What is literacy?
According to the dictionary, 'literacy' is: The ability to read and write.
In actuality, literacy is the key for every child to succeed in their schooling years and in their future careers down the road. If students are given the power to decode information using a variety of techniques, they will be able to become life-long learners throughout every scenario in their life. Humans automatically gather and make sense of their surroundings because of our curious nature. We attempt to make sense of information by hearing, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and representing information around us. These 6 strands of literacy are crucial in the classroom as I hope to demonstrate
below. I have also included activities that help to exemplify the use of these strands in a grade 3 classroom!
In actuality, literacy is the key for every child to succeed in their schooling years and in their future careers down the road. If students are given the power to decode information using a variety of techniques, they will be able to become life-long learners throughout every scenario in their life. Humans automatically gather and make sense of their surroundings because of our curious nature. We attempt to make sense of information by hearing, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and representing information around us. These 6 strands of literacy are crucial in the classroom as I hope to demonstrate
below. I have also included activities that help to exemplify the use of these strands in a grade 3 classroom!
The Six Strands of Teaching Literacy
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1. ReadingReading is fundamental to the learning process because it is a major mode of communicating information and ideas to the students. When students cannot read
information effectively or don’t have the skills to understand what they are reading, it drastically changes a teachers classroom strategies. People read words every single day without even consciously realizing that they are reading, so clearly it is an essential tool to literacy. The ability to read automatically coincides with writing, so both skills must be mastered in order to succeed in the classroom. Examples of reading from my Grade 3 Practicum: In my practicum I have been struggling with my students who are not fluent readers. These students need a lot of individualized help whenever we are reading because their lack of fluency makes it impossible for them to comprehend the words of a sentence. We differentiate by reading and summarizing with these students and by allowing them to listen to E-books and to read with partners. While doing our zoo research projects I read the class an assortment of literature about otters to examine the difference between fictional and non-fictional books. I did this so that students could be able to decipher good research from fictional stories when they were looking for their own research books! Then I brought in numerous books that they could use to gather their information from. They loved reading through the books and I was even able to find many books that reached at a lower reading level for my struggling students. |
Example of one finished "Information Board" |
2. Writing- Prezi Presentation
- Summary - Writing enables students to explore, shape and clarify their thoughts, and to communicate them to others. By using effective writing strategies, they discover and refine ideas and compose and revise with increasing confidence and skill. Writing is essential for students to be able to communicate their thoughts in an organized and logical order. When students struggle with reading they often struggle with writing as well. Writing is important for literacy because it is often one of the most effective tools in order for teachers to be able to have concrete evidence of a student’s learning and thought process. Writing samples can also be archived in order to compare progress throughout a school year. In my practicum: I have also been challenged by students’ difficulties with writing. My students often cannot spell words or cannot find a logical way to communicate their knowledge through writing. I have been using many prewriting tricks such as graphic organizers to help them organize their thoughts, and we often have to bounce between the struggling students to scribe a few lines at a time for them. The students really impressed me with the work that they produced for their research projects. Some kids even wrote up to 3 pages! I find that grade 3s really struggle with writing because English has so many silly spelling rules that they have a hard time remembering. I have been teaching them 15 minutes of spelling every morning to try and aid them in remembering some of these tricky rules. I have been doing lots of spelling games with my class, and this week for Easter I used some fun egg hunt games to help them practice writing contractions in sentences! |
3. Viewing- Viewing Handout
Viewing and representing are integral parts of contemporary life. These skills allow students to understand the ways in which images and language may be used to convey ideas, values and beliefs. Viewing is very important for students because it helps them to take complex content and ideas and to be able to see the concept in action. If they can SEE something in its context the broad ideas are brought to life and made relatable to them. Curious students need that chance to be able to see HOW things work or WHY it is so crucial for us to be teaching them about the things that we do. Using visuals, motions, experiments, and videos is such an important tool to use with visual learners in order for them to understand the literature that we are presenting to them. In my practicum: I have been using lots of little videos throughout my practicum because they are engaging and students can remember them more easily. I used a video to show them about the capital city of Ukraine (Kyiv) because they were struggling to understand how different Kyiv is than Lethbridge. My students were also struggling with understanding how bridges are under tension and compression and how a simple truss design would help to hold up a structure. I ended up finding some computer games and apps to show on the smartboard that helped to emphasize how these structures are under pressure and it finally clicked with them when they could view the ‘before and after’ results and when they could physically see the bridge turn red where it was under pressure! |
4. Speaking- Speaking in the Classroom Handout
