Developing Literacy - Action Plan
My understanding of
literacy is having the ability to understand, question, synthesize or present
information in a variety of ways. When thinking about how literacy
develops, I remember how my children developed their ability to communicate
from the time they were little babies. They listened to sounds and
observed images and body cues to understand us. They responded by
repeating and mimicking our sounds back to us. Much later they
learned to develop phonemic awareness attaching sounds to symbols to create
words and sentences. They continue to develop their comprehension as
they are taught reading strategies to help them connect and relate to their
world. Some of these literacies naturally evolve, while others have
to be taught, practiced and developed academically.
Multi-Literacy, as described in “The Current” encompasses all
literacies that begin to emerge as students mature and are subjected to more
life experiences and learning opportunities. Social literacy is our
ability to read interactions with others in order to connect with the people in
our lives. Media literacy is our ability to interact in a safe
and critical way with the digital world and requires an understanding of what a
digital footprint is and knowledge about how we can maintain one that we are
proud of. Political literacy enables us to interact with the world
on important political issues and requires a critical lens aware of perspective
and bias in order to understand motives and objectives. Images and
pictures evoke messages in their content and create meaning as visual literacy.
“Images can be really helpful in the classroom and are another great form of
literacy for students to read and are more visually engaging than plain word
text.”( Haschke, A Rushing, S Vangrove, C) When learned and continually practiced, multi-literacy becomes
more natural and causes one to reflect and respond in appropriate ways.
A Centre for Literacy
More than ever before, it
seems today that there is an even larger importance being placed on both
libraries as the resource hub and librarians as the research experts. This
certainly seems to be the case in most 21st Century schools like the one I currently work in. In order to make this transitional phase from more straight forward traditional libraries to more sophisticated and multi-purpose learning spaces successful, I feel that it is crucial to work together as a staff, as a district and then eventually share that learning on a larger, more global scale. I
believe that establishing a Learning Commons Literacy Committee (LCLC) can be
a good starting point to achieve both an open understanding and an effective
communication of the needs as well as addressing any challenges along the way in order to head in a positive direction. Optimally, this LCLC committee should consist
of all potential stakeholders involved including administrators, teachers,
parents, and librarians. Throughout this process, It will be important to brainstorm, trouble shoot and compile good information in order to design high quality literacy activities and practices that support sound teaching and
learning experiences. Understanding the different strengths that all stakeholders bring
to this LCLC team and using each of these roles in a collaborative and effective way should have a great impact on the overall success of a good LCLC action plan.
This plan will support
reading and writing literacy practices that promote comprehension strategies
such as Adrienne Geare’s Reading and Writing Power, and all other literacies
which need to be learned and practiced in order for students to be able to
safely and ethically engage with our world. In my Literacy Action
Plan, I will show how the library will be used to promote the many forms of
literacy that our students learn to interact with and make meaning of the
world.
The Library will be a
centre for literacy by having a flexible schedule that will accommodate larger
numbers of students. Changing hours of operation to include before
school, at lunch and after school will help make the library accessible to
students for technology and circulation of materials, and to offer more
opportunities for reading. In Krashen’s presentation, The Power of
Reading, he states that free voluntary reading works better than any other
to develop academic literacy, to bring people from low levels of literacy to
the highest levels of literacy, to increase our vocabulary and our ability to
handle complex grammatical situations, to spell and to write with a good style,
and that much of our knowledge of the world comes from this type of reading. I
find that students make use of this time for a variety of reasons. Some
enjoy spending their free time reading rather than being outside with many
other students, others just love to be in the library helping in any way
because they value the space, and some simply need a space to belong.
A variety of engaging
activities and resources that support literacy acquisition will be offered for
both students and teachers. They will promote literacy growth and
encourage students and teachers to take ownership and participate in the life
of the library. Some examples of these activities include: reading
clubs and competitions, author talks, Maker, Breaker and Upcycling challenges,
exploratory creating opportunities, library monitor mentoring, book swaps, book
fairs, leadership opportunities, information skills, scavenger hunts, contests,
building and coding clubs, spelling bees, spoken word and drama
performances.
Some examples of resources
and support that will be available include: workshops on web tools and digital
resources, Skype collaborations, e-books, audio books, foreign language
materials, magazines, graphic novels, digital resources, videos, books of
varied reading level and interest, real life examples, co-operative planning
and teaching, teacher needs forms and documents for research.
Literacy Goals:
1.Encourage
and foster an appreciation for various forms of literature
By introducing students to a variety of kinds of literature it is
my hope that they will learn about other cultures, beliefs, perspectives and
ways of life and that they will be more accepting and knowledgeable about
diversity and develop a multicultural and political literacy that will empower
them to take part in political matters. Picture books, nonfiction
narrative, nonfiction, e-books, novels, magazines, graphic novels, wordless
books, read to me books and audio books are all examples of the various kinds
of resources that I will share with students to help achieve this. Hosting
author visits and incorporating the Global Read Aloud program will also
encourage these literacies to develop and allow students to interact with
different perspectives and cultural experiences. By providing quick
book talks and sharing a variety of read alouds with different styles of
literature, I hope that students with different interests and abilities are
more likely to find material that they enjoy reading. I plan to
create fun, engaging ways for students to choose books such as “Love it or
Leave it” that challenges students to choose books based on only a few words
while concealing the book in wrapping paper so that it’s contents sell the book
over the cover. Reading wordless books to classes and creating my
own story to accompany the pages I believe will encourage students to also take
risks to do the same and create their own stories to share with a class. These
types of books can be powerful because they can engage and challenge both
hesitant and voracious readers. I have a standing agreement with
some of my classes that if they have prepared a story form a wordless book,
their story will take precedence over what I had planned. Valuing
student efforts encourages others to try it too, when a few students have
already gone first. I like to use visual ways for students to share
their reading preferences among their peers such as “Book Selfie” and I find
that it positively impacts the reading habits of others.
