Characteristics Of Authentic Literacy Instruction Education Essay

Characteristics Of Authentic Literacy Instruction Education Essay Introduction When children come into the world, they come with the innate desire to explore their surrounding and this is seen in their daily interaction with the environment around them when it involves language development and more. They actively participate in their learning of spoken and written language from their parents and other people interactions (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). They see print in the world through signs on shops, along the road and even the supermarket and begin to make associations when they explore printed material (i.e.paper and crayons, and story books). They develop their written experiences by trying out different things, experimenting and inventing their own literacies. As the activities begin to take on more meaning, they increase their knowledge of how written language is formed and how they function in the real world, depending on different situations (Goodman, 1986). As a result, the real world offers these children an entire environment that is literall y rich with language experiences that the children can learn and produce in a natural setting. These settings will also involve human relationships that affect how children may or may not use the literacy tools they encounter (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). Unlike the empty slate that some people believe children are born with, they are actually vital members of a dynamic system in which the environment influences (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). The more children use the resources available to them in the environment to expand on their knowledge and skills in relation to constructing more solid understanding of factors in the literary world, they are engaging in solving problems that utilizes cognitive skills and through their interaction with members of their environment. Therefore, children’s learning about literacy is integrally tied with practical action, resulting from their need to control, manipulate, and function in their environment. Without a doubt then, children cannot escape t he realities of reading and writing, which are so much a part of their lives as there are so many relationships and contexts that are tied in with these realities (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Through participating in activities that require cognitive and communicative functions, children are drawn into the uses of these functions by their caregivers in ways that may nurture and develop them. Consequently, children’s earliest conceptions of literacy and strategies for reading and writing are likely to be formed through activities that are often socially instigated (Bruner, 1972). Therefore, the case for authenticity in literacy is a natural process. Authenticity refers to the real-life experiences an individual experiences when carrying out specific activities (Ableser, 2008). This involves life experiences that are naturally occurring in the lives of children and individuals. When a child argues with her parent on the merits of getting a dog, the points and arguments provided are a result of a natural and real reason for doing so. This authenticity is carried into the area of literacy in the classroom as the concept seems a logical progression of utilizing the innate curiosity and purpose of carrying out an activity as a part of the process of learning, into the classroom teacher’s goal of getting her students to learn and do academic related activities. The authentic activities that individuals typically exercise in day-to-day situations are replicated in the classroom. Unfortunately the ordinary practices of the culture-what people do in daily, weekly, and monthly cycles of activity do not seem academically sufficient to meet the educational standards set by the power that be. Such practices, for example, include shopping for the best bargain, figuring out the health hazards of microwaves or examining costs for a planned holiday are not translated adequately and therefore seem to be lacking in some way. Authentic literacy practices then seem to have failed in some way.