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What is the importance of literacy
What is the importance of literacy
What is the importance of literacy
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Introduction My first placement as an intern is in a kindergarten class. At the beginning of the year the class began with 19 students and added a new student during the fourth week of school, making our class complete with twenty students. As I develop my teaching experience, I am learning how much time is dedicated for literacy. During a school day in kindergarten, literacy is the main focus of learning. Literacy is what allows learners to become successful in society. Read and writing skills are essential skills that began to develop as early as kindergarten. Literacy components consist of concepts about print, language development, word knowledge such as phonemic awareness and phonics, reading fluency and comprehension, and writing. Each aspect is a building block of becoming literate. Students in kindergarten begin with awareness of print and begin to develop understanding of letter sounds. As a student grows older more literacy skills are developed for which permits students to become successful in literacy.
Description of child Aaron Williams (a pseudonym) walked into kindergarten as a five year old, and turned six during the first week. Aaron is dark skin, short dark brown hair, and taller than the average
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Aaron has alphabet books, letters, crayons and pencils, and writing paper as resources for literacy development. At home, Aaron is being taught at least one new word per day by an adult in the home. At home, Aaron is detailing conversations and is encouraged to speak in complete sentences. Aaron 's parents have a background of being good readers, have a large vocabulary, and have reading involvement with their child. Aaron 's household is contributing to help him learn the alphabet, write letters, write his name, and learn rhyming words. Aaron is learning so much each day in school and with the help received at home will only make him become better in
Living in the Southern United States during eighteenth century was a difficult time for African-Americans. Majority of them were slaves who received manipulation, sexual abuse and brutally whips to the spin. They were treated this way in order to stop them from gaining hope, knowledge and understanding of the world. Some African Americans managed to obtain these qualities from books and use them to escape from slavery. Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who wrote an autobiography, from which the excerpt "Learning to Read and Write" explains how he developed literacy. In the excerpt, an African American slave banned from learning to read and write, breaks the law in an attempt to free his mind from the restricted beliefs of his master. One significant idea portrayed from Douglass's ordeal is that reading and writing is a vital skill that benefits humanity.
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man,
Whether it is reading a book, watching Sesame Street, making a shopping list or writing a letter, literacy comes in many different forms and learning opportunities for the Kindergarten students to succeed.
Literacy programs should be an integral component of every community. Not only do these programs serve adults and foreigners, but they also serve those that live with the problems of poverty throughout their daily lives. In 2000-2001, 15.7% of students missed 21 or more days during the school year. Students who miss many days of school because of illnesses beyond their control often fall behind in their studies. Many literacy programs help these students excel in what otherwise would have been a deficiency in their learning.
Individuals can benefit from having multiple literacies. Literacy in area outside of academia can be repurposed and used in academic settings too. The same is true for academic literacies; academic expertise can prove beneficial in other areas. In order to repurpose literacy, one would apply knowledge by reconstructing past literacies and reapplying it in order to enhance present literacies. One educator, Kevin Roozen, described repurposing literacy as blending together of extracurricular elements and of elements from other literate experiences (Roozen 18). Mary Maragrget Holt, dean of the Weitzenhoffer Family College of Fine Arts at the University of Oklahoma, is a prime illustration of this very idea.
Literacy embraces reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Integrating all of these into a literacy program is key. Teachers must provide endless and ongoing opportunities for their student to read, write, listen, and speak.
Additionally, literacy does not only refer to reading. Literacy also refers to writing, discussing, and becoming fluent in the specific subject area. The original curriculum for my Hebrew reading classes only covered decoding. Yet, as I personalized my classes more, I began incorporating other aspects of literacy, including comprehension, writing, and discussion, and I noticed a vast improvement in my students’ overall learning. With my math students, too, as I incorporated different aspects of literacy related to my students’ personal learning styles, I noticed further
Literacy is most commonly understood as reading and writing. But before children can read and write, they need to learn about sound, words, language, books and stories (Raising Children, 2015). Children begin to develop and gain knowledge quite differently and with support and developmentally appropriate learning skills children will also come to understand the connection between letters and sounds. Literacy development or early literacy is the most essential in the first three years of life as it the earliest experience children have with language, sound and the positive interactions between child and adult. Vygotsky (1978) believed in how children developed, and the important role of adults in leading child’s early development. The interactions
A comprehensive approach to literacy instruction is when reading and writing are integrated. This happens by connecting reading, writing, comprehension, and good children’s literature. A comprehensive approach to literacy should focus on the many different aspects of reading and writing in order to improve literacy instruction. This includes teachers supporting a comprehensive literacy instructional program by providing developmentally appropriate activities for children. Comprehensive literacy approaches incorporate meaning based skills for children by providing them with the environment needed for literacy experiences. This includes having a print rich classroom where children are exposed to charts, schedules, play related print, and
My relationship with literacy began when I started elementary school and that was the first starting point of my positive relationship with literacy. I really started to grow as a reader and writer throughout my middle school and high school years. Throughout my years of going to school I had many positive experiences that shaped my view of literacy today. My literacy skills have also enhanced throughout my educational years.
As a teacher, you need to encourage all attempts at reading, writing, speaking, and allowing children to experience the different functions and use of literacy activity (The Access Center, n.d.). Moreover, it is crucial for educators to understand phonological awareness and phonics; know what constitutes good children’s literature and how to use it; know children who need additional assistance with beginning reading and writing (Cunningham et al, 2004 as cited in McLachlan et al, 2013, p. 112). Educators also need to plan effective activities to assist children experience reading aloud, listening to other children read aloud, listening to tape recordings, and videotapes so children have opportunities to integrate and extend their literacy knowledge (The Access Center, n.d.). Morrow (1990 as cited in The Access Center, n.d.) notes that classroom with greater teacher facilitation promote literacy behaviours, so it is educators’ role to provide literacy rich
Every child deserves a positive, safe, nurturing, and stimulating learning environment where they will grow academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. My role as an educator is to provide my students with this type of environment as well as an education that will help them succeed academically and become life long learners. It is the responsibility of a literacy educator to provide students with this type of environment, but also to provide instruction that will help students become successful readers and writers. There are numerous programs and philosophies about literacy and reading. Through years of experience and research, one begins to develop their own creative approach on teaching these skills. After looking at different programs and seeing the positive and negatives of each, an integrated and balanced approach of literacy seems to be the best way to teach the differing needs of each student.
Being literate defines who I am, and forms an integral part of my life. From the practical to the creative, it aids, and enables me to perform in the tasks that modern society dictates. I shall explore the many aspects of my life that are affected by literacy. Through this, understanding in greater depth what it means for me, to be literate.
Literacy is an on-going skill that teachers and students alike should commonly study and practice in all grades. Problems faced by teachers, especially teachers in higher grades, are not having the skills to be effective teachers of literacy. To effectively teach literacy across content areas, a teacher would need skills such as knowledge of the reading process and the ability to cultivate the knowledge gained in order to make informed decisions within their classrooms (Clary, Oglan, Styslinger,
There are some theoreticians who view literacy in a form of social practice. In their view, social issues are also important components, as well as linguistic competence and understanding cognitive processes in language studies. Freire (1974) views literacy not only as a process of knowledge transformation, but also as a relationship of learners to the world. Vygotsky (1978) suggests two stages of development at social and individual level. In his view, literacy is a phenomenon that is created, shared, and changed by the members of a society. Gee (1996) similarly argues that becoming literate means apprenticeship with texts and apprenticeships in particular ways of being. In summary, literacy practices are not just about language, but about their interrelation with social practices.