“Literacy” is a word that I use on an almost daily basis without much thought for what is actually meant by this term. As teachers, we live in a world governed by literacy and we are always trying to employ new strategies to develop and improve the level of literacy of our students. The most simple definition of a literate person being “educated” and “learned” is too broad in the world that we live in. The correlation between being literate and being “cultured” and “able to participate” in all of life’s opportunities is still somewhat relevant and we, as teachers, all have a responsibility to ensure that students leave school with a level of literacy (or competency) across a range of contexts.

Too often I hear teachers at the school that I work at lamenting the falling literacy standards (primarily the reading, written expression and poor grammar) of today’s students. However, most assume that this is purely the responsibility of primary teachers in the students’ formative years and the English staff in the secondary school context. When whole-school literacy initiatives are introduced by the Principal or members of the Executive Team most teachers assume that they will not have to participate or engage with this policy “as they are not English teachers”.

Unfortunately, literacy has become synonymous with a student’s ability to perform well in a test or assessment. Too much focus has been put on measures of student literacy such as NAPLAN testing. Teachers (through no fault of their own) have become task-driven and are encouraged to “teach to the test”. The reading in “The Conversation” (Merga, 2022) discussed the importance of building student literacy through engagement. Students need to be encouraged to read for the pure joy of reading and to be curious learners rather than simply learn in order to pass a test.

Teachers need to be provided with training in order to identify students who are struggling with literacy skills in their subjects. Learning support staff in schools are stretched to the limit and can only provide generalised assistance with literacy. They are experts in employing strategies to support students who have diverse learning needs but they do not necessarily possess the discipline literacy required for each specialised subject. By providing tools for teachers to address the range of literacy standards within their class, this could improve students’ literacy across the various subjects taught in schools.

On reflection, I don’t necessarily think that the term “literacy” has been watered down, but rather, I think that it has expanded. As new technologies are introduced, new ways of communicating with others become mainstream and new ways of accessing information have emerged, the concept of multiple literacies has had to replace more traditional understandings of what it means to be literate. I think that “multiple literacies” now describes a need to possess a level of competence across many areas and disciplines. We forget that students who may not know anything different from the world that they live in still need to be explicitly taught how to “identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute” (UNESCO, 2004) information in a range of different contexts in order to build literacy and prepare them for the future.

References:

Merga, M. K. (2022, November 29). Every teacher needs to be a literacy teacher – but that’s not happening in most Australian schools. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/every-teacher-needs-to-be-a-literacy-teacher-but-thats-not-happening-in-most-australian-schools-184557