Literacy is simply defined as the ability to read and write. It is important for everybody to possess these skills in order to cope with everyday life. One of the primary function of any government is to ensure that its population is illiterate which will enable contribution to society and the economy.
As teachers, we have to focus on assisting our learners to have the ability not only to write and read but to also fully understand. It is important that learners fully understand the meaning and context of words. Learners also need to understand body language. Although this might sound simple, there is a methodology behind literacy as a subject.
One thing that comes to mind, is semantics which refers to the study of the meaning of words. Here you will be focusing on concepts such as signifiers, symbols, denotation, and connotation. Signifiers refer to signs, phrases, and words. Denotation refers to what they stand for when it comes to meaning. Connotation will be the context and selection of words used at a particular time. Semantics does not only focus on words, it also refers to body language and sounds. More information about communication is found under ‘Roles and responsibilities’.
You will also come across the term meta-language. This refers to analysis of words or symbols when talking about language. Nouns, verbs and adjectives are all examples of meta language, which we will discuss briefly below.
This course will require you to discuss about key aspects of meaning of words you really need to look at language itself and consider how words are delivered to convey meaning, enhance the delivery and accessibility of language. This can involve looking at the vocabulary and types of words such as nouns, verbs and adjectives. A noun is a part of speech that describes a person, place and an idea. Examples of nouns include freedom, poverty, regret, help and jealousy. There are three types of nouns, which are abstract, collective and compound. Abstract nouns refer to things you can process with your five senses while collective nouns refer to a group of people or things such as ‘choir’ and ‘team’. Compound nouns are made up of two or more words such as ‘blackboard’, ‘bodyguard’,’ homemade’, ’grandfather’ and ‘jellyfish’. A verb is a word used to describe action and occurrence. Examples of verbs are ‘been’, ‘would’ and ‘must’. There are three types of verbs, which fall under helping, action and linking. An objective is simply a word which describes or clarifies a noun such is ‘delicious’, ‘sour’, ‘sweet’, ‘painful’, ‘greasy’ and ‘spicy’.
You also need to fully understand the key features of word formation looking at structure of words, how they are created and how they have changed over time looking at prefixes (a word or letter placed before another) and suffixes (morpheme added at the end of a word)? You also have phonology which is the awareness of speech sounds. Phonology normally plays a big part in early years or junior school to describe the way sounds function within a given language or across languages to encode meaning.
This then leads to orthography which is the study of spelling patterns. Here you will be focusing on grammar looking at spellings, word breaks, and punctuation. This is closely related to syntax which focuses on grammar looking at sets of rules, word order, processes, and principles of the structure of sentences. Closer study of patterns of word formation is normally referred to as morphology. Here you are not only focusing on how words are formed but how they relate to others within the same and similar language.
Here under this topic, we have explored the different ways words can be examined to extract meaning and promote understanding. The idea is to promote your learners to have better comprehension, fluency and the ability to critically analyse. You can play the following video which is a reflection on how literacy, numeracy and ICT can be applied to an early years or primary school environment. We have included this video as it also highlightes where you can find free resources and also some tips about improving your practice. A number of video recordings to support your learning of course core themes have also been provided during the next topics.
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