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Importance of literacy in
Importance of literacy in
Importance of literacy in
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I teach Hebrew reading to children in Kindergarten through third grade, working individually and in small groups with students who have difficulty in the classroom. In addition, I privately tutor students with learning disabilities in math. The school that I work in is an Orthodox Jewish school with over 1,000 students in Kindergarten through eighth grade.
Content Area Literacy is the term used to describe the reading done in subjects other than language arts. I chose the term literacy, rather than reading, because literacy encompasses all of the necessary elements in the field of reading. While informed professionals understand that reading is not simply decoding words, many teachers are ignorant of this fact. McClure, Garthwait, and Kristo
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Strategies necessary to comprehend informational text are different from those needed to comprehend literature (source), and since adults primarily read informational texts, these skills will be beneficial as students grow older (Kane, 2008). Moreover, since prior knowledge is necessary to understand texts (source), each subject requires its own reading skills. 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 …show more content…
In a classroom, the class is a single unit, and teachers teach to the class’s needs, rather than to each individual students’ needs. I enjoy being able to work individually with students in order to cater my teaching toward each one’s specific needs so that I can instill them with passion for each subject.
Content area literacy, as with all learning, should directly relate to the students’ lives. When students can relate to a subject, they retain the information better and are more excited to learn. Relating subjects to students’ lives provides them with the desire to participate in the lesson and make connections with previous experiences. Lee (2014) wrote that “culture is the primary medium through which humans learn” (p. 10). Connecting the readings to students’ lives helps them activate their prior knowledge of culture and experience and allows them to transfer it to their learning.
Graves stated that if a teacher does not know ten things about a student, the teacher does not know the student well enough (as cited by Daniels & Zemelman, 2014). Daniels and Zemelman (2014) implore teachers to conduct interest surveys with students in order to be able to relate the learning to the students’
For this assignment, I completed a survey to assess my school’s literacy program by using a survey that was adapted from by Patty, Maschoff, & Ransom (1996) to analyze the instructional program and the school’s infrastructure. To be able to answer my survey, I needed to go colleagues of mine in the English Department and to my administration to help with these questions. Being a math teacher, we hardly ever discuss the literacy and the students’ acquisition of it in our department meeting during staff development days. Since I am not truly current with literacy acquisition in education, I am hoping to understand more from this process so I can help all my students. I want them to be able to read texts related to math and find information that will be useful to them during the year.
Vacca, Richard T., Vacca, Jo Anna L., and Mraz, Maryann (2011). Content Area Reading: Literacy and Learning Across the Curriculum(10th Edition). Boston: Pearson.
Finding a definition of literacy is not as easy as it sounds. The Webster definition says that to be literate is to be” able to read and write.” But to some researchers, this definition is too simplistic, leading to multiple models of literacy. Most Americans adhere to the autonomous model, which falls closest to the standard, dictionary definition. Believers in this form say that literacy is a cognitive activity that students learn like any other basic skill. It has a set of proficiencies that one must master in order to be capable of decoding and encoding text (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). A competing theory is the ideological model, which claims literacy is intrinsically linked to culture, and therefore what constitutes a “literate” individual is ever-changing. Society is the largest influence on literacy, according to this thought, and it is affected by politics, religion, philosophy and more (Alvermann, 2009; SIL International, 1999). These two are just the tip of the iceberg. For example, some studies recognize “literacy as competence,” which is a “measure of competence to do a given task or work in a given field,” (SIL International, 1999) such as being computer literate. Although more researchers are recognizing and exploring multiple literacies, the one that most influences American schools is the autonomous, cognitive model – the ability to read and write. For many, it seems a simple task, but millions of adolescents are struggling or reluctant readers, and there are many reasons why young readers have difficulty with reading. XXXXXX------NEED HELP WITH THESIS STATEMENT HERE PLEASE—(This paper will focus on the effects of low reading skills, some of the possible causes of reluctant and struggling readership...
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.
There are many complications that arise when seeking a single definition of literacy. The debate over what is literacy and what isn’t is one that is of critical importance to the education of our country’s students. When originally asked at the beginning of this course about what literacy is, my initial response was the ability to read and write. While I suppose my answer wasn’t wrong, it certainly wasn’t entirely right either. Reading and writing are certainly important aspects of any persons literacy and are therefore one of the reasons why schools test in these areas frequently. However, as the course progressed I came to understand that there maybe more to what I originally thought about what literacy is. I came to realize that coming up with a single definition would prove to be a tedious task since there now appeared to be so many things that can be considered literacy. Through reading articles pertaining to literacy and observing various settings where literacy is used, I have been able to come to a better understanding of what literacy is.
