Literacy: Different Approaches, One Goal
American public schools are placing a growing emphasis on literacy that goes beyond the basic ability to read and write. While literacy is all about reading and writing, many educators today believe that students are only literate once they are able to read and write at a level where they are able to communicate in society.
Literacy is a fundamental skill that is necessary for learning in all other content areas. Therefore, modern educational practices spend a lot of time on early literacy skills in the early elementary skill years and continue building literacy skills throughout a students education. Remedial literacy skills are taught to students who have not yet gained the necessary literacy skills to work at grade level.
Teaching Literacy to Students: Different Methodologies
Young students are often delighted when they learn how to read. It is one of the first important milestones in their education. What they might not realize is how many skills their teachers used to teach them to read. For example, reading involves phonological awareness, decoding, vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Some schools place a greater emphasis on phonics when teaching students how to read. Phonics focuses on the sounds that letters make both separately and in small groups, for example, /s/, /sh/, /st/. Some phonics teaching is known as embedded phonics were phonics are taught when the situation arises in the classroom and as naturally as possible. In synthetic or analytical phonics instruction, however, students are taught phonics directly. Often, the two approaches are used together.
Another approach to literacy is the whole language approach. Students are provided with books that have repetitive texts and are encouraged to learn to read by actually reading a book. Students are often not corrected if they make a mistake reading their book unless their mistake changes the meaning of the story.
Another reading methodology, sight words, is a little more controversial. The approach has students memorize the spelling of words rather than understand why the letters make up the words in the way that they do. This approach is still popular in some countries and was popular in the United States during the 1800s. Site words are still used in the United States for the words that create an exception to the usual rules of spelling. However, most students are no longer required to memorize thousands of words in order to learn to read.
Guided reading and literacy centers are approaches that are gaining in popularity in the United States. Guided reading starts by showing the students a picture and using that picture to say words. The teacher instructs the students about the sound of the word, such as bed and, encourages students to think about what words bed is similar to, such as red.
There is also a trend toward small group instruction for effective literacy learning. When teachers are working with small groups, other students might participate in literacy centers. These stations may have many different types of independent work for literacy learning. For example, some students might listen to a book on tape, while other students play a phonics game on a computer and other students work with rubber stamps of the alphabet or unscramble sentences on a worksheet.
Adult Literacy
The U.S. Department of Education recognizes that adults who cannot read and write well enough to participate in society are never going to succeed. Therefore, the federal government provides funds to states so that they can provide adult literacy programs.
Literacy Resources
Since literacy is so fundamental to a students education, there are many resources available to help students both in and out of the classroom. There are many community programs that are offered by organizations such as the public library or that are sponsored by large corporations in the area. Some corporations also sponsor after school literacy activities or supplemental activities during the school day in order to increase literacy for children.
Literacy is a fundamental skill. Without learning to read and write well, children will not be able to stay on grade level in any of their subjects. Likewise, they will not be able to fully participate in society as they get older. For these reasons, effective literacy education is a primary focus of public school curricula.
