Teaching the "New Literacy"

Along with all parents and guardians of K-12 children in my district, I've been invited to listen to a keynote speaker from The New Literacies Research Team explain how I can effectively prepare my children for their literacy and learning future. The title of this presentation is Beyond the Textbook: Developing The Skill and the Art of Reading (Yes, they capitzalized "The" and underlined the title. )

Apparently this "new literacy" thing is soooo 21st century it even involves learning on the Internet. It seems we parents haven't quite figured out the technology aspect on our own yet.

According to the lovely, lilac handout in my child's backpack today, my district's personnel is going to "translate what teachers do at school that parents can do at home to develop [ ] a critical reader and reinforce good reading strategies and skills." We will learn "how our schools are addressing, responding and teaching the "new literacy."* I think the bottom line is that they get to check off the box for "Information and Technology Literacy" still pending on the to-do list.

According to TechLearning this is the "new literacy" in a nutshell as it applies to reading:

Finding information: Locating relevant information not only from a local library or newsstand, but also from the Internet. Literacy includes the ability to identify needed information, use Web searching tools to find it, and employ research strategies that expose the best information.

Decoding information: Beyond decoding text, literacy requires reading deeply for meaning in multimedia content.

Evaluating information: It is critical that students learn
to evaluate the information they encounter, and also identify its value in terms
of their goals.

Organizing information into personal digital libraries: A key strategy for handling the overwhelming amount of information available to us is the construction and cultivation of personal digital libraries. When we create and organize information that is relevant to our ongoing interests and goals, then we can handily find answers to our questions.

I imagine that about covers it. Nevertheless, I still plan on attending even though I could think of many other topics I'd rather discuss insuch a forum. Like Everyday Math, CMP2, project based learning, discovery learning, mixed ability classrooms, the elimination of the gifted program, standardized tests that are far from rigorous, etc. Instead, we get to hear about the "new literacy".


How very 21st century.


*Interestingly enough, I found another version of this announcement online that states that we will learn how our district is "addressing, responding and teaching the "new literacy" while maintaining a traditional approach to teaching and learning." I wonder why they edited out the "traditional approach to teaching and learning"? Sounds like a good question to ask.

UDPATE (10-11-2007)

The first half was pretty much what I expected (see above). We never got to "organizing information into personal digital libraries" and that actually might have been quite helpful. I did learn that by 2009, the PISA will test Internet literacy.

Let's see, we had material included in our nice three ring binder from Reading First and Lucy Calkins was listed as a resource too. I learned that I should always use a search engine and not enter a random "subject + dot com".

Memorable quotes:

"We should teach our weakest reader the technology first. We should privilege them."

"Emailing grandparents is just like a bedtime story."

Oh yes, and apparently we're losing jobs to other countries because our student's lack Internet literacy.

On the upside, there was praise for phonemes and syllabication and the reading specialist said that despite the guest speaker pushing the "new literacy", it was her opinion that there is nothing like a BOOK when it comes to literacy in the lower grades (at which point I finally was able to nod and smile).


Your vicarious visit to the New Literacy would not be complete if you did not watch Medieval Help Desk (which is actually quite funny) and learn about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus (which is actually not).