Brianna DeCamp

EDT 246: Literacy Rationale

October 10, 2014
Google defines literacy as the ability to read and write. I am learning, however, that
literacy means much more than being able to read words on a page and write in a notebook.
When I was younger though, I may have given you the same definition. Now, my rationale is
that literacy cannot be confined to such a simple definition as it has many layers and everyones
definition of literacy is going to be different. Being literate means something different for
everyone. For some, being literate may mean reading bedtime stories to their children at night,
for others it means studying medical textbooks and publishing scientific articles, and yet for
others literacy is a lifestyle. Teaching todays youth to be literate may be tiresome and repetitive
but it has to be done. Within literacy lies opportunity and within opportunity lies freedom.
My stance on literacy is that it is a life-long learning process that comes to a full circle
and has different layers. As for the different layers, as young children, perhaps our parents read
to us. Therefore our reading skills began to formulate. In school, we learned how to read and
write. In high school, we learned how to better articulate ourselves. College comes along and
we may have viewed literacy in a different light. We graduate and yet again, maybe our
definition of literacy changes. We have children and begin to teach them how to read and write
and thus, our view of literacy may have perhaps changed again. Literacy is ever changing and I
would concur that it evolves as we transition through life.
As I have learned in class, literacy also means to read the word and read the world. To
me, this means incorporating the concepts learned through text to your everyday life. It means to
be purposeful in reading, to apply concepts to your life, and to notice those concepts unfolding in

your life. When you read the word and the read world, literacy becomes more than just a
cognitive skill. Paulo Freire said it best. He wrote,
To acquire literacy is more than to psychologically and mechanically dominate reading
and writing techniques. It is to dominate these techniques in terms of consciousness; to
understand what one reads and to write what one understands; it is to communicate
graphically. Acquiring literacy does not involve memorizing sentences, words, or
syllables lifeless object unconnected to an existential universe but rather an attitude of
creation and re-creation, a self-transformation producing a stance of intervention in ones
context (Freire, 2001, p. 86).
I believe literacy is a freeing concept. Students have the abilities to do what they wish when they
become literate and knowledgeable in academic areas. Literacy allows for students to make
sense of their world and explore new ideas. It does not always have to be memorizing
vocabulary words for a quiz or taking an AR test on a computer over ones comprehension skills.
I believe literacy does not always have to be an academic process through texts. Author
Kristen Perry notes theorists of literacy as a social practice would say that literacy is what
people do with reading, writing, and texts in real world contexts and why they do it (Perry,
2012, p. 54). This means that literacy is an essential part of our everyday lives. Literacy can be
a social process where students interact with one another. In most cases I believe the real
learning process occurs when students take what they have learned in a text and can apply it to
their lives. By doing so, I think students are able to better understand why we learn and begin to
value the learning process.
Transitioning, as an educator I will be teaching students an empowering tool literacy.
Being literate will open numerous doors for students. For some it will be a social tool and a way

to communicate with friends. For others, being literate will allow them to venture into another
time and place when they read chapter books. Others, still, will find their voice as they learn to
write and may enjoy putting their thoughts on paper when words will not suffice. As a special
educator, however, teaching literacy in my classroom may look very different from the usual
Language Arts lesson plans. Some of my students may find reading, writing, and
comprehending to be very difficult tasks. While I will try to teach my students literacy skills in
the classroom, I may have to find more intriguing ways to teach vocabulary and help foster
comprehension skills. If I teach elementary students who have moderate to severe disabilities, I
may choose to spend an afternoon outside with my students pointing out vocabulary words
around the playground. If I teach high school students with mild to moderate disabilities, I may
choose to have them act out their creative writing prompts. I do not believe that literacy has to
be bound to reading a novel or writing with a pencil and paper. I believe literacy needs to be a
dynamic process that is not limited to learning in a certain way.
In conclusion, it will be of upmost importance to me that my students are literate. I think
it could take a few years to master certain beginning levels of literacy but I think it has to occur
before any other kind of learning will take place. Moreover, I think being literate is a lifelong
process and that we will always be learning new things in life. My students may not always
demonstrate literacy in the way that the rest of the world expects and demands, but they will be
literate in their own personal, unique ways.

References
Freire, P. (2001). The Paulo Freire reader (A. Freire & D. Macedo, Eds.). New York:
Continuum.
Perry, K. (2012). Journal of Language and Literacy Education. What Is Literacy? - A critical
overview of sociocultural perspectives, 8(1), 51-71.