IDEA Vocabulary Processing

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Join Us on a Journey to Improve Literacy

You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.

—Anita Merina

Our personal journeys through literacy instruction took many twists and turns, first in our own classrooms with our students and later as we transitioned to working with teachers. Over the years, we have experienced vast differences in literacy instruction as we have traveled to different classrooms, schools, districts, cities, and countries around the world. But the importance of literacy has remained constant. Literacy is a critical life skill that involves making sense of the world around you and communicating your thoughts to others. This became obvious to us the first time we traveled to a country where we were unable to read or make sense of the signs and menus, and we were incapable of asking for directions. Suddenly, communication became a game of charades. We realized that, even though we were highly educated, we lacked even the most basic literacy skills, at least in that country. It made us consider the students, many from diverse backgrounds, sitting in our classrooms, sure that they, too, had deep thoughts and questions they wanted to communicate but lacked some fundamental literacy skills allowing them to understand and be understood fully and deeply. How could we ensure that our students felt confident in their literacy journey, and what exactly did we mean when we used the term literacy? So for the purposes of this book, we define literacy as the ability to read and comprehend a variety of texts about relevant, global topics; cultivate and engage in discussions and dialogues about what is being read or what was read; and synthesize thinking through all types of writing.

The foundation of literacy includes the following aspects: reading, discussing, and writing. We are not sure how they became separate entities in many prepackaged, all-inclusive literacy programs, some of which might be sitting in your school, but we believe that literacy is not just a combination of reading skills like phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Literacy is not just speaking, listening, and collaborative and cooperative learning