Literacy development. © 2012 Pearson Australia ISBN: 9781442541757 Literacy development Literacy is one of the most important foundations for success

Literacy development

© 2012 Pearson Australia ISBN: 9781442541757


Literacy is one of the most important foundations for success in school and life. It is a crucial survival tool in a global society.

- (Practice Resource Literacy Promotion. © Centre for Community Child Health 2006, p. 8)



• By age 4, most children have learned the basics of the grammatical system in their language.

• Early language learning occurs mostly in the home.

• Most vocabulary is learned indirectly through everyday experiences with oral and written language including daily interactions within the family and listening to adults read to them.



• Good experience fosters optimal (brain) development

• Bad experience undermines development

• The exceptionally strong influence of early experience on brain architecture makes the early years of life a period of both great opportunity and great vulnerability.

(Deborah Phillips

Post Neurons to Neighbourhoods, 2010)



“By the end of the early childhood period, just as each child is different, each brain will be different in part due to genetics, but due in even larger part because the brain is designed to actively recruit experience into its structure (hardware) and neurochemistry (software).

A dance in which our genes affect our responses to our experiences and our experiences modify the expression of our genes. This is the essence of adaptation.”

- (Deborah Phillips Post Neurons to Neighbourhoods, 2010)



• Early language and literacy experiences form the foundation for later reading and language competencies.



Children who are at greater risk of poor literacy development are over represented by:Boys – (lower performance than girls across States, year levels, and for different forms of literacy)

Indigenous children

Children raised in families with low socio-economic status



Teacher observations of boys’ engagement in literacy:

boys were less successful than girls in their ways of negotiating and participating in conventional literacy classrooms and conventional literacy activities

boys showed a general lack of interest in print-based reading and writing activities

boys demonstrated a perceived lack of purpose and relevance in school work



Teacher observations of boys engagement in literacy: (cont.)

boys made ‘minimalistic’ efforts to complete and present school literacy tasks

boys were disruptive, easily distracted and difficult to motivate within the classroom

boys lacked self-esteem and confidence as learners



By the age of 15, more than one-third of Australia’s Indigenous students 'do not have the adequate skills and knowledge in reading literacy to meet real-life challenges and may well be disadvantaged in their lives beyond school'.

- (PISA cited in Bortoli and Cresswell, 2004, page 11)

Indigenous Literacy Foundation: http://www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au/Home



Indigenous children living in isolated areas have even lower literacy rates. In the Northern Territory, only one in five children living in very remote Indigenous communities can read at the accepted minimum standard.

By Year 7, just 15 per cent achieved this benchmark, 47 percentage points behind their urban Indigenous peers and 74 per cent less than non-Indigenous students.

- (DEET NT 2006)

Indigenous Literacy Foundation: http://www.indigenousliteracyfoundation.org.au/Home



• Children from lower socio-economic families are:

less likely to live in a language rich environment less likely to have books in the home less likely to be spoken to and read to than

children living in higher socio-economic families less likely to be present at school with reading

readiness skills



• Children in families where there is a rich level of verbal interaction will have heard around 45 million words by age 4.

• Children in families where there is a poor level of verbal interaction will have heard around 13 million words by age 4.

- (Hart and Risley, 1996)



The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Aspects of Literacy Survey found that of Australians aged 15 to 74 years:

approximately 46 per cent had very poor to poor ‘prose literacy’ (ability to read documents)

47 per cent had very poor to poor ‘document literacy’ (ability to understand and use information from a variety of text sources)

(ABS, 2006)



There are three key factors that have been found to support and promote emergent literacy skills prior to school commencement:

People

Environments

Activities



Studies have found repeatedly that children who experience difficulties in learning to read are unlikely to catch up to their peers.

Children who become successful readers come to formal school with a number of literacy skills that are absent in children whose reading development is poor.

A child’s literacy environment predicts later reading success.



Becoming a competent reader has both short-term and long-term benefits, which include:

increased academic and occupational success

increased self-esteem and motivation to learn, participate in and commit to education

socially accepted behaviours in school and later in life



Positive regard for one’s abilities and prospects, leading to empowerment

Reduced need for special education

Potential reduction in the effects of low socio-economic background

Decreased social and financial costs associated with illiteracy

- (Centre for Community Child Health 2006, p. 10)



• Reading is influenced by motivation and interest. Children who struggle with reading will dislike it and therefore will read less, and children who are less read fall progressively further behind once they reach school.

• This phenomenon, called the Matthew Effects, which asserts that reading is a function of interest and motivation, is said to start very early in life, and grow stronger with time.



Physical and clinical conditions that may impact on learning to read include:

severe cognitive deficiencies

hearing impairment

chronic otitis media

(specific) early language impairment

attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder



Predictors of reading difficulty at school entry:Verbal memoryLexical and Syntactic SkillsPhonological AwarenessAcquired Knowledge of LiteracyReading readinessLetter identificationConcept of print



• Few children will develop the ability to understand their language in a written form naturally without some help.

• Children who present with reading difficulties or who arrive at school with poor literacy experiences can be supported to develop reading and writing skills.

• This support must be delivered with an explicit reading curriculum that addresses the five fundamental skills necessary to become a successful reader.



References:

Snow, C., Burns, M., & Griffin, P. Editors (1998) Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

Practice Resource Literacy Promotion. Centre for Community Child Health 2006

Rowe, K., & Rowe, Katherine, BIG issues in Boys’ Education: Auditory Processing Capacity, literacy and behaviour.

Alloway, N., Freebody, P., Gilbert, P. & Muspratt, S. (2002). Boys, Literacy and Schooling Expanding The Repertoires Of Practice.

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Literacy development. © 2012 Pearson Australia ISBN: 9781442541757 Literacy development Literacy is one of the most important foundations for success