What is the importance of teaching literature in Primary education?

What is the importance of teaching literature in Primary education?

Literacy is a worldly skill allowing us to read, write, communicate and listen effectively to help us understand things which are complex (National Literacy Trust, 2017).  Literacy is a skill which is needed for almost everything, lacking this skill will put one at a disadvantage and would be extremely difficult for one to go to school, find a good job therefore social mobility and even tough for one on a day to day basis (National Literacy Trust, 2017).

Literacy is one of the core subjects and is being tested by many including one of the tests for the PISA score and the UK has low scores for literacy Wales having the lowest in the UK (Hume, 2016). Wales new curriculum has been based a lot on improving these scores. Donaldson has created this curriculum so that the key skills and subjects such as literacy and numeracy are the main focus and can be developed in every aspect of the curriculum and every lesson taught as his aim is to develop students who are, ambitious, creative, healthy, knowledgeable citizens and the basis of getting this outcome relies on literacy (Donaldson, 2015, p.4). This curriculum gives a new foundation to literacy allows the students to absorb more skills which they will take with them throughout their lives, ‘Literacy and numeracy will mean much more than having a basic ability,’ the skills will vary from problem solving to creativity (Donaldson, 2015, p.6). Creativity is an important factor in this curriculum as this skill can be used in literacy also it is a very key skill to have to excel in literature. Reading books and making stories is a very creative aspect of literature books can open the children’s mind to a wide range of interpretations allowing them to be cognitive about the story meanwhile develop and gain skills (Kate, 2014). Reading books is a good way to keep your literacy skills stimulating at all times as findings have shown that the more books a child owns, the more likely they are to do well at school and be happy with their lives (National Literacy Trust, 2017). This shows the power of literature and how just simple reading books will help you develop and achieve better attainment. Even though the thought of technology has made books less appealing, many apps and online sites and creative writing apps have been created to enhance the level of creativeness through technology and more than just reading a book as this may make the students more engaged. Reading online allows a wide variety of choice, able to easily access more books and more efficiently, can personalize the text and settings to the readers preferences so the reader can enjoy the book more, you can read blogs, be involved in social groups about the stories one has read increasing a social impact and also audio books are available (Heick, 2015) but audio books can be a controversial idea as is listening to the book as effective?

Literacy impacts many aspects of a child such as, socially, intellectually, physically and emotionally, literacy itself is a holistic development. Being able to communicate with others and express yourself is forms of emotional and social impacts which literacy enhances as teachers can effectively help the children to learn how to speak with constant communication and support (Kelly, 2015) otherwise if it was not taught then the child would not be able to communicate well or interact with anyone, affecting the social, emotional, physical and intellectual developments giving the child a disadvantage at life.

Literacy ‘develops a creative and more effective approach to problem solving’ (Burgh, 2014, p.187) also enhances other skills it allows your imagination, insight, creativity, problem solving to increase, it’s as if you’ve unlocked another part of your brain which allows you to think divergently, De Bono believed that lateral thinking is the basis of insight and creativity because it is for changing concepts and perceptions (Burgh, 2014, p.187).

Literacy can also be seen as a mode, “A mode is a socially and culturally shaped resource for making meaning. Image, writing, layout, speech, moving image are examples of modes, all used in learning resources’’ (Bezemer and Kress, 2008, p.171). Literacy being a mode shows it is a resource, being a resource gives literacy a whole new power, it is a tool which is needed to support the students and allow them to improve in so many more ways. Every child is different therefore every child learns differently, visually, kinetically or with audio, these three umbrella terms are key for the practitioner to know and understand in order to be able to understand and help each student as these are modes students learn in. “Multimodality involves the complex interweaving of word, image, gesture and movement, and sound, including speech.  These can be combined in different ways and presented through a range of media” (Bearne and Wolstencroft, 2007), it also provides a variety of options for the children, many methods and frameworks and technology also widen modes spectrum even more as it opens up a range of modes available (Jewett, 2013, p.250).          Technology has impacted literacy as there has been a change in classrooms of the pedagogy of literacy and the language contexts, these changed have been made to benefit the children and fit into this generation of technology as technology is what the young children respond the best to, the changes that have been made by educational researchers show a diverse approach and the new pedagogy designed coincides with the current assessments and policies along with the existing curriculum (Walsh, 2010, p.211), but giving teachers freedom to make the lesson their own and engage the students more as they know best what their pupils will acknowledge.

The new cross curriculum being introduced in Wales will provide a whole new skill set for the students and get them stimulating even more as they will unknowingly be picking up multiple skills from one subject (Donaldson, 2015). If Donaldson’s curriculum was implemented during my foundation phase I would have really enjoyed it as he has put an emphasis on getting the students engaged by having creative, responsive and appealing lessons to have the best outcomes for the students. The Literacy Framework aims to have speech, reading and writing across the curriculum enhancing of these three bases will bring along all the other skills needed especially with the new form of pedagogy of the lessons (Welsh Government, 2014).

Reference List

Bearne, E., and Wolstencroft, H. (2007) Visual Approaches to Teaching Writing Multimodal Literacy 5-11. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.

Bezemer, J., & Kress, G. (2008). Writing in multimodal texts: A social semiotic account of designs for learning. Written communication, 25(2), 166-195.

Burgh, G. (2014). Creative and lateral thinking: Edward de Bono In Phillips, D. C. (Ed.). (2014). Encyclopedia of educational theory and philosophy (Vol. 1). London: Sage.

Donaldson, G. (2015) Successful Futures Looking at the Curriculum and Assessment Arrangements in Wales Available at: https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2018-03/succesful-futures-a-summary-of-professor-graham-donaldsons-report.pdf [Accessed April 2019]

Heick, T. (2015) Technology Makes Reading Better. Here’s Exactly How. Available at: https://www.teachthought.com/technology/technology-makes-reading-better/ [Accessed April 2019]

Hume, Colette. (2016) Pisa: Wales still worst in UK in world education tests. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-38208738 [Accessed April 2019]

Kate, (2014) Why asking questions is important. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/cbeebiesgrownups/entries/2dbb4532-3bc2-33b7-a3da-bd0713c8bd28 [Accessed April 2019]

Jewitt, C. (2013). Multimodal methods for researching digital technologies. The SAGE handbook of digital technology research, 250-265.

Kelly. (2015) Supporting children’s literacy skills in the Early Years. Available at: http://www.earlyyearscareers.com/eyc/latest-news/supporting-childrens-literacy-skills-in-the-early-years/ [Accessed April 2019]

National Literacy Trust. (2017) What is Literacy? Available at: https://literacytrust.org.uk/information/what-is-literacy/ [Accessed April 2019]

Walsh, M. (2010). Multimodal literacy: What does it mean for classroom practice?. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, The, 33(3), 211.

Welsh Government. (2014) National Literacy and Numeracy Framework. Available at: https://learning.gov.wales/resources/browse-all/nlnf/?lang=en [Accessed April 2019]