transportable & Transparent

“We all learn by reading, writing, speaking, and viewing. Each component of literacy must be taught and used across the school day. When this happens, the strategies we teach become transportable and transparent for students” (Ivey, & Fisher, D)

I found this quote at the beginning of chapter two of the Literacy Rich Adolescents text.  I picked this quote because I believe that it summarizes the goal of chapter 2. In this chapter, different strategies for getting students to be engaged in literacy and to improve student's literacy skills were discussed. It is believed that if all of the teachers were making a connection with literacy or with other classes, student could better learn materials. The idea of transportable is that what a student teaches in one class or a strategy a student uses in one class can be used in another. The idea of transparent is that the strategy becomes so automatic that the student does realize when he or she does it. This chapter focused on mainly uniting all subjects for a common goal. Throughout the chapter many strategies are given to enhance content-based learning. These strategies include; read a louds, discovery activities, anticipation guides, graphic organizers, flow charts. I found the story about Abdurashid very interesting. He was a student from Ethiopia who spoke Amharic, Oromo, Swahili and Somali but he could not speak any English. Though he had a language barrier, he still manages to do very well in his classes. I found this interesting because I have some Ethiopian friends and I know for a fact that the languages that Abdurashid spoke did not relate at all to English. This made me wonder how he did it.

                         In chapter 6 of the text book (emergent Literacy), the basics of language are discussed. Things like phonemic awareness, alphabet and learning to spell words are also elaborated on. I felt like chapter six of the text book was more for beginner English speakers or children first learning how to read. Both the Literacy Rich Adolescents text and the text book provide different strategies for literacy education. I believe that the text book shows the begging and the Literacy Rich Adolescents text shows how to build more on that knowledge.