Classroom Literacy: Interactions and Learning Approaches

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
The Importance of Fluent Reading
Vocabulary
Comprehension
The Class Case Study
The Student Case Study
Conclusion
References

Abstract

Back in the days, literacy was considered an ability to write and read. However, today it means engaging in advanced speaking, reading, as well as writing and listening. In order to evaluate the importance of literacy in the classroom, two case studies were conducted.

The first case study showed that classroom literacy is tightly connected with interactions between students that state their opinions and learn something new from others. The second case study showed that reading and writing are not the only ways of achieving literacy. Thus, the conclusion has been made that in modern days literacy can also be achieved by means of various interactions within the classroom.

Introduction

As many educational researchers have emphasized, literacy cannot be reduced to the acquisition of individual tasks, such as reading a book, completing an application, or taking an exam. Literacy tools include any artefact, idea, or process that people use when they read, write, and talk or otherwise use language to make meaning. We understand texts and write or otherwise use language to make meaning. We understand texts as extending beyond print to include digital, visual, audio, and performed texts.

Beyond any narrow explanations of literacy as encoding and decoding language, a much more recent explanation for it includes social interactions. Literacy studies investigate writing as well as reading in broad areas including everyday life (Bearne, Dombey, & Grainger, 2003, p. 14).

The Importance of Fluent Reading

Fluent reading helps students to understand and remember more of what they read and gain better and broader vocabulary knowledge. However, a reader cannot really concentrate on many things thus if they are spending too much effort and attention on getting the words from the page, they have very little left over for understanding the text they are reading.

Students need more models of fluent reading. Reading aloud is perfect for this, at any grade, for example, high school students will be able to better understand and read complex literature if they hear what the language sounds like.

Teachers reading aloud give examples of expressive reading, reading dialogues, phrasing, and proper use of intonation. In addition to reading literature aloud, teachers should help students develop fluency all along its path of development, such as speed games at the letter and word level, phrase reading, and practicing with the whole text (Deeney, 2009, p. 131).

Vocabulary

Dictionaries are considered the best for getting a meaning for an unknown word, but a smart reader is sometimes able to figure out the meaning of the word using context or parts of the unknown word. Context clues include parts of the sentence that can help a reader to understand new words while word parts include roots, prefixes and suffixes similar to other known words.

Vocabulary skills are important for improving literacy as well as the overall growth of the student in the classroom and outside classroom environment. By expanding the vocabulary, the person is able to communicate much more clearly as well as increase the perception of being an educated and intelligent individual.

Comprehension

Comprehension is a process that is closely connected with responding, interpreting and evaluating new information from the text or other sources. During comprehension, students aim at processing texts beyond word-level in order to get the bigger picture. Good and quick learners are able to use a variety of strategies at the same time and know how to apply different strategies to help comprehension for complicated texts (Comprehension, 2010, para. 3).

It is also worth noting that learners respond to new information in personal ways by creating different connections that enrich their understanding and support their sense of personal and social identity. Every single act of reading is able to bring a new set of experiences that contribute to the emotional and cognitive development of the student, and that will make their comprehension richer (Literacy for Learning: The Report of the Expert Panel on Literacy in Grades 4 to 6 in Ontario, 2004, p. 65).

The Class Case Study

The class I chose for this case study is a ninth grade at the high school. There are fifteen students in the class, six boys and nine girls. The class is very active when it comes to interactions and discussions they always discuss the latest news of their school, their homework and very eager to interact with the teachers.

Given this, when it comes to literacy exercises, they lose their interest. Reading or listening to the information that is not relevant to their lives or are not interesting to them becomes a tedious task for them. Only a couple individuals in the class have real problems with analysing acquired information, but their classmates are trying to help them in this, creating debates and discussions on different topics.

Of course, every student agreed that reading and literacy are very important aspects of the learning, although they all also agree that insistent reading or writing on irrelevant and sometimes boring topics does not teach them much. Thus, a solution to this problem is a visual interpretation of the information required for studying as well as picking up-to-date topics that would be much more interesting for reading and further comprehension and exploration.

The Student Case Study

I have chosen a male student from the class; lets call him Sam. Sam is not among the bright and gifted students that have no problems with reading, writing and evaluating new information discussed in class. During the learning process, Sam is the one who pays attention to what the teacher says and tries to take notes in order to remember more. He reads more than others and tries to do as many exercises for evaluating and remembering as possible, although in class he rarely stands out.

Thus, the solution for Sam is interacting more with his classmates instead of trying to learn all information for himself. Discussions and team exercises will help him structure his knowledge according to the relevancy and the emotional background of the thoughts and opinions stated by his classmates.

Conclusion

To conclude, the conducted case studies show that literacy and reading are tightly connected with the students lives, however, sometimes students prefer live discussions to writing or reading because learning this way is much more interesting.

The visualization of new information can become key in comprehending new material as well as improving vocabulary skills and literacy overall. In the case of the single student, Sam, who has troubles with learning and comprehending new information, conversations with his peers and acquiring some new information from others rather than from books can be instrumental in improving his skills.

References

Bearne, E., Dombey, H., & Grainger, T. (2003). Classroom Interactions in Literacy. Berkshire, UK: Open University Press.

Comprehension. (2010). Web.

Deeney, T. (2009). Literacy Instruction with Classroom Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Literacy for Learning: The Report of the Expert Panel on Literacy in Grades 4 to 6 in Ontario. (2004). Web.

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