Literacy is defined as “the ability to use available symbol systems that are fundamental to learning and teaching for the purposes of comprehending and composing, for the purposes of making and communicating meaning and knowledge” (Stock, 2012), and it is one of the most essential skills that an early year student will learn. Literacy serves to provide the building blocks for the continued knowledge acquisition and general education of individuals of all ages; by working to understand and identify how and why literacy is taught using the structured literacy block format in Australian schools, and in identifying the benefits of utilizing this type of tool for teaching literacy in student’s early years, it will be possible to gain a better understanding of the organization, planning, and teaching approaches that are used in a literacy block approach. A sample standard literacy block will be provided, offering the means of understanding the applications of the tool, which will serve to further stress the necessity of this tool’s usage.
Literacy is a very intriguing topic; it seems simple yet it is so vast and complex that it takes some people their whole lives to understand it. If I say the phrase ‘Discourse Community’ most people in a random selection from the population would just stare at me waiting for me to finish my sentence, as they would not understand the gravity of the phrase. A discourse community is a group with similar interests that uses communication and other devices together to expand their knowledge of a subject and accomplish goals. Readers from a young age do not understand the fact that they are contributing to their community before they even know of its existence. By communicating to their teacher that they are having issues with a certain area and
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
In class, we have been focusing on the explanation of what Literacy III: Research and Pedagogy in Content Area Literacy actually means. Content Area Literacy is defined by as “the ability to use reading and writing for the acquisition of new content in a given discipline” (McKenna and Robinson 1990). Because of the explanation of the class, I feel as if I am learning about the background and deepening my knowledge and understanding of the class as a whole. Content Area Literacy gives each subject areas a reason to include reading strategies in those lessons. These subject areas include mathematics, science, history, and English (Hodges 2015). When you can include reading strategies in these lessons, you are expanding student’s horizons and giving them multiple exposures. I think that this is extremely beneficial in the all classrooms. As for the negatives on Content Area Literacy, it should be noted that teachers should not only focus on reading during the other subject areas. Teachers need to have a medial balance between the content area and the literacy strategies
Vacca, R. T., Vacca, J. L., & Mraz, M. (2011). Content area reading: Literacy and learning
In this paper, I will analyze reading strategies for the content area of language arts in a fifth grade class. Reading comprehension is one of the most critical skills a student can master. Without a firm grasp on the comprehension process, learners will struggle in every subject they encounter, whether it’s science, math, or social studies as well as everyday living skills. The content areas typically included disciplines like science, social studies/history and math, but any area outside of English literature instruction constitutes a content area. The reading associated with content area courses reflects not only the concepts and ideas important to these subjects, but also the text structures used by those practicing the field.
In our schools today, literacy should not just be a task for the English or Reading teacher. Instead, literacy should be a shared venture by all teachers within all content areas. Teaching literacy in all content areas is important because a teacher with a solid understanding of teaching literacy in his/her content area will tremendously help all students achieve greater success on class assignments and standardized assessments. There are three main points that surround the idea of teaching literacy in all content areas. Teachers need the necessary skills and knowledge to teach literacy, once the necessary skills and knowledge are gained then there is justification for teaching literacy across content areas, and
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.
Without the ability to read and comprehend information society as we know it would begin to become stagnant and our ability to progress in thought and philosophy would be abated. The gift of reading was given to me at a young age. It began with me being taught to comprehend uncomplicated text and through practice and patience over time evolved into more sophisticated pieces of literature. The importance of reading and comprehending information was instilled in me by mother. Specifically one time she sat me down and explained why she did what she did in regards to having me read and be quizzed on additional material given by her in conjunction to my normal schooling. Her explanation has shaped my literacy experience ever since. She told me that having the ability to process information effectively and being able to apply it practically to your life whether it is for a test in school or for the sake of conversation would allow me to become very successful. She felt that the additional work could only help in achieving those goals
Chapters four and five in Content Area Reading and Literacy and Do I Really have to Teach Reading details the importance of assessments, describes before reading strategies, characterizes diverse accessible texts, and defining a purpose for reading. Chapter four in Content Area Reading and Literacy focuses on different forms of assessments, how assessments are utilized in the classroom, and explains why assessment are a necessity. In chapter 4 of Content Area Reading and Literacy, and chapter four and five of Do I Really have to Teach Reading, the authors express the need for prior knowledge before reading, they outline the criteria for providing a wide variety of reading materials, and the chapters set the foundation for aiding students in