 |
| Book Selfie |
 |
| Love it or Leave it - choosing books based on content rather than cover and explaining reasons for your preference to the class- demonstrate different perspectives |
2. Empower students and educators to seek and select information
in the library and in the world
I believe that students who can feel a sense of empowerment, are
more likely to be
successful when seeking out
information and/or while conducting research. In my experience, many
classroom teachers also seem to struggle with locating the good resources that
they aspire in order to plan and teach rich lessons and units. For
this reason, I plan to incorporate a variety of different informational skills
that should help students and teachers with using more effective and efficient
navigational skills when attempting to access our school library resources. For
example, I feel that it is essential to teach students specific fundamental
skills like how to identify call numbers or how to search by author and/or
subject. In addition, both addressing and teaching the students
about different types of literature like fiction vs. non-fiction and the
different features of a book (like all the different non-fiction text features).
In addition, I think incorporating fun ways, like scavenger hunts, to help
students practice and eventually acquire the ability to locate specific
resources is an important piece. Ultimately, if students and
educators can feel successful and capable in their abilities to seek out and
locate good resources that are suited to their interests then they will likely
feel more empowered to try books that are in or above their reading levels or
maybe more out of their comfort zone. In Parrot’s article about
staying away from book bin labeling, she quotes Haling’s research and belief
that this practice disempowers readers because it doesn’t account for what the
they bring to the experience, and that a reader’s match to a book is going to
change with what prior knowledge the individual brings to that specific topic.
I will use the acronym BOOKMATCH to teach students things to
consider when choosing a book.
- Book length
- Ordinary language
- Organization
- Knowledge prior to book
- Manageable text
- Appeal to genre
- Topic appropriateness
- Connection
- High interest
3. Promote equitable access to electronic sources of
information and skills to help students navigate and evaluate it
Digital and media literacies are created when one learns how to
perform the skills necessary for operating computers to safely communicate with
others, and to find, evaluate, create and share information. The Library will work with teachers to strengthen student research skills by teaching them how to check that their sources are authentic, current, reputable and reliable. Resources such as common sense media provide extensive lessons and checklists for students to use when making these evaluations. They will be incorporated into lessons as well as the use of engaging introduction videos. Digital resources that I have been curating on K-7 Digital/Media Literacy Symbaloo will be assigned for students to listen to or read various portions as we engage in this study.
4. Use digital tools and media creatively to gain literacy and create and share information that is relevant to students
Including a
number of multi-modal projects and text response options for students to create with will help their skill development in this area. It will also be a way for the school that is becoming more diverse to reach students with the many different backgrounds and
communication preferences. Some of the many forms of digital tools and projects that will be offered will include coding with robotics, digital iPad projects, drawing, photography, drama and explaining personal perspectives to
give students opportunities to practice different forms of critical literacy as
a response to literature. According to
Dalton and Grisham’s article, Multimodal Responses to Literature, students
develop as readers and digital communicators when they compose with different
modes. Cappiello and Dawes state in
their article, “Teaching with text sets” that using multi-modal text resources
designed by the teacher to support or enhance a particular topic or unit of
study will encourage similar modes of communication by students as a response
and/or as a vehicle for promoting advocacy.”
Our school is growing considerably
and will soon have 12 additional classrooms added on to the
building. There will be a large influx of students and staff, an
administrative role and another part-time Teacher Librarian to accommodate for
this growth. The goals listed above will need to be shared by
teachers, librarians and administration in classrooms as well as in the Library
so that students will benefit from a long term plan that supports and
incorporates the many forms that literacy takes.
Sources Cited
Krashen,
S. (2012, April 5). The power of reading. The COE lecture series. University of
Georgia. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSW7gmvDLag (Links to an external site.)
Parrott, Kiera. (August 28, 2017).
Thinking outside the bin: why labeling books by reading level disempowers
young readers. Retrieved from: http://www.slj.com/2017/08/feature-articles/thinking-outside-the-bin-why-labeling-books-by-reading-level-disempowers-young-readers/#
Cappiello,
M., & Thulin Dawes, E. (2014). Teaching with text sets. Shell Education.
Kindle Edition.
Haschke, Anna, et al. “Multi
Literacy.” Multi Literacy | The Current, 9 May 2013,
thecurrent.educatorinnovator.org/post/keyword/multi-literacy.
Dalton, Bridget, and Dana L. Grisham. “Love
That Book.” The Reading Teacher, vol. 67, no. 3, 2013, pp.
220–225., doi:10.1002/trtr.1206.
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