“ Literacy Is Far More Than Reading and Writing; It Involves Critical Thinking as Well”
“ Literacy is far more than reading and writing; it involves critical thinking as well”
Within today’s teaching practices literacy has come to be a major part of the course curriculum when teaching early years, it has numerous definitions and meanings to individual people as it continues to be developed through our rapidly changing world. The definition of literacy “ has to do with having the skills and knowledge to create, locate, analyse, comprehend and use a variety of written, visual, aural and multi-model texts for a range of purposes, audiences and contexts”(Wing, J. L.2009.p3). Literacy is far more than reading and writing, it also involves critical thinking where it tests someone’s understanding of a balanced literacy program which in turn addresses the issues that promotes active and critical learners.
Literacy involves important underlying principles. These principles include the cueing system also known as sources of information and the socio-cultural perspective. These principles are essential when acquiring literacy.
The cueing system is used for the reading process, it is being able to construct meaning using the 4 reading cue systems or sources of information. Grammatical information cues which relate to the reader’s knowledge of the language, the way sentences are formed and the text and words that are used to construct meaning and its purpose. This also includes the grammar of the language (Winch, G. Johnston, R. March, P. Ljungdahl, L & Holliday, M. 2001). For example you see an unknown word in a sentence and by using your knowledge of language structure, help to make it sound right. This is in reference to a structural cue (Bradbury et al. 1997). The semantic information cues are cues that refer to the meanings in the text according to previous knowledge, predictions and use of prior knowledge and familiarity with the topic. Semantic knowledge helps them to predict what will come next and if it makes sense (Winch et al. 2001). The final
Within today’s teaching practices literacy has come to be a major part of the course curriculum when teaching early years, it has numerous definitions and meanings to individual people as it continues to be developed through our rapidly changing world. The definition of literacy “ has to do with having the skills and knowledge to create, locate, analyse, comprehend and use a variety of written, visual, aural and multi-model texts for a range of purposes, audiences and contexts”(Wing, J. L.2009.p3). Literacy is far more than reading and writing, it also involves critical thinking where it tests someone’s understanding of a balanced literacy program which in turn addresses the issues that promotes active and critical learners.
Literacy involves important underlying principles. These principles include the cueing system also known as sources of information and the socio-cultural perspective. These principles are essential when acquiring literacy.
The cueing system is used for the reading process, it is being able to construct meaning using the 4 reading cue systems or sources of information. Grammatical information cues which relate to the reader’s knowledge of the language, the way sentences are formed and the text and words that are used to construct meaning and its purpose. This also includes the grammar of the language (Winch, G. Johnston, R. March, P. Ljungdahl, L & Holliday, M. 2001). For example you see an unknown word in a sentence and by using your knowledge of language structure, help to make it sound right. This is in reference to a structural cue (Bradbury et al. 1997). The semantic information cues are cues that refer to the meanings in the text according to previous knowledge, predictions and use of prior knowledge and familiarity with the topic. Semantic knowledge helps them to predict what will come next and if it makes sense (Winch et al. 2001). The final
References: Bradbury, J. Strong, G. Cloonan, A. Reynolds, L. Essex, G. Scull, J. Giosis, P. Sinclair, H. Preston, L. & Turpin, H. (1997). Teaching Readers in the early years. South Melbourne. Victoria. Longman Bull, G., & Anstey, M Green, D. & Campbell, R. (2003). Literacies & Learners; Current Perspectives (2nd Ed). Pearson Education Australia; Frenchs Forest, NSW. Hill, S. (2006). Developing early literacy; Assessment and teaching. Eleanor Curtain Publishing; Prahran, VIC, Australia. Martin, T., Lovat, C Morrow, L.M. (2007). Developing literacy in preschool. New York. Guilford Press Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wing, J. L. (2009). Literacy and language. In write ways: modelling writing forms (3rd ed). South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press. (pp3-16)