To be literate in the twenty-first century
means to be able to apply
listening, viewing, thinking,
speaking, reading, and writing skills,
utilizing various technologies and
multiple symbol systems,
to critically evaluate and express information.
Literacy & Numeracy Instruction
The Windham Raymond School District is focusing on improving literacy instruction for all students. What this looks like and how it affects each school depends on the needs of the students at each grade level. In the past, the term literacy implied reading ability. However, as we enter the twenty-first century, the term literacy has begun to mean far more than simply one's skill in reading.
Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, states that "Literacy in the 21st century will mean the ability to find information, decode it, critically evaluate it, organize it into personal digital libraries and find meaningful ways to share it with others. Information is a raw material - students will need to learn to build with it."
Friedman's comment is echoed in the Maine Department of Education's guide to literacy instruction.The DOE has outlined six universal elements of literacy:
Reading – Writing - Speaking & Listening - Developing Vocabulary – Inquiring - Thinking
As the Literacy Integration Coach, I have been working to support instructional practices focused on developing these six elements in all content areas. However, literacy development and improvement cannot happen only within the halls of WHS. For these skills to become central to a student's academic development, literacy instruction needs to continue outside of the school. Studies clearly show that the best place to supplement a child's literacy development is at home.
Many
of the things that parents do to build and encourage the literacy
development of their young children are applicable to adolescents as
well. The National Center for Family Literacy offers these Parent Tips. You may want to try some of the following with your child:
- Be a role model. Demonstrate that reading is important in your life. Read the newspaper, books and magazines, e-mail and information on the Internet. Let your child see you reading.
- Read to your child. Share articles from the newspaper or from magazines. Look particularly for items of interest to your child — those that have to do with his school, his favorite sports team, movie star or band, or a special hobby. Talk about what you read with your child.
- Make your home reflect the importance of reading. Give adolescents plenty of opportunities to read. Keep books around — you don't have to own them all; library books work just as well — and read them. Ask your son to read you the measurements and ingredients from your recipe card as you prepare dinner. Ask your daughter to look up a phone number in the phone book for you or ask her to look at the cereal box and tell you how much sodium is in the cereal your family eats for breakfast.
- Allow your adolescent to choose what she wants to read (within reason, of course). Everyone's interest is different and if you want your child to read, let her read what she wants to read — reading teen idol, fashion and hair style magazines can lead to reading biographies or the style section of the newspaper.
- Using a computer can provide both incentive and opportunities for adolescents to read. From looking up interesting facts about a new movie coming out, to researching for a school report, the Internet is a tremendous (and fun) resource for adolescents. There are many computer games that require and even foster reading ability. (Parents, of course, may want to monitor the materials available to their adolescent child on the computer.)