JACKSON LTED601 Literacy Blog

This week, I was introduced to the SQ4R Reading Strategy as a way to better comprehend informational texts. This method includes thinking about the information being presented before, during, and after reading, and while in theory, those are all things I think we are all taught to do at an early age, this reading strategy really narrows in on how to accomplish that. The SQ4R strategy helped me become aware of what I was reading by more thoughtfully taking notes throughout the reading process. I think as a reader, I’m used to initially reading text, and then going back through to look for important information as a secondary action, which tends to make comprehension a little bit more difficult, because I’m really just looking for information as it relates to a question posed. However, writing notes as I read through in real-time allows me to better understand what is being said and how it relates to the text as a whole. It helped me to become aware of how I was reading by allowing mysel...

Literacy to me means the ability to read and understand what you/others are reading. It is the understanding and knowledge of books, poems, essays and other works of literature in regards to the world around us. This can be done through the typical sense of reading, but also through writing, listening and engaging in communication with others. A literate person is able to take words either written down on paper, shared on a screen, or on other forms of media, and put them into their own words to make sense of them. A literate person is also able to communicate this new knowledge back to others effectively. I gathered this definition of literacy just from my own experiences and my own educational journey. I was always taught the straight definition of literacy is the ability to read and write. Through furthering my own education outside of high school and into college and now graduate school, I now know literacy can be defined as much more than that and can include speech, writing and c...