Through listening and speaking, people communicate thoughts, feelings, experiences, information and opinions and learn to understand themselves and others. Oral language carries a community’s stories, values, beliefs and traditions. Listening and speaking enables students to explore ideas and concepts, as well as to understand and organize their experiences and knowledge. To become discerning, lifelong learners, students at all grade levels need to develop fluency and competence in their oral language abilities. They benefit from many opportunities to listen and speak, both informally and formally for a variety of purposes. Speaking is important because it is once again a way for students to communicate their understandings of a topic. In my practicum: I have been relying on the speaking strand of literacy quite heavily in my practicum due to the fact that my students cannot give me very long or detailed written work. I use questioning and answering practices quite often and then ask them to elaborate their ideas further. My students who struggle with writing can usually express themselves better through verbally speaking their answers to me as I scribe their answers for them. When I realized how low of a reading level some of students are challenged with I decided that I didn’t want them to orally present their research projects by standing in front of a room and reading. My solution was to record their readings one-on-one so that they would be less nervous and could re-do their reading a few times. The students LOVED the way that their animals would ‘talk’ as they were reciting the papers and they were so excited to do the recording that they didn’t even realize that they were doing a performance for me! I haven’t recorded everyones projects yet, but I intend to get them all done eventually so that everyone has a chance to show theirs. For the students who didn’t get to record their animal yet, I sat them up front and did more of a ‘show and tell’ styled interview about their animal instead of forcing them to reread their paper outloud to the class. I think that this approach was way less intimidating for them, and I found that it was useful because they really had to think about what facts were the most important, interesting, or relevant to my question, which is exactly the point of doing good ‘research’ anyways! Here are a few “blabberized”examples of my students’ recordings. |
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5. ListeningThrough listening and speaking, people communicate thoughts, feelings, experiences,
information and opinions, and learn to understand themselves and others. Oral language carries a community’s stories, values, beliefs and traditions.Listening and speaking enables students to explore ideas and concepts, as well as to understand and organize their experiences and knowledge. To become discerning, lifelong learners, students at all grade levels need to develop fluency and competence in their oral language abilities. They benefit from many opportunities to listen and speak, both informally and formally for a variety of purposes. In my practicum: Listening is a very important ingredient to our classroom because my students are young and so listening to important information for a long period of time can be very hard for them. Listening is often paired with other strands of literacy to increase student learning by combining types of learning. I often make sure that oral directions or lessons are paired with visuals and demonstrations as well. Students often read aloud to each other and listen to audiobooks as they read books. I often try to pair verbal directions with point form steps or smiley face checklists just to help solidify the verbal parts for non-auditory learners. When the classroom is getting hectic or loud I try to refocus the students by holding up my hand and saying“3,2,1…sshhh”, the students know that this is their cue to freeze what they are doing and to listen to what I am saying. This technique helps me to focus their attention so that they can listen to important information. Another technique that I try is to get them students to close their eyes and just relax in silence for a minute so that they can wind down and regroup themselves in order to listen to directions more effectively. Sometimes listening is the only way to actually learn about something. For example, it is pretty hard to READ about how a national anthem sounds, or it is hard to study about a style of music without listening to examples, or it is hard to understand the power of sound effects on a scene without listening to see the difference. In all of these instances, listening becomes the key method to accessing that knowledge. Here are some examples of ‘listening’ pieces that I plan to show my Grade 3s when learning about Ukraine. |
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'Viewing' culture and clothing + 'listening' for
instruments, language, and folk song traditions. |
6. Representing- Presentation about Representing strand
- Summary about Representing Viewing and representing are integral parts of contemporary life. These skills allow students to understand the ways in which images and language may be used to convey ideas, values and beliefs. Representing is often considered to be the type of literacy that is used the least. This is a shame considering that ‘representing’ allows children to actually demonstrate their knowledge and to learn about something with a hands-on approach. Representing is often a very exciting way to learn that keeps kids engaged and that will actually stick with them for years to come. In my practicum: I have found that the representing strand of literacy has been utilized the most during my ‘building and testing with a variety of materials’ unit in science. The students needed to actually SEE types of bridges, needed to be able to view how their weight was being held up, and needed to be able to touch a tangible object in order to understand their structures. I made a bridge out of K’NEX pieces so that they students could actually feel a real suspension bridge and understand how it is hanging in the air. I also used one student as a model in order to demonstrate a pier and the cables of a cable-stay bridge. They students often had to build actual structures such as towers and bridges and then test them with weights in order to determine what worked well. By watching structures fail or succeed the students were able to draw upon their previous knowledge in order to determine WHAT makes a good structure and what they would change if they were to re-do the projects again. I set up the bridge competition so that students had to choose materials to ‘buy’ from my store, and they had to build a bridge that would hold up the ‘3 billy goats gruff’ (AKA 3 different sizes of weights). The whole thing was set up as a scenario so that they had to consider questions that would be problems in the real world. The students used trial and error to keep changing tactics and buying more materials. They were able to tell just by looking at a bridge whether or not it would hold up the heaviest goat and why. All of this knowledge came from actually building a structure and by watching my previous demonstrations! Another thing that we have 'represented' in practicum is how to make Paska which is Ukrainian Easter bread. All of the grade 3s watched the process of mixing Paska dough and then got to make their own bun to decorate! - BRIDGE UNIT SUMMARY AND STUDENT EXAMPLES |
Why is literacy so important in the 21st century?
