Topics in Literacy Education Today
The study overviews the revelation of the literacy achievement gap in the classroom of diverse students. Mastering such essential reading literacy skills as conclusion drawing, evaluating, and categorizing embraces the basic needs of the contemporary job market. Therefore, the successful adoption of the analyzed competencies constitutes the basis of modern education. In the overviewed classroom, the evaluation of the literacy skills of the students was sustained by offering the learners to complete a multi-discipline test, which matches the Common Core State Literacy Standard (Haskins, Murnane, Sawhill, & Snow, 2012). The outcomes of the experiment demonstrated that the literacy skills of the learners fall behind the international literacy level.
Illiteracy evolves both in the classroom and the community. Thus, the students, who do not reach the appropriate achievement level, usually reveal communication deterrence, academic inefficiency, and ethical ignorance in daily communication and within the frames of the study process. Lacking proficiency in demonstrating literacy has several critical implications. Thus, it was proved that reading literacy is matched to the home-schooling process. Specifically, the learners from needy and uncaring families tend to show bad literacy results. Secondly, it is noted that lacking reading skills hamper the general process of education. Thus, the students, who can not decipher written information, fail to perform the basic school tasks. Finally, reading literacy impacts communication (Siverd, 2011). The learners, which are inefficient readers, lack lexical literacy and can not express their opinions properly.
Factors That Influence a Child’s Literacy Development
Literacy instruction insufficiency extends from the congregation of the factors, which impact child development. Thus, one can differentiate three critical implications, which affect the literacy potentials of the students. First, demonstrating literacy depends on the complexity of socioeconomic backgrounds. Specifically, the research evidence reveals that the children, who have uneducated parents, reveal lower literacy performance than those whose mothers and fathers have good professional histories (Geske & Ozola, 2008). The difference is stimulated by the idea that the families with the appreciation of education practice home-schooling. Moreover, the learners from such environments have good access to personal books and encyclopedias, which are available at home. Furthermore, the parenting styles differ in educated and non-educated parents since the latter, usually, might provide their children with incorrect language forms or reality ideas in the process of communication.
Besides, the financial basement of literacy instruction plays a critical role in the issue, as well. Thus, it may be suggested that the level of literacy in the groups of learners from needy families lags behind, according to the fact that the parents have no opportunity to provide their children with appropriate study materials. The second factor, which affects literacy efficiency relates to school standards. Thus, specific academic programs prioritize home reading as the form of acquiring reading proficiency. Conclusively, the students, who can not receive appropriate instruction at home, may fail in class. Moreover, the issue relies on teacher efficiency. For instance, teachers fail in matching the literacy level of the class to the selection of materials, which hinders academic progress (Connor & Morrison, 2014). Finally, student diversity, which often stimulates discrimination in class, propels literacy problems. In the discussed classrooms, the major instruction problem concerns a socioeconomic factor, which may be overtaken by using family-school integration and providing voluntary assistance to separate students.
Mapping out Literacy Instruction
The excellent understanding of the basic concepts, which constitute reading literacy, helps the teacher to manage the study process efficiently. One can embrace two models of reading mastery skills. The first theory, which is called the five pillars’ strategy, refers to phonemics and phonics as the means of recognizing and matching the sounds, comprehension as the method of linking the text to reality, fluency as the ability to pace the written information, and vocabulary as the building material for reading (Teaching reading strategies, 2015). The second model, which is named the cognitive foundations of learning to read, reveals the same literacy levels but breaks them into detailed sections. Specifically, it demonstrates that comprehension concerns certain skills, which are letter knowledge, knowledge of the alphabet principle, syntax, semantics, and phonology understanding.
Moreover, it rather focuses on reading literacy as the system of cognitive competencies, which incorporate linguistic, lexical, and cipher knowledge (The cognitive foundations of learning to read: A framework, 2014). One may conclude that the latter model is more accurate than the pillars’ scheme in terms of scientific explanation. However, the use of pillars provides clear guidance for pacing literacy acquisition in class. The optimal literacy instruction follows the hierarchy form. Thus, I would recommend starting reading teaching with the mastery of phonetics and phonemics concepts by practicing phoneme recognition and moving gradually to linking a sound to a form. The suggestion is certified by the fact that I faced the cases in which students started reading without being able to pronounce certain sound combinations, which hampered the further progress of the study. Afterward, it is critical developing reading mechanics by mastering vocabulary and verifying text comprehension. Finally, fluency has to be elaborated in the course of practice.
References
Connor, C., & Morrison, F. (2014). Services or programs that influence young children’s academic success and school completion. Web.
Geske, A., & Ozola, A. (2008). Factors influencing reading literacy at the primary school level. Problems of Education in the 21st Century, 6(1), 71-78.
Haskins, R., Murnane, R., Sawhill, I., & Snow, C. (2012). Can academic standards boost literacy and close the achievement gap? Web.
Siverd, T. (2011). Closing the achievement gap: Favoring a literacy-based approach to solving the nation’s. VA Engage Journal, 2(1), 1-15.
Teaching reading strategies. (2015). Web.
The cognitive foundations of learning to read: A framework.(2014). Web.