Literacy skills

Literacy Skills According to the dictionary, literacy is: “The quality or state of being literate, especially the ability to read and write.�

Literacy is the ability to read, view, write, design, speak and listen in order to communicate effectively.

The importance of literacy skills Literacy skills are very relevant in achieving progress through the early, middle and later years of study and also to be applied in personal life.

Ways to support your child’s literacy development

Studies have shown that children’s motivation and achievement improve when their parents are involved in their education.

Things you can do to encourage literacy learning:  Sharing your knowledge and explaining how you use literacy in your everyday life.  Encouraging your child to read and view a variety of texts such as newspapers, novels, comics, magazines, websites, email and timetables.  Encouraging your child to write and design for a variety of purposes using different mediums.

 Discussing how texts look different depending on the purpose and audience.  Favorite authors, producers, directors or illustrators and what you like about them.  Discussing new and unusual words.  Playing games that develop knowledge and enjoyment of words.

Types of Literacy skills

 Financial Literacy  Document Literacy  Health Literacy  Numeracy

 Workplace Literacy  Problem Solving  Computer Literacy  Critical Thinking  Prose Literacy

Be able to work effectively with information To transmit a good information we require an understanding of: • • • • • • • It is to know how to locate the right sources to get the information, to know the necessity of that information and how to evaluate it

A need for information The resources available How to find information The need to evaluate results How to work with or exploit results Ethics and responsibility of use How to communicate or share your findings • How to manage your findings

Bloom’s taxonomy  Taxonomy means 'a set of classification principles', or 'structure' and domain simply means 'category'. It is a method created by Benjamin Bloom.

Taxonomy of Bloom is used for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

This method is formed by six major categories:  Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting.”  Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications.”  Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.”  Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that the relative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit.”  Synthesis involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”  Evaluation engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes.”

Consuming information

The need to know if the information is reliable, since there are many publications that are prepared by amateurs not by professionals.

Students need to take on the role of professional writers and learning to be effective and ethical producers of information.

Consuming and producing information

ď‚´ The key is to recognize the elements that are regardless of the communication, which are the sender, subject and purpose of the message, medium, receiver, and context

 Current levels of data received are equivalent to 12 hours of consuming information (100, 500 words per day.)

 Most of people sleep around 7 hours a day, but three quarters of their waking time is spent getting information, especially from electronic means.  The overload of information is distancing communication and provoking less interaction between people, turning them into lonely individuals.  Nowadays, people are so involved in this world that do not realize much of the received data is worthless.

 People believe in everything media tells them.  Worthless information deprive people from the capability of analyzing and thinking by themselves.  Experts recommend we have to take the control of what we see, read and hear.  Instead of being drawn by stimulating entertainment and driven by subconscious fears, ‘consumers’ have to seek out relevant and useful information, which can be applied positively in their lives.

 This self-control-attitude can be created by forging healthy habits and put them into a control circle.

“Rather than us consuming information, it has begun to consume us.”

– Mathew Warner

Recommendations for healthy information consumption:  Get rid of cable TV Buy TV shows and movies individually or go out to watch them somewhere else, rather than having cable TV. Everything made to this system is designed to “hook” us, so we don’t have to “take the bait.”

 Go ad-free radio Pay for an ad-free radio such as Spotify or Pandora.

 Use an RSS reader to follow your blogs/news online.

This RSS readers provide users a way to gather all news straight from their favorite sites to an online reader. Some RSS readers are for free, so there is no an excuse to keep reading useless sidebars and teasers.

 Sometimes quitting is good.

If you find a movie, TV show, article or book that has not amused you from the beginning, quit it. There are too many interesting things to consume instead.

 Turn off push notifications Everything has a proper time to be checked, so if you have set out a schedule for a day, do not allow your email, Facebook or Twitter accounts to distract you from your plan. You have to decide when it is time to check it. If something is urgent, people will call you or text you.

 Put down your phone It is a bad habit to use your phone while you are spending time to another person. There is a proper time to check it. Whether you are at home or work, place it across the room, not next to you.

 Be not afraid of missing out It is not necessary to know what is going on to somebody or how your favorite TV show ended. These are trivial facts that do not even give richness to your life. Try to quit it for a determined period of time and you will see everything is going to be working on perfectly. Nothing would have changed, only your priorities.

ď‚´ Plan healthy activities Create new healthy habits and take your time saved to do other interesting activities.

Go to dance, invite a nice girl to date, journey to your favorite place, do some crafts, play a sport or do whatever you want to.

ď‚´ Keep your social media in check Social media are created to hook you to their sites, especially popping up itchy click finger and feeding your fear of missing out.

Be responsible and determined, and establish limits to their usage.

ď‚´ Schedule silence Plan a time to meditate and find yourself.

Disconnect yourself from TVs, computers, technology of any kind or whatever that can distract you.

Begin doing it for a few minutes every and soon it will become a routine.

Locate books in a Library

SET YOUR GOAL • Determine what kind of book you need.

• Establish what its purpose will be.

LOCATE BOOKS • When you reach in a library, there will always be a librarian to assist you choosing the book you are looking for.

• What about if you want to do it by your own?

BE CURIOUS • Investigate: read signs and look for maps and directories.

• Notice that shelves and some areas will be marked with specific tags.

