What is Literacy? 

History of Literacy

     As parents of students, we have to be aware of what literacy started out as, in order to understand how far it has come today. Literacy has been apart of history for a long time. It started as far bar as 3,500 B.C., when the earliest form of written communication emerged. Over time, literacy has evolved into a set of skills necessary for all students to know and acquire.

     According to Mary Jo Fresch’s book, An Essential History of Current Reading Practices, literacy used to be viewed as the ability to read and write. Teachers taught students how words worked, through a “skill and drill” kind of approach. Students were to recite letters and their sounds, over and over again, in isolation in order to attain phonics skills. All instruction was taught as a whole group approach, where the teacher would provide the students with a basal reader. An example of text for emergent readers would be the Dick and Jane series. All students would be given the same text, where they would read in a Round Robin reading approach. This means, teachers would ask one student to read a sentence or paragraph at a time in front of the whole class.    

     During the Cold War, emphasis was placed on literacy education for students in America. The Race to the Moon against Russia enticed America to better educate their students in the areas of reading, writing, math and science. Many large changes happened to literacy during this time, with the most important being the ability to read for understanding. The ability to understand what you have read is called comprehension. Today, there is a large focus on comprehension, as it is ultimately what we want to acquire while reading.

How Literacy was Viewed in Schools

     In the past, teachers and administrators viewed the teaching of reading and writing as the same for all students. This means, English Language Learners, struggling readers, learning disabled readers, reluctant readers and gifted readers all had the same expectations for reading and writing. There weren’t many accommodations made for the students who were struggling in the area of learning to read or write. Instead, they were expected to try harder, in order to catch up with the material being taught to them.

Current State of Literacy

          Fortunately, literacy has changed greatly over the past decade. Literacy encompasses skills beyond reading and writing. Now, literacy consists of reading, writing, language, communication skills, understanding visuals, understanding technology and critical thinking.

     We have switched from all whole group instruction, to meeting each students’ needs in small groups. If you have a student in elementary school, the teacher is pulling your child to their table with 4-5 other students, where he or she is teaching at each student’s individual level. The teacher monitors and assess your child’s literacy skills often. He or she will make changes to their groups or content in order to keep up with your child’s progression.

Culture of Literacy

     As we move forward in the 21st century, educators have found that there are many different cultures in the area of literacy. The above graphic gives examples of some of the new literacies taking place today. It also gives a description of each new literacy, to give you a better understanding of what each term means.

     Each time your child logs on to their social media account, they are participating in a new form of literacy. Social media allows your child to communicate with others, and convey their identities through words, visuals and songs. They are also able to evaluate their communication skills through critical thinking. So next time you go on your child’s Facebook account, look at their posts and profiles from a literacy point of view!

     The songs, and TV shows that your child hears or sees is also viewed as a form of media literacy. Children listen carefully to song lyrics in order to inform or entertain themselves. TV shows can also contain meaningful messages, which your child analyzes in order to inform themselves on moral thoughts and ideas.

     Children are now given iPads and tablets at a young age. Each app your child uses is contributing to digital literacy. Today, there are apps that allow children to build, plan, organize, and locate information, which are great literacy skills to acquire! For older children, computers and Chromebooks are often at their disposal. Each website your child views and analyzes helps to develop their computer literacy.

     Posters, advertisements, art and other visuals develop your child’s visual literacy needs. Visuals allow children to view and interpret meaning through the information given in images. This interpretation often requires strong critical thinking skills, as there is no text to help clue the child in on the meaning intended.

Literacy Tools

     Literacy has a variety of tools that are used to promote, build and further your child's learning of literacy. Below are some of the various tools you will encounter with in literacy. These will help you to choose what type of literacy tools are beneficial to your child's learning development, just like the right tools make fixing a sink easy the right wrench.

Books

     Books are the most common type of literacy tool used with children to develop early literacy skills. When we think of reading, a book or printed text is probably the first thing that comes to mind and books are very beneficial during the early years of literacy.  Five Books, Five Literacy-Building Ideas! Is a great article that will help you to develop early literacy skills that will continue to grow with your child. The article walks you through a set of books that will support student learning in particular areas of literacy such as oral language, vocabulary, Print, sound awareness, etc. This is extremely important because choosing the right books are crucial to helping your student to continue along their literacy journey.  

Articles

     As literacy skills develop with your child so will the types of text and tools students use. Articles are on type of texts that students will begin to interact with as their development with in literacy increases.  Articles not only have their literacies to navigate though there are several different article types to choose from. The first step in using and understanding articles is being able to identify what you are using the article for or what is the articles purpose, form there your child  can better navigate through articles. Your child is presented with articles more so today, than children in the past, with the digital world all around us and researching at our fingertips your child is exposed to these various types of articles and knowing how to assess them and navigate them is half the battle.

Videos

     Throughout the evolution of literacy, videos and other digital platforms have moved into the forefront of learning. Today’s children are exposed to videos in various types of platforms, in school and for pleasure at home.  While this article is intended for teachers, it too provides a number of ways that videos and the use of videos are promoting literacy. Today's students are able to watch read along videos of their favorite books on tumblebooks, which provides them with a resource to see how the book is read fluently as well as allows for them to follow along and answer comprehension questions after they read.   Although tumblebooks are a paid site you can use YouTube to listen to your child's favorite books as well as most public libraries have a link where you can access tumblebooks there for free.

Blogs

     Blogs are becoming more and more popular as we progress into the 21st century. Writing in your journal, diary or a notebook has now be transformed into the digital world thought blogs. Blogs not only allow you to post your ideas, share your interests and organize your thoughts, they also allow for you to communicate with others around you. The give you the freedom to read what others have to say on a specific topic and to also seek others thoughts and opinions without having to interact with the outside world. Your child can use blogs to interact with their classmates with in the classroom and outside, blogs also allow for students to communicate with students who are in other countries and gain others perspectives on things they might be learning  that are similar. Blogging can increase your students writing skills along with them building communication and making connections with the world around them.

Apps

     As your child is exposed to different technologies they are able to access different applications (apps) with these technologies. These apps not only have their own set of literacy to navigate though, they also help to promote literacy through the usage of different learning apps. The Scots College in Sydney Australia has created a list of top apps for your student to use as well as what Literacy skills those apps will focus on.

Music

Music give your child a way to learn different literacy skills in a way that is different from printed text. The video “Using Songs and Games to Build Literacy” gives you some simple strategies and ways to use songs to promote literacy skills at home through music.

Multifaceted Literacy

     Literacy is multifaceted and what that means is that it is layered, throughout your child's life and until forever literacy will be changing and with those changes come different layers. The early stages of literacy are layered with the basic skill of literacy, phonemic awareness, learning the alphabet, word recall and many more. As your child continues to grow and change with literacy the layers become layered in a different way, comprehensions,  building connections, analysis and more begin to be added. As Literacy grows so to they different types of literacy and with that your child will be exposed to many layers of literacy at one time.

Future of Literacy

     The sky's the limit! Literacy is always going to be evolving and changing just as our world evolves and changes. Todays literacy will look very different form tomorrows literacy and so forth. As your child continues on this literacy journey its is important to continue to foster and help them navigate through it. How can you help? By continuing to promote current literacy and familiarising yourself with new and current changes to literacy.

Global literacy

What you could do at home

Dr. Margaret Policastro, author of Living Literacy at Home: A Parent’s Guide, discusses how to provide literacy at home and gives parents an understanding of literacy.  There are many simple ways you at home can provide literacy instructions, reading aloud, exposure to books, navigating the internet together, and other ways.

What does the Future of literary look like? 

In the classroom