Learning Literacy Skills

What is Literacy?
Literacy is the ability to identify,

understand, interpret, create,
communicate and compute, using printed
and written materials associated with
varying contexts.
CTell’s 12 Principles of effective Literacy
Instruction
• Connecting literacy instruction with the linguistic, cultural,

home backgrounds of the learner:
• Developing emergent literacy skills, behaviors and attitudes;
• Phonemic awareness instruction;
• Decoding instruction;
• Comprehension instruction;
• Independent reading;
• Fluency instruction;
• Integrating reading and writing activities to enhance the
learning of both;
• Encouraging enthusiasm for reading and writing;
• Using technology wisely with early literacy
development;
• Assessing early and providing appropriate instructional
intervention; and
• Developing teachers’ knowledge, analytical skills and
abilities to orchestrate the many facets of language,
literacy and learning.
Learning Literacy Skills
Learning Literacy
Skills
Literacy Skills in English
What is Literacy?
Literacy is the ability to understand and evaluate meaning through
reading and writing, listening and speaking, viewing and representing.
 Literacy skills need to continually expand and diversify because our

rapidly changing social and economic environment requires
competence in a range of new communication forms and media.
 Literacy competence is central to achievement in all areas of learning

as students progress through the early, middle and later years of
schooling and into the workforce and personal life.
The Importance of Literacy
Adolescents entering the adult world in the 21st century will
read and write more than at any other time in human history.
They will need advanced levels of literacy to perform their jobs,
run their households, act as citizens, and conduct their personal
lives.
They will need literacy to cope with the flood of information
they will find everywhere they turn.
They will need literacy to feed their imaginations so they can
create the world of the future. In a complex and sometimes even
dangerous world, their ability to read will be crucial.
Key Competencies of Learning Literacy
Thinking
Participating and Contributing
Relating to Others
Using Language, Symbols and Texts
Managing Self
Categories of Literacy Skills
• Receptive – what you receive and how you make

meaning (read, listen and view)
• Productive – what you produce and how you create

meaning (speak, write and present)
Factors in foreign language learning contexts that can influence
the learning task (becoming skilled readers and writers):
Nature of the written forms of the first

language.
Learner’s previous experience in L1 literacy.
Learner’s knowledge of the FL.
Learner’s age.
The First Language
Each language is structured differently, and the different
structures offer users different suggestions to meaning.
So when we learn our first language, our brain / mind ‘tunes
into’ the way the particular L1 works, and we learn to pay
attention to particular cues to meaning that are most helpful.
When we meet a new language, our brain / mind
automatically tries to apply the first language experience by
looking for familiar cues.
The First Language
Part of learning a foreign language is developing new
understandings about the particular cues to meaning that the new
language offers, and that differ from those of our first language.
The transferability of knowledge, skills and strategies across
languages depends closely on how the two written languages work.
English is a complicated alphabetic written language, and almost
always requires learners of it as a foreign language to develop new
skills and knowledge, in addition to what can be transferred.
Learner’s Previous Experience In L1 Literacy
Literacy knowledge and skills partly developed = only some aspects
are available for transfer, and they may be only partially mastered.
We must consider the methodology of teaching literacy skills in the
first language.
Do we use the same?
Using a quite different approach to teach how to read in the foreign
language classroom may be a good idea, because it helps children to
differentiate the languages and the literacy skills required in each; it
may also confuse children by requiring them to cope with different
definitions of ‘good behavior’ or ‘success’ in reading.
Learner’s Previous Experience In L1 Literacy
Social aspects of first language literacy may also

influence learning to read in a foreign language.
The extreme case when a child’s L1 does not

have a written form, or when the medium of
education is a second language, so that the child
does not learn L1 literacy.
Learner’s Knowledge Of The FL
Phonological awareness in the foreign language, the ability
to hear the individual sounds and syllables that make up
words, will develop from oral language activities, such as
saying rhymes or/and singing songs.
Vocabulary knowledge is extremely important. In the early
stages children should only encounter written words that they
already know orally.
Pronunciation skills in the foreign language will both affect
literacy and be assisted by literacy development.
Learner’s Knowledge Of The FL
Since written words are turned into spoken words in the

