Literacy is the knowledge of reading, writing, listening, viewing, and speaking.Within the knowledge of these aspects of literacy, one must understand how to do these things, be fluent with them, and be able to incorporate them into daily life. In Cambourne’s article he discusses many conditions of learning. These conditions of learning are reflected in terms of making sure children are comprehending what is being taught, as well as making sure that literacy is being explained in multiple ways. In relation to understanding what is being taught, the use and response conditions help convey that goal. To use the information in daily life one must understand the fundamentals behind how to do the literacy aspect. Response helps children to understand what is being taught by forcing them to see what their classmates did or did not do and give them feedback. By looking outside of what one did, the children are learning different methods of learning literacy taught by others as well as defining themselves as learners and teachers. The other goal of Cambourne’s article is to ensure children understand the material by teaching lessons in multiple ways. The conditions of immersion and demonstration help with this goal. Immersion helps to make sure the students are familiar with multiple texts, and the demonstration helps make sure the students are seeing how the texts are used.
I thought the article by Cambourne was very interesting in terms of changing my definition of literacy. Originally I thought of literacy as mainly reading and writing. The conditions he provided helped me understand the importance of the units of literacy. As we discussed in class, many times only the reading and writing aspects of literacy are focused on in teaching. The importance for reading and writing is critical in learning literacy, but the other pieces of literacy are just as important as well. Another aspect of the Cambourne article that made me change my definition reflects the idea of relating literacy in our daily lives. This concept is also explained within the Leland article, where she reads her students books without “happy” endings. The books she read were more personally connected to her students because they resembled situations of everyday life. It is important for children to relate to literacy. The majority of literacy one will engage in throughout life will not be sitting at a desk in school. It will be in daily life. To be able to draw connections to life is necessary.
The ideal learning environment for literacy would consist of a place with many different genres of books. The variety of books will help engage students into reading as well as give them options to want to read further. In terms of writing, multiple genres would be able to be explored, to promote options as well as to help keep children interested in writing. Some people may say they “hate” writing, but when you ask them to write a letter or email to a friend they are more than willing to oblige. It is important to help keep an open mind to students about literacy and by exploring many genres of books and writing there is a higher chance in succeeding. My learning environment would also consist of a lot of listening and response to other children’s ideas on literacy. This would help promote listening and speaking skills as well as help generate a greater understanding for the topic being discussed.
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I noticed that both of us initially thought of reading and writing as literacy elements before reading Cambourne’s article. Many people in the class also left out the other important aspects of literacy such as listening, speaking, and viewing. Why is it that we only seem to learn about and focus on the reading and writing elements of literacy? It was shocking to me that no one left out the elements of reading and writing. Do you have any ideas of how we could help people and teachers outside of this class incorporate listening, speaking, and viewing into their definition of literacy?
I agree with you that it is important to touch base on books that children could personally connect to without the happy ending. Becky discussed that many parents might not deal well with the fact that their children will be experiencing true stories with real life issues instead of fairytales. How would you go about informing the parents that their children will be reading stories that are not typically discussed in other classrooms? I sometimes don’t know whether it is better to inform the parents before the book is read or deal with the parents who have issues later on. Either way it is important to discuss these books in the classrooms and many teachers should not avoid these topics because they are afraid of dealing with confrontation.
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