CHECK THE LIBRARY CATALOG

FINDING A BOOK

•Libraries are equipped with accesible computers.

•Type the title of the book you need.

•Books are stored alphabetically.

•Look for the book’s author name.

•Some old catalogs are housed in drawers.

•Type the subject or keywords.

AVAILABILITY •Check out if your resource book is in the library through the catalog.

•If your work is unavailable, search for another reference.

EACH BOOK HAS A SPECIFIC NUMBER

GET YOUR BOOK

• All books registered in a library have a call number.

• Follow the indications of the library.

• Write down the number and other important information from the work.

• Move on and search through the shelves the levels concerning the category you are looking for.

• Some sort of books are stored under a classification system.

• Check the tags on the spine of each book.

OTHER RESOURCES • A library offers not only books, but magazines, digital files, audiobooks, music recordings, computer software, videos, DVDs, CDs, newspapers, etc.

• If you need a special book and don’t find it in the catalog, drive yourself to the librarian. She or he will recommend you more options.

NOTE: Some call numbers are preceded by a location prefix indicating that the item is shelved in a specific location and may have loan restrictions.

For example: Ref - Reference item located on the Reference shelves on the 1st floor.

Oversize - Large or oversized items shelved in the Oversize sections on each floor.

Use a card catalog in a library  The Merriam Webster dictionary defines card catalog as “a set of cards in a library that have information about books, journals, etc., written on them and are arranged in alphabetical order.”  The card catalogs were created to list book titles alphabetically under a specific category, such as architecture, mathematic, religion, adventure, philosophy, etc.  A card catalog makes easier to search of a book in a library.  Works can be found by subject indexes, where information is stored in drawers and listed in alphabetical order.

Types of library card catalogs:

 Name of the author (s)  Title catalog

 Dictionary catalog  Keyword  Mixed alphabetic forms  Systematic or classified  Shelf list

Locate and use general reference books The Business Dictionary defines reference book as any “Atlas, dictionary, directory, encyclopedia, handbook, thesaurus, or any other work designed to be used in finding specific items of information, rather than for cover to cover reading.”

 These are works that people use to find background information or quick facts. Reference books are located in the reference area of a library and online.

 Reference books are very varied, some of them are a one-volume works and some others multivolume ones.  They may be used exclusively within the library facilities, so it means they cannot be borrowed from it.  It contains an index to guide readers to find the topics they are looking for and a biographical list at the end of the material.

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It is allowed to photocopy them or taking notes.

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It is necessary these reference books always be available for everyone who needs them.

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Data provided in a reference book is arranged alphabetically.

There are two categories for reference books: General reference books: These works cover all subject areas and branches of knowledge; that is the reason why they are broad in scope and are not limited to any single subject.

Subject-related or specialized reference books: These works provide detailed information concerning one particular topic. This information is brought together from several other sources.

Reading materials:  Almanacs and yearbooks: these materials bear

historical information, specific facts, statistical data, tables of comparative information and organized lists of basis reference information related to people, places, events, social media, etc. While yearbooks provide the same information but divided for single years.

 Atlases: they are organized group of physical,

Directories: they contain lists of people or organizations of some type. Including addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.

General enciclopedias: provide information organized alphabetically of a broad range of subjects with basic information for each entry.

Subject enciclopedias: these contain limited information about a specific topic or field of study.

political, road and thematic maps, as well as symbols, scales, and terms used in the atlas (which are explained within the work.)

Handbooks: they have basic and brief information related to one specific subject.

 Bibliographies: they are lists of resources and

Indexes: these ones locate information in periodicals, anthologies, newspapers, etc.

materials that share some common attributes such as locations, publishing date, subject, author, and etcetera.

 Dictionaries: these ones contain the meaning of words and explanations about their origin and usage in a grammatical structure.

Biographical Sources

Dictionary ď‚´ Standard dictionaries give an alphabetical list of words and their definitions, but there are several different types also classified as dictionaries.

Types of encyclopedias

 Encyclopedias provide detailed information of an area or subject. There are general encyclopedias and subject encyclopedias, and they different as to the level of detail provided in these. Encyclopedias are good for fact-finding, getting general background information about a subject or starting a research Project.

 Subject or Specialized

General General encyclopedias are multivolume and cover in brief detail every topic imaginable.

Subject encyclopedias focus on a specific topic in more detail such as zoology or medicine. They can be one-volume or multi-volume.

Examples of General Encyclopedias:

Examples of Subject Encyclopedias: • Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia • Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine • Marshall Cavendish Encyclopedia of Health

• World Book • Encyclopedia Britannica

Dictionary of Quotations

 Oxford Dictionaries defines a quotation as ‘A group of words taken from a text or speech and repeated by someone other than the original author or speaker’. A quotation is a saying that other people think worth repeating because it is well expressed whether it is beautiful or funny.

Literary Index ď‚´ A literary index a great method to do a quick search. It combines a cross reference search with various authors and titles.

Periodicals ď‚´ Periodicals is a general term used to refer to newspapers, magazines and journals. Periodical articles are often the best way for finding the most current and concise information on a topic.

New York Times Index ď‚´ The New York Times Index was published since 1913 by The New York Times newspaper. It is intended to serve as a reference for accessing stories printed the previous years in the newspaper.