EDU410 Topics 1-108 by Alpha

Lesson No. 1 · Teaching of Literacy Skills · Topic 1: Concept of Literacy

What is literacy?

The term literacy refers:

1. often mainly to reading,
2. sometimes to reading and writing,
3. and rarely, to reading, writing, speaking and listening

The activities of reading, writing, speaking and listening in a learning environment are included in literacy.

o Literacy is the ability to read and write, but also includes skills like critical thinking, listening, speaking, viewing and presenting. o Numeracy is being at home with numbers, and knowing the smartest way to solve mathematical problems.

Topic 2: What is Meant by Literacy Skills?

Literacy skills are those which help in:

•  developing literacy, and
•  improving literacy

Topic 3: Different Types of Literacy Skills

There are different types of literacy skills:, e.g.:

•  Reading: even if you read a sentence, it is literacy skill because you had that level of literacy which enabled you to read the sentence. Reading a book, newspaper or thesis etc. is all included in literacy skills.
•  Many sub-skills are involved in the reading skill, like reading the words, understanding the words, connecting the words, connecting the meaning of those words, and then collectively understand the message.

Topic 4: Learning Literacy Skills

Literacy skills help students gain knowledge through reading as well as using media and technology. These skills also help students create knowledge through writing as well as developing media and technology.

There are two ends to the concept of learning literacy skills.

1. Students‘ concern is to learn these skills
2. Teachers must ensure that their students learn all the main and the allied sub-skills included in literacy skills.

Literacy is the ability to read, view, write, design, speak and listen in a way that allows you to communicate effectively

Topic 5: Significance of Literacy Skills

Figure 1 presents a very basic level of literacy – some alphabets, a musical note, some pictures – it is, most likely, connected with very young children who are starting to learn. For them, nevertheless, these are the literacy skills that they have to learn, and proceed to improve forward.

A much more complicated situation is presented by Figure 2. It is a highly developed and advanced model of literacy. For instance, computer literacy will require knowledge of technology, writing, typing, reading, how to download

Figure 1

Figure 2

information from web, how to search, save, how to put/ retrieve information in/ from mail, etc.

Literacy skills provide the basics to proceed for learning and gaining, and creating knowledge in any discipline. The level of these skills may be different according to the level of learners.

Topic 6: Literacy Skills in Classrooms

Literacy skills are also strongly connected to classroom learning, which again ultimately contributes to the country‘s development and growth.

Classrooms help to a great extent in improving literacy skills that provide the base for the development of a country. For instance:

•  Literacy rate in Pakistan – 58%
•  Literacy rate in USA – 90-95%

As such, the literacy skills being used or developed in the classroom connect with the development of the country at the macro level.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 3 presents a picture of a classroom that is not using any technology, which is a very important helping factor of the modern classroom. While Figure 4 shows a modern classroom, where each student is using technology and is learning in an interactive manner. Notice that there are no heavy bags in Figure 4.