Immersing children in a huge range of texts encourages them to dive in and explore. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.
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It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. What is literacy? Literacy is most commonly defined as the ability to read and write. Why is literacy important? Students need literacy in order to engage with the written word in everyday life. Ways to support literacy development Literacy development should be a combined effort between home and school. Discuss texts together Actively discussing what has been read encourages learners to make connections and think deeply about the ideas contained in texts.
Use games and activities that support literacy development Write a half-page story that makes use of a new and unusual word or phrase.
Describe a person or object with as many adjectives as you can think of. Information scavenger hunt: scour the web to find facts on a given topic within a set time frame. This intergenerational cycle makes social mobility and a fairer society more difficult. People with low literacy skills may not be able to read a book or newspaper, understand road signs or price labels, make sense of a bus or train timetable, fill out a form, read instructions on medicines or use the internet.
Read more. A boy born in Stockton Town Centre an area with serious literacy challenges has a life expectancy Only 1 in 2 Although his verbal reasoning was strong, his writing looked like it came from a first or second grader. His handwriting was messy, his spelling was jumbled, and his ideas were disorderly. The student had been diagnosed with a serious medical condition. His condition impacted his ability to express his ideas in writing but did not appear to negatively impact his spoken language.
I observed his use of literacy skills in science, math, history, and the arts, and I also observed how difficult it was for teachers to understand and accommodate the extremes in his literacy capabilities.
For students at all grade levels, I began to see how unique the learning of literacy was, along with how much teachers needed to know and be able to do to teach literacy to diverse groups of learners. As you read this textbook, you will find that certain key terms, which are described below, recur throughout many of the chapters. You will notice that some authors use these terms to reflect broad meanings, whereas other authors use these terms to discuss only one or two aspects of their meanings.
Authors will signal to you what they mean when they use these terms so that you can understand which aspects apply to each chapter. Language comprehension consists of the interweaving of language components, including the background knowledge someone has, along with knowledge of vocabulary, language structures e.
In addition, language comprehension also includes personal aspects of comprehension, such as the experiences individuals draw upon to construct meaning Shanahan et al. Furthermore, the digital age has brought forth innovative changes in how people make meaning, so the term literacy also includes making meaning from different modes of communication, which are described next.
While many chapter authors refer to texts as printed documents, other authors use the term to refer to more diverse modes of communication, including:. Included below are some questions to explore your background knowledge of literacy prior to reading the rest of this textbook.
Thinking about your background knowledge will help you connect what you are about to learn with the funds of knowledge that you bring to learning more about literacy research and practice. If you did not know how to fully answer most of the questions, then this textbook will provide you with a wealth of information that you will need to know and be able to use to become an effective teacher of literacy.
Even if you have a great deal of background knowledge related to literacy, this textbook will provide you with helpful examples for how to use that knowledge in your teaching.
Steps to Success: Crossing the Bridge Between Literacy Research and Practice was written for preservice and practicing teachers who want to better meet the needs of their students. The book was written by authors with expertise spanning major topics in literacy.
A fundamental goal in the creation of this textbook was to present information on literacy research and practice in interesting ways. Included in the book are many relevant examples from the field to facilitate a problem-solving approach to becoming an effective teacher. An important aim of each chapter is to promote the idea that literacy teaching is a dynamic and complex synthesis of research, theory, and practice, as opposed to silos of difficult-to-apply information.
An important end result of instructional decisions educators make, and practices they use, is that decisions should bring about benefits to students. This means that individuals preparing to be effective teachers must not only understand the complexity of literacy but also how to make informed decisions in spite of this complexity.
This textbook does not contain all of the answers you will need to make these decisions about teaching literacy, but when used in combination with all of the other experiences you will have in becoming an educator, it will add to what you know and will be able to do to help students develop their literacy skills.
This book spans many topics related to literacy teaching and learning. Chapter 5 provides background on literacy assessment, followed by Chapter 6 , which addresses approaches to writing instruction for elementary school children. Chapter 8 and Chapter 9 address literacy teaching and learning in relation to two important and often underserved student groups, including English language learners and students with intellectual disabilities.
Chapter 10 , Chapter 11 , and Chapter 12 focus on adolescent literacy, including 21st century literacy, teaching adolescent writers, and the use of discipline specific literacy strategies in culturally responsive ways.
Chapter 13 provides an overview of world language and literacy development, and Chapter 14 instructs readers how to analyze their use of language to explore both literacy and identity.
Similar to this introductory chapter, the other chapters begin with an abstract describing what the chapter is about, followed by a brief but important set of learning objectives.
At the end of each chapter is a reference section with all of the sources authors used to write their chapters.
Although readers of textbooks do not always take the time to look through the references of a body of work, readers are encouraged to explore these documents to further fact-check the knowledge and practices they are being asked to integrate into their teaching, as well as to deepen their knowledge of current issues within the field of literacy research and practice.
To students who are assigned to read chapters from this textbook, please consider the following advice for getting the most from it. This book is intended to provide you with some of the knowledge you will need to become an effective teacher.
It is certainly not the only source of knowledge you will need but is meant to serve as an important foundation to ease the learning of content you will encounter in other courses and at your field placements. It is also meant to inform your future teaching, so it is important to read the information and think about it in reference to your teaching rather than just reading it to get an assignment out of the way.
Students may also be tempted to think about literacy as being only related to reading and writing, and therefore, only associated with English language arts and English classes, but as argued previously, literacy is much broader than this and permeates every single subject taught in schools.
Approaching this book with a broad view of literacy as it relates to making meaning across all school experiences will help prevent readers who may be planning to teach subjects within the domains of science, math, physical education, social studies, and the arts from mistakenly assuming that literacy teaching is not relevant to their practice.
And remember, if you are planning to become a teacher, preparing to teach is not accomplished by simply taking a series of required courses and electives at a college or university. You are making a career choice, and to be successful in a career, you must develop a commitment to preparing for it, not only by participating meaningfully in your college courses but by constantly evaluating your progress toward professional goals, and seeking additional experiences in areas where you need to learn more.
When you begin working toward becoming a teacher, rather than just trying to meet course expectations, remember to keep your focus on how to develop the skills you need to help students learn from what you do. To teacher educators who plan to use this book in their classes, please consider the following advice to get the most from it. You may wish to assign one, many, or all of the chapters according to your instructional goals and objectives.
Each chapter was designed to fit together with the other chapters but was also written to stand alone on the topics addressed. Also note that each chapter has clear objectives, self-assessments, and ideas for activities that can be completed in or out of the classroom to help students gain further knowledge about the teaching and learning of literacy.
Consider incorporating some of these activities into your syllabus so that students are actively engaged not only in doing the readings but also using what is learned to make instructional decisions for the children and adolescents whom they will encounter in educational field placements and when they enter the field of education.
In addition, links to websites and references included in each of the chapters may be valuable for your students to explore more fully, depending on your course objectives. This introductory chapter was designed to orient you to ways to define and think about literacy, as well as familiarize you with the format and purposes of this textbook.
Literacy is complex and requires a great deal of knowledge to appreciate and a great deal of effort to teach. Included in this chapter was a discussion of literacy in terms of its scope—that it is not limited to reading and writing but encompasses a diverse set of modalities—such as listening, speaking, viewing, and performing, as well as factors related to sociocultural and digital influences.
Because research continues to provide insights into some of the most enduring questions in the field, learning how to teach literacy is somewhat of a moving target.
It takes high levels of knowledge, skill, and effort to teach children and adolescents literacy, while continuing to stay informed of research findings that may help improve your practice.
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