ELA200 Bachelor of Early Childhood Learning For the Effective Manner

es in the past few decades over the course of history. Therefore the past years have witnessed the range of literacy to extend the conventional pillars of writing, reading, comprehending and grammatical errors. The interactive and digital applications have been included within the broad definition of literacy at the same time. The modern day literacy is equipped with the various methods that have been discovered and developed in the past few decades. This kind of literacy can also be called the information literacy. In today’s life the individuals are faced with different choices of information in their surroundings, studies, workplaces. At the same time, there are sufficient information that are available to them through various sources, such as the community resources, media, organizations with special interests, libraries and most importantly the internet (Tompkins et al., 2014). However, most of the information reaches the individuals without getting filtered, therefore raising questions regarding the reliability, validity and authenticity of such information.  In addition to that, as the information is available through various kinds of media, comprising of the aural, graphical and textual, it concerns the concept of the capability of understanding, using and evaluating such information in a legal and ethical way.

The Australian curriculum has been developed in a way that it encompasses the skills and knowledge of the student that they need to understand, access, analyze and examine the information, therefore make significant meaning, express the emotions and thoughts, present their own opinions and thoughts, interact with other members of the society and take part in different activities in their educational institutions and in different sectors of their life further. The success in the particular learning areas depends on the capability of using the distinctive and significant literacy with also represents the contents of different learning areas. As the concept of modern day literacy also involves certain dispositions and behaviors that assist the student in becoming the successful learners who are motivated and confident in using their literacy knowledge and skills (Cope & Kalantzis, 2014). However, several such skills also identify and support the other capabilities in life. The literacy skills help the students to be self sufficient, open to various other ideas, working with others, improving and enhancing their works and many more.

Literacy Practice

In this section, a literacy practice will be examined and evaluated. The year three English learning portfolio can be taken for this evaluation. This practice indicates to the collection of the work of students from different assessment tasks. This literacy practices does not determine the number of students to be involved in the assessment and it is also not sequenced in any particular order. There are sample practices in the portfolio which may vary due to the time that each student takes to complete the particular literacy practice (Lea & Nicoll, 2013). By the end of the year two in learning, the students should know how to read aloud and response to specific texts. Therefore the year three literacy practice has been designed in enhancing those skills and at the same time it involves some more skills too. This literacy practice few steps to develop the learning ability of the students.

In the first stage, the students are asked to response to a visual text. The teacher took the text ‘Into the Forest’ as a sample text for this stage. Therefore, the students view, read and learn the text with the help of the teacher. This procedure helps them to understand the organization of the contents using various structures of the text, mostly dependent on the sole purpose of it. This also helps the students to connect the language features with the images. It also helps the students to learn that different choices of vocabulary have different effects. This stage helps the students to start reading different structures of sentences, convention of using the punctuation and the images which provide extra information (Coiro et al., 2014). This is a productive mode of learning that makes the student understand about the use of language features in linking the ideas. They could be asked to identify the implied and literal meaning of the connecting ideas in various parts of the text. Therefore they can select specific concepts, information and events from the texts and relate those ideas to different sections of the text. The teacher would also ask the students individually to share their views regarding the texts. Sharing and listening to others views can be a significant part of the receptive mode of learning. At the end of this stage the teacher could ask the students about their understanding. Through this literacy practice the students would be able to understand to link the language with various ideas (Polesel, Rice & Dulfer, 2014). In fact, they also learn to express their views and feelings on different topics through the effective use of language. As the literacy practice include images and writing both at the same time, they develop the understanding of detailed information, characters, ideas and events.

When the students are asked to share their views, they can contribute in the classroom actively. This part of the literacy practice is a significant one in the productive mode of learning as the students are not only the audience anymore; rather they take part in the learning process in an active manner. It reflects their understanding of the grammar and the choice of vocabulary. The teacher could also evaluate whether the students can apply the correct vocabulary, punctuation and grammar in the context of writing. As the students spell the words aloud, they can be checked for meaning as well. The students write their own ideas after the reading session which reflects whether they can write correctly while joining the words which are formed accurately. In this literacy practice the students look at an image and express their own ideas about it. This can be productive in their learning abilities. It could also reflect whether the students are having any difficulties regarding conjoining their ideas with the images.

This practice is currently used in several institutions following the Australian curriculum. As a student I have also experienced the same in my school. This literacy practice is not merely a classroom practice, rather it involves group discussions and open ended conversation between the teacher and students. This helps the students to understand and express their own ideas (Sung & Hwang, 2013). This is also helpful in reflecting the innovative nature of the students and enhances their capabilities. If the students are not encouraged to express their feelings, they would not be self sufficient and vocal in their future life.

Reflection of literacy knowledge

My knowledge regarding literacy does not only concern the bookish knowledge, rather it involves all kinds of literacy practices such as the cultural, personal and social practices. The cultural and social literacy possess the knowledge and skills to identify and accept the distinct differences without any kind of value judgment. This literacy is a cognitive acquaintance and works the relationship within the language system (Luke, 2014). This also indicates to the cultural practices that are dependent on the heritage and history. Through this particular literacy practice the students can relate to different ideas therefore enhance their personal, social and cultural practices of literacy. Connecting with different images and sharing the views can also be understood from the perspective of socio cultural theory which is not merely the ability of reading and writing, rather it is some more than mastering such skills.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be said that the literacy practices should reflect the ability of learning through the social interaction. This interaction can take place anywhere, in the classroom or with the teacher outside the classroom. However, in the classroom practice, the group discussions enhance the idea of the literacy practices and evolve their social understanding. Using the book, images and group conversations, the teacher can develop their literacy practices through a playful way. This form of learning is a collaborative form of learning which has been popular in the Australian curriculum. The right usage of technology and interactive practices can be very much helpful in developing the literacy.

Reference List and Bibliography

Andriessen, J., Baker, M., & Suthers, D. (Eds.). (2013). Arguing to learn: Confronting cognitions in computer-supported collaborative learning environments (Vol. 1). Springer Science & Business Media.

Coiro, J., Knobel, M., Lankshear, C., & Leu, D. J. (Eds.). (2014). Handbook of research on new literacies. Routledge.

Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2014). The powers of literacy (RLE Edu I): A genre approach to teaching writing. Routledge.

Day, A., Nakata, V., Nakata, M., & Martin, G. (2015). Indigenous students' persistence in higher education in Australia: contextualising models of change from psychology to understand and aid students' practices at a cultural interface. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(3), 501-512.

Lea, M. R., & Nicoll, K. (2013). Distributed learning: Social and cultural approaches to practice. Routledge.

Luke, A. (2014). Defining critical literacy. Moving critical literacies forward: A new look at praxis across contexts, 19-31.

Penman, R., & Turnbull, S. (2013). Media literacy: Concepts, research and regulatory issues. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.

Polesel, J., Rice, S., & Dulfer, N. (2014). The impact of high-stakes testing on curriculum and pedagogy: A teacher perspective from Australia. Journal of Education Policy, 29(5), 640-657.

Scarino, A. (2014). Situating the challenges in current languages education policy in Australia–unlearning monolingualism. International Journal of Multilingualism, 11(3), 289-306.

Sung, H. Y., & Hwang, G. J. (2013). A collaborative game-based learning approach to improving students' learning performance in science courses. Computers & Education, 63, 43-51.

Tompkins, G., Campbell, R., Green, D., & Smith, C. (2014). Literacy for the 21st century. Pearson Australia.

Wyatt, N., & Stolper, D. (2013). Science literacy in Australia. Auspoll.