Philosophy Of Teaching Literacy

My Developing Philosophy of Teaching Literacy

What is Literacy?

Literacy is one’s relationship with different communicative information modes. Communicative information being written information in its many forms, verbal communication, signs, Art and music, body language, and any other form humans communicate information with one another. The relationship aspect of the definition is a point of view that describes the essence of literacy and its bidirectional nature. Literacy does not only concern the intake of information, but being able to synthesize and communicate information in different modes. One needs to be exposed to the form of communication and develop the skills to decipher and process the presented information only to then be able

4) Being able to access the different literacies in the many social context that we interact with daily isn’t only important for our youth to navigate through their life but is also a social justice issue where the development of these various literacies allows them to also climb the socio-economic ladder by leveling the access to the social playground. In Teaching Through Text: Reading and Writing in the Content Areas, McKenna and Robinson (2009) discuss the different literacies that a student, or an individual in general, needs to develop throughout their lifetime and the importance of explicitly teaching those literacies in school. They distinguish literacy from simply being reading and writing. General reading and writing is categorized as Emergent Literacy, the literacy traditionally taught in school. However, they emphasize the existence and significance of other literacies such as Functional Literacy, the skills necessary for one to function in one’s different environments; Workplace Literacy, necessary language skills to be successful at one’s job; and Content Literacy, to use the necessary reading and writing skills in different content areas to acquire knowledge. (p.

Only to realize that I was focusing on teaching them what is considered Emergent Literacy and not the content literacy that is specific to math or science. While Emergent Literacy is fundamental and many literacies build on it, it is not the same as the different content literacies. Breaking down science texts involves a different set of skills that are specific to science and not necessarily developed through Emergent Literacy. Equipping our students with the different literacies, especially content literacy, allows them to access the information and wealth of knowledge available through the plethora of content text, as well as make them viable competitors in the different work forces and fields. Equipping them with those skills opens up many different career paths allowing them to compete with individuals who have been favored by the systems in place for as long as we know, making literacy a huge social justice issue. Diversity is valued more than ever now and we need to make sure that our students are able to compete and communicate their ideas. But literacies aren’t the only aspect that hinders many young people but it involves them seeing themselves in that field and relating to the learning that is staking place in the classroom. Acknowledging differences in our classroom and including