Literacy practices are universal activities for almost everyone in the world, it determines what we write, how we write, readings that shaped our conceptions, it impacts our social development from an early age to adulthood.
However, to understand the term in a more proper way comparisons and researches have to be made, it may not mean just knowing how to read and write but how it shapes our lives as adults today.
The term Literacy Practice was first proposed by the anthropologist Brian Street, he used the term to clarify how our daily literacy practices are also a part of our identity; reading and writing are activities that we take on to establish in our daily routines are a part of our social, cultural identity. Our literacy practices will differ from one person to the other, depending on the culture and social practices that an individual engages in. For instance, whether a professor, doctor or a teacher, depending on which culture they perform their activities, their literacy practices differ widely from one another, each one will read from different contexts, forms and mediums and will carry on these practices of writing depending on the context which they have been taught in their early lives.
For this reason, literacy practice is a concept that allows people to understand the importance of the connection between an individual’s identity and their literacy practices.
(Allington,D. and Hewings,A 2012)
The concept of literacy practices differs on a universal level, therefore it is relative; its relativeness derives from the variety of practices that emerge depending on the context of the individual’s environment. Therefore literacy practices are multiple and will vary from one domain or institution to the other so in order to understand the dynamics of literacy practice, one must look further to the different values and expectations that shape the literacy practices of different domains and institutions.
This is why we can not apply the same literacy practices on all educational settings, the resources must be relatable in visual, verbal and written forms of the curriculum presented by the educational institution. In other words, literacy must transform to adapt to the social practices, which take on to present the identity of those who read and write in these domains, adapting it to its social and cultural norms, thus enhancing the capabilities of comprehension. (Ivanic.R, Fowler.Z, Edwards.R, Mannion.G and Smith.J 2004)
A further explanation; similarly how talk is analyzed through gestures and stance and body language, when it comes to written forms, written language is considered in multimodal terms as well, which takes many forms to establish and communicate meaning. For instance, reading and writing modes are closely connected in the sense that each activity completes the other, they are both associated with learning. However this will differ depending on the circumstance which shapes the learning operation. In this sense, this is elaborated by looking at multimodal analysis, to analyze the differences how the language has been used by different users from students to adults in workplaces and official government institutions. Finally, This leads to the conclusion that literacy practices are dynamic and will be relative depending on the social and cultural needs of the performer of certain activity that cooperates with their literacy activities. (Unsworth.L and Mills A.K 2017)
Literacy practices with children will differ from one community to the other, perhaps even among different schools in the same region, there are some basic and initial steps usually taken with young children to introduce them to the concept of reading and writing, usually performed smoothly and indirectly.
A research conducted in a Preschool in Cairo, to know about the kind of literacy practices that they usually perform in order to help kids read and write from an early age: The ages of the children are from one and a half years old to two years old, the strategies that the teachers maintain in the environment of the class room and the techniques of making children participate in everyday classroom activity was extremely significant for this literacy process.
It was noted that in this age, children are highly occupied with their surroundings and most importantly their belongings. For instance, one way to make a child recognize a color, is by labelling each item in the class room that is colored red, had the word “Red” on it, and that way the child recognizes the word along with the color as one, while also repeating the letter “R” to familiarize the sound from the alphabet. This has a great impact on memorization, if asked one of the 2 year old children to match the words with the colors, by flashy colorful cards they would succeed by 60%.
Another fact is that children are so concerned with their belongings, the chairs in the class room had each child’s name on it, or when participating in a class room activities the sheets are put with their names and they are asked where they should be sitting to work on their sheets, kids become familiar with their own letters, two children may get confused if they have similar letters in their names, which shows their ability to recognize the letters, knowing these papers belong to them. Children at this age value their belongings, and this is how teachers aim to direct their focused attention with this kind of literacy practices.
In the Article “What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and schools” Professor Shirley Brice Heath, goes to a great length to explain the necessity of story telling for children and its impact on their school performance, She compares different regions with different literacy practices with children and their families. The article emphasizes the importance of bedtime story telling and having the accessibility of books for young children with familial cooperation. She explains that reading books with children goes beyond just telling a story, it is of crucial importance to the reading routines for children, parents have a role of imposing questions, making references, to be able to familiarize concepts from the reality around them.
In addition to making kids love books is highly related to their success in school, this mainstream school oriented book reading society, illustrates how when children are frequently engaged with book reading, it becomes efficient for their independence and social development. The dialogues that the parents engage their children in, help enhances their social cognition, becoming more reflective on their surroundings rather than themselves. These “Analytic relational” show a highly progressive effect with children in young ages and helps him later own to pursue better when tested in schools. (Heath B.S, 1982)
On the other hand, different communities like Roadville and Trackton, show a low degree of children’s success in schools. Although they aim for it, however reading is only practiced for the sake of learning and being successful in school. In Roadville they only use very simplified forms of literacy practices. When parents are participating in book reading, they discourage children by using irrelevant information.
For example Shapes or a set of flashcards (ball-apple-boy-duck) that the child can not seem to grasp or predict on their own, it makes the child lose focus because he can not seem to draw a connection between those items and reality.
Therefore much of the difference between Maintain and Roadville is that the Roadville community does not enhance the dialogic conversation in real life beyond the part of book reading, which shows how necessary to activate the knowledge that the child has gained from their story time when comparing it to real life.
Meanwhile Trackton’s children were able to connect their own references to realities from undetermined parent dialogues, they were able to make connections to things that they have already seen or learned by seeing instead of counting on the parent’s input, so they are capable of answering questions but hardly describing its features, or differentiate between two similar items, however they will make an analogy or draw a connection to something they have previously learned.
The difference is mainly that oral communities do not guarantee success in schools as the literate ones, who practice occupying kids with books and enhancing their analytical skills by adding source knowledge from books that connects with their own reality.(Heath B.S, 1982)
To conclude, literacy practices vary among all cultures, however people are adapted to the context which shapes their conceptions in reading and writing depending on their environment, in which they grew up learning how to read and write, depending on what has been proposed to them whether by parent’s additional effort or educational institutions. Our literacy practices shape our lives and gives it meaning that is bounded by our identity, how we think and what we ought to become, from infancy to adulthood our literacy practices generate our conceptions of the reality that surrounds us, giving meaning to our daily performances
and routines, whether with our kids, at work or even ourselves.
References:
Allington, D. and Hewings ,A (2012) Reading and Writing in English. In Allington, D. and Mayor, B. (editors) Communicating in English: Talk, text, technology. NewYork. Routledge.
Heath B.S, (1982) What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school, Cambridge University Press, https://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/Files/Courses_Folder/documents/Heath.BedtimeStories.pdf Accessed: 30/3/2019
Ivanic.R, Fowler.Z, Edwards.R, Mannion.G and Smith.J (2004) Literacy practices as resources for learning: issues of identity, multimodality and fluidity http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/141926.htm Accessed: 6/2/2019
Unsworth.L and Mills A.K (2017) Multimodal Literacy - Oxford Research Encyclopedia http://oxfordre.com/education/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264093-e-232 Accessed: 6/2/2019