(Technology and Global Citizenship)
If we have technology that can read and write for us, they why on Earth do we need literacy so much? Why can’t we just get a computer to do all the hard work for us? In this age more than ever it is important to remember that technology still cannot master our complex language and grammatical rules, and humans need to hold on to their fundamental building blocks of learning. The process of learning should be fun and engaging for everyone and should use a blend of all of the strands of literacy mentioned above. Creating a classroom that uses technology as a TOOL rather than as a TEACHER is the key to keeping the balance between old and new styles of teaching at a balance. The kids are automatically engaged when things like Smartboards and Ipads are involved, yet they still need to be able to read, write, and participate in the other strands
of literacy as well. We SHOULD use technology as a way to open up the World to our students and to show them the billions of interesting and exciting things that the internet has to offer for us. We should use our technology as a way to promote humanity and compassion for less fortunate countries and to help mold our students into responsible and caring people instead. The 21st century goal is leaning towards making our students be "Global Citizens" so that we can help them to break away from the harsh and inhumane trends of our societies. The educational system is attempting to promote Global cooperation and acceptance in hopes of avoiding the wars and mistakes of our pasts. They are also promoting knowledge about environmental issues and dangers that our future children will be dealing with as the Earth continues to change. All of these promotions towards raising good Global Citizens should be incorporated into the literature of our classrooms as well.
In my practicum: In teaching the Grade 3 social studies units about other countries, I have definitely had an eye-opener about how important it is for students to realize how fortunate we are to live in a country like Canada. The kids are blown away whenever they hear about people who live without electricity and water and they have a hard time relating to how hard that would really be on a daily basis. The only way that they will ever come to terms with such a reality is by revisiting and restudying about the world and its diverse communities. One thing that my school does to promote global interest and to create school community is that they participate in the “Flat Stanley” program. The students all color and cut out a flat Stanley and try to send him off on an adventure whether that be in the student’s backyard, or off with a family member on a fun vacation. The students then present a poster and pictures to their class and the posers are displayed in the school's hallways! Here is my own personal Flat Stanley on some Easter Adventures around Milk River!
of literacy as well. We SHOULD use technology as a way to open up the World to our students and to show them the billions of interesting and exciting things that the internet has to offer for us. We should use our technology as a way to promote humanity and compassion for less fortunate countries and to help mold our students into responsible and caring people instead. The 21st century goal is leaning towards making our students be "Global Citizens" so that we can help them to break away from the harsh and inhumane trends of our societies. The educational system is attempting to promote Global cooperation and acceptance in hopes of avoiding the wars and mistakes of our pasts. They are also promoting knowledge about environmental issues and dangers that our future children will be dealing with as the Earth continues to change. All of these promotions towards raising good Global Citizens should be incorporated into the literature of our classrooms as well.
In my practicum: In teaching the Grade 3 social studies units about other countries, I have definitely had an eye-opener about how important it is for students to realize how fortunate we are to live in a country like Canada. The kids are blown away whenever they hear about people who live without electricity and water and they have a hard time relating to how hard that would really be on a daily basis. The only way that they will ever come to terms with such a reality is by revisiting and restudying about the world and its diverse communities. One thing that my school does to promote global interest and to create school community is that they participate in the “Flat Stanley” program. The students all color and cut out a flat Stanley and try to send him off on an adventure whether that be in the student’s backyard, or off with a family member on a fun vacation. The students then present a poster and pictures to their class and the posers are displayed in the school's hallways! Here is my own personal Flat Stanley on some Easter Adventures around Milk River!
Examples & Templates for Planning- Unit Planning - Detailed by Alberta Ed
- Unit Planning Checklist - Unit Plan - Blank Template and Examples - Example Unit Plan - "Another Kind of Cowboy" - Blank Lesson Plan aligned to ELA curriculum - ELA curriculum explained as a "meal" Other Useful Documents |
Helpful WebsitesTeaching Canadian Literature in Secondary Schools
Media Smart - website aimed at the specific GLOs and correlated with lessons to teach about advertising, online safety, being fit, violence, etc. Guide to implimentation - For the High School Language arts Curriculum. UofC ELA Resources - Many websites and links for ELA topics. My website for teaching Gr. 3 Zoo Research Projects: |