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Literacy UN Acked: What DO WE MEAN by Literacy?

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Literacy UN Acked: What DO WE MEAN by Literacy? Memo 4 | Fall 2012 LEAD FOR LITERACY MEMO Providing guidance for leaders dedicated to children's literacy development, birth to age 9 L U: W D W M L? The Issue: To make decisions that have a positive What Competencies Does a Reader Need to impact on children’s literacy outcomes, leaders need a Make Sense of This Passage? keen understanding of literacy itself. But literacy is a complex concept and there are many key HIGH-SPEED TRAINS* service that moved at misunderstandings about what, exactly, literacy is. A type of high-speed a speed of one train was first hundred miles per Unpacking Literacy Competencies hour. Today, similar In this memo we focus specifically on two broad introduced in Japan about forty years ago. Japanese trains are categories of literacy competencies: skills‐based even faster, traveling The train was low to competencies and knowledge‐based competencies. at speeds of almost the ground, and its two hundred miles nose looked somewhat per hour. There are like the nose of a jet. Literacy many reasons that These trains provided high-speed trains are Reading, Wring, Listening & Speaking the first passenger popular. * Passage adapted from Good & Kaminski (2007) Skills Knowledge Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, 6th ed. ‐ Concepts about print ‐ Concepts about the ‐ The ability to hear & world Map sounds onto letters (e.g., /s/ /p/ /ee/ /d/) work with spoken sounds ‐ The ability to and blend these to form a word (speed) ‐ Alphabet knowledge understand & express Based ‐ Word reading complex ideas ‐ Recognize spelling patterns (e.g., the “‐igh” ‐Spelling ‐ Vocabulary family found in the word “high”) Skills ‐ Fluency ‐ Oral language skills Competencies Read fluently – about 115 words per minute Why Is This Distinction Meaningful? Understand the meaning of words in this context (e.g., “service” has 37 possible definitions!) Skills‐Based Knowledge‐Based Competencies Competencies s Make meaning of the text using relevant Based Developmental Typically Develops from ‐ background knowledge (e.g., conceptual Processes mastered by 3rd infancy through knowledge about trains and jets and travel) grade adulthood Use cognitive strategies (e.g., when reading the Instruconal Highly suscepble Requires sustained Competencie Knowledge second sentence, if the child initially pictures a Implicaons to relavely brief instrucon, human nose, he must be able to adjust when the instrucon beginning in early comparison to a jet’s nose is read) childhood The Bottom Line for PreK to 3rd Efforts: With adequate instruction, skills‐based competencies are Skills‐based competencies are necessary but not mastered by 3nd grade for the average student. Yet the sufficient for early literacy development; later reading development of knowledge‐based competencies must be comprehension and academic success depend mostly on supported with good instruction throughout schooling. strong knowledge‐based competencies. For many children, especially from academically This series was made possible by the PreK‐3rd Grade Initiative at Harvard Graduate School of Education and the generous funding vulnerable populations, knowledge‐based competencies of the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation. The content is are more likely to be key sources of academic difficulties. informed in part by Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success, commissioned by Strategies for Children. Find this memo and others at hp://langlit.gse.harvard.edu .
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