Throughout this opening post I will try to analyze one of the initial concepts we studied in the subject and to expand personal ideas about it that could be useful for all of us.
- Our personal point of view
One of the first points of the topic The discovery of Children´s literature was the definition of literacy. To work on it, the teacher encouraged us to try to think about that meaningful term individually. Then, in small groups, we had to put in common our ideas and later we shared all the definitions as a whole group. As a final result, we all realized about literacy was more than developing writing and reading skills.
- Subject’s definition of literacy
Once in that point, the teacher proposed us a really complete and detailed definition of literacy, which gathered all that academic and educational abilities that characterize it, such as reading and writing in an appropriate way or communicating with others with a share code. We also learnt about its dimensions: phonics (sounds and spelling), grammatical knowledge, word recognition and graphic knowledge, knowledge of the context and critical thinking.
- Going further
After that lesson, my perception about this concept changed totally. At the moment, I have a wider understanding about the learning of reading and writing. It is not just the base of learning that allows the study of other subjects. The development of that skills enables the human being grow, its lifelong learning and its independence and participation with the people. Besides, it does not just benefits to individuals, it also contributes to the improvement of societies and countries. Especially, it is able to expand the social, cultural and economic dimensions of a nation and consequently it facilitates its globalization and connection with the whole world.
Taking into account all of these ideas, we must be aware of the great magnitude that literacy has for the education of children. In that sense, it is also necessary to appreciate the relevant role that we can carry out as future teachers of primary education.
An organism that deals with this topic in detailed is UNESCO, who studies literacy as a crucial component for the human being development and describes it as a fundamental human right. If you feel engage with this topic, I recommend you to visit UNESCO official website where you can have access to the definition of literacy that they propose and also to some extra documents related to programs that try to guarantee the literacy acquisition in childhood.
I hope you feel engaged with this topic and I invite you to comment on this post to share new ideas.
Hi Ali,
I enjoyed reading your post the first time I did it, several weeks ago, and now I would like to tell you that I agree with everything you write on it.
Literacy was a confusing concept for me, I wasn’t aware of the nuances that it has in English, in opposition to the Spanish one. You explain it quite well, saying that
The development of that skills enables the human being grow, its lifelong learning and its independence and participation with the people.
An illiterate person is not only the one that can not read or write, but also the one that is unable to understand a map or a job contract.
What can we us, as teachers, do to improve our pupils’ literacy? In my opinion, apart from helping them to write and read, to expose them to different genres of literature, to make them read them aloud and play with them. The more they use the language, the better they will be at understanding it, and that is what literacy is about.
By the way, your suggestion about the UNESCO website was great. It is very interesting to find out how they are thinking about all the possibilities to foster literacy, including the empowerment of the whole family. If the parents are illiterate, it is more likely that their children will also be the same, so working at all family levels has a positive multiplying effect.
In short, good work!