Karen Erickson's thoughts on 'narrow' literacy

Karen presented a very interesting slant on literacy with our lower cognitive functioning students, who use AT supports. I have been totally guilty of thinking that using a 'broader' definition of literacy was supportive of my students. That is, I would introduce and engage students in literacy activities that Incorporated use of symbols and pictures, and believe that I was engaging them in 'literate' tasks, at an entry level. Karen's argument was that while this type of entry level or emergent literacy is fine, it is not an end point: rather it is a starting point to begin to introduce the next phase of reading and writing text.

"Technology to provide access is not sufficient." Karen stated that we need to think about technology to provide academics supports to support learning as well.

Karen also engaged in an interesting argument about whether teachers should be aiming to support students' in their quest to graduate, or whether their focus should be on continuing to support students skills in learning to read. Karen provided strong arguments to suggest our goal needs to be to help our students become as literate as possible by the time they graduate!

This really makes me think about what we're doing with these students in our own local school board. This is always an argument: to focus on helping kids pass their classes or to continue to focus on improving literacy skills and their knowledge of technology to support their literacy skills. Karen suggests, when we select technology, we must think about how the student can make progress with their literacy skills as well as how it will assist the student's final product.

Karen went on to tell about the recent research study she has been involved with, with a number of high school students that were years behind their grade level with literacy skills. Results demonstrated a full year gain in literacy skills after only a ten week intensive (daily) literacy instruction program that was individually created for each student's needs. She argued that we must continue to be diligent in our work with these students: don't give up on them!!

I certainly found this presentation thought provoking...