reading process (and vice versa in the writing process),
inaccuracies in pronunciation may stop finding the right
spoken word to match what is read.
Seeing words written down can help towards accurate

pronunciation because of the visibility of all the letters of
a word; sounds that might be unstressed, and thus not
noticed in listening, will be evident in written form.
Learner’s Age
Age of starting to learn to read coincides with first language
reading experience.
However, there are other factors that may make learning to read
and write in English a very different experience for children of six
or ten years of age:
The youngest children are still learning how written text works, so
that they may not be able to transfer even the most general
concepts about text and print.
Learner’s Age
They are still mastering the fine motor skills needed to
shape and join letters, and so producing a written
sentence takes a long time, and, because their attentional
capacities are also limited, they may only be able to write
a small amount.
Because of constraints of memory, when reading a
sentence, they may not be able to recall the beginning by
the time they have reached the end.
Learner’s Age
Teaching children between the ages of 6 and 9

years to read and write in English as a foreign
language can make use of some methods used
with children for whom English is a first language
(it could be a good idea to put on extra stress on
those aspects of English literacy that contrast
most strongly with the learner’s first language
reading and writing).
Starting To Read And Write In English As A
Foreign Language
Objectives for readers & writers up to age 7
TEXT:
Attitude to literacy: enjoy being read to from a range of
books; enjoy looking at books.
Print conventions: learn how text is written down in lines and
pages, with spaces between words, capital and small letter.
Participate in range of literacy events in school, and link to
out of school literacy events.
Foreign Language
SENTENCE:
Learn to copy short sentences that have a personal
meaning, and read them aloud.
WORDS:
Learn a basic set of words by sight.
Begin spotting words and letters in books.
Foreign Language
MORPHEMES / SYLLABLES:
listen to rhymes, chants and songs, and, by joining in with
them, learn by heart, and be able to say or sing them.
LETTERS / SOUNDS:
Learn the names, shapes and sounds of some initial
consonants.
Begin to learn the alphabet in order, by name.
Continuing to Learn to Read
By the time children reach 10 years of age or thereabouts, their first
language orally and literacy are probably quite firmly established:
they understand about how written text works;
they are in control of the fine motor skills needed for writing;
they are able to talk and think about the differences between
languages.
 At this age, reading and writing can be part of foreign language
learning, even for beginners, but we must not forget that only
familiar vocabulary (and grammar) should be used initially in
written form.
Creating A Literary Environment In The
Classroom
Labels
Posters
Messages ( a ‘ post box’)
Reading aloud it can be done in several ways:
Teacher reads aloud, children just listen, and perhaps look at
pictures.
Teacher uses a ‘big book’, i.e. a large book with large enough
print so that all children can see.
Each child uses a text.
Classroom
From listening and watching an adult read aloud, children can
see how books are handled, how texts encode words and ideas,
how words and sentences are set out on a page.
Reading aloud familiarizes children with the language of written
English:
 The formulaic openings: ‘once upon a time…
The formulaic closings: ‘and so they all lived happily ever after.
The patterns of text types: stories and information text.
The patterns of sentence types.
Classroom
It is very important that children regularly
read aloud individually to their teacher,
since it is only by listening carefully to how
children are making sense of written words
that we can understand their progress in
learning.

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What is Literacy?

Literacy is the ability to identify,

• Connecting literacy instruction with the linguistic, cultural,

 Literacy skills need to continually expand and diversify because our

 Literacy competence is central to achievement in all areas of learning

• Receptive – what you receive and how you make

• Productive – what you produce and how you create

Nature of the written forms of the first

Social aspects of first language literacy may also

The extreme case when a child’s L1 does not

Since written words are turned into spoken words in the

Seeing words written down can help towards accurate

Teaching children between the ages of 6 and 9

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