy as “it’s the ability to construct meaning from images. It’s not a skill; it uses skills as a toolbox. It’s a form of critical thinking that enhances your intellectual capacity. It’s not a new concept”. (TedTalks-http://www.dartmouth.edu/~tedx/briank...) Kennedy's definition is a straightforward statement that most readers can understand. The textbook complicates the definition. Moreover, our textbook definition goes into detail about the competencies that allow us to discriminate and interpret what we see. Both definitions have the same meaning. However, Kennedy does an excellent job providing real-life experiences and detail so that the reader can easily connect.

Reading surveys are helpful tool in helping teachers of reading understands their students as readers. Reading surveys gages student’s interests, habits, and the strategies the student uses while engaging in the activity of reading. Reading surveys such as the Index of Reading Awareness ask specific questions such as “what is the hardest part of reading for you?” or “what would help you become a better reader (Jacobs & Paris, 1987). Each assessment has a scoring guide that can help teachers see what specific skills students are having trouble with.

The process of learning to read can be difficult for young children. Teachers require knowledge and understanding of the reading process as well as skills to teach children skills and strategies to become a successful reader. Using a balanced approach to teaching children reading skills and strategies, teachers start with explicit instruction before gradually giving students responsibility and independence in using these strategies for reading. Teachers must understand the importance of oral language, vocabulary, concepts of print, phonemic awareness, phonics and comprehension within the reading process to ensure that children are well equipped with these elements prior to learning to read. Knowledge and understanding of these concepts give teachers the skills to teach children to read.

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).

In my five years of being a third grade English Language Arts teacher, the implementation of guided reading has been my biggest struggle. My school has fully adopted the guided reading program within the past 2 years. A guided reading library and books for professional development have been purchased, but very little training has occurred. The journey of learning how to successfully teach Reading using Jan Richardson’s approach to guided reading has been a challenge to say the least. Scheduling has been the largest obstacle I have faced in implementing guided reading in my classroom. I have spent this summer researching and reading about guided reading in an attempt to gain further understanding of the process and the outcomes before the next school year begins.

The author explores why students struggle through reading? What are the challenges educators faces to meet the needs of all students while having a diverse classroom of learners? What causes some students to struggle with reading and what instruction practices can be use that are effective and successful? All teachers of all grade levels should promote literacy development. Teachers need to make readers “21st Century Readers” meaning students should be taught literacy skills to navigate in the classroom as well in the future. The author referred to the struggling reader as the “delayed reader.” As stated by author struggling readers attempt to make effort to read whereas delayed readers postpone learning to read. There are strategies mentioned

Developing reading skills in children has become a vital component in formal education. Scholars argue that when the child is exposed to some amount of reading it is a step towards the child becoming a good reader. As a result, many educators today continue to support that it is important to become a proficient reader which will be by reading widely and frequently. However, there have been arising issues that have become obstacles in gaining reading proficiency. This paper will explore the critical issues with developing reading skills in children from preschool to high school level. The emphasis will be in the identification of most known aspects in programs designed to help in the development of reading skills.

As a secondary school English teacher starting a new school year, there is a curiosity about student readers in the classroom. Year after year without fail it seems that when the question is asked, “How many of you are readers?” only a few hands go up. Accompanying those timid responses are comments around the room like “I hate to read,” or “Last time I read an entire book was in sixth grade when the teacher read to us.” The consensus among educational professionals and researchers is that the problem is not, in most cases, laziness or a lack of good reading material, but the difficulty for students to comprehend what they are reading. As a result of this, many students do not like to read because reading is work and not enjoyable. According to the National Reading Panel (2000), there are five major goals of reading that will bring about successful readers. Those goals include: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. When referring to adolescent-aged students, the area of reading most likely to be addressed will focus on fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. If these areas are addressed successfully, most students can be taught to enjoy reading.