Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

MODULE 1:
Introduction of Key Concepts

Introduction

Module 1 explores several definition of literacy and what being literate means in
the multiplicity of contexts in the 21st century, with the goal of raising awareness in
readers who might be presently unaware of the evolving perspective on literacy. It also
gives them the opportunity to pause and reflect on their own literacies even as they
attempt to teach the new literacies to their students.

MODULE OBJECTIVES

At the end of this module, the learners should be able to:

 Compare the basic concepts of traditional and 21st century literacies and skills
 Explain the features and critical attributes of the 21st century literacies
 Identify the features of 21st century teaching and learning
 Define the key concepts of new literacies.
 Discuss the critical attributes of the 21st century education.
 Identify the basic strategies for developing literacy.

LESSON 1: Definitions of Traditional Literacies

Literacy is defined by dictionaries as the state of being able to read and write. Although it is
the ultimate thesis of this chapter that such a traditional definition no longer suffices in the
information age, a thorough understanding of literacy and its past nuances will give us a solid
foundation in exploring and discussing the “new” literacies of the 21st century and why
possessing them is now mandatory for both teachers and students in all levels of education.

Traditional or Conventional Literacy

The word “literacy” stems from the word “literate”, which first appeared in the 15th
century and is in turn derived from the Latin word litteratus, meaning “(a person) marked with
letters” — that is, “distinguished or identified by letters” — and it carried with it the idea that such
a person was cultured and educated.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Since the subjects of the time (e.g., grammar, logic, arithmetic, geometry, etc.) all had written texts
(which were composed of letters) that had to be studied, the ability to read and write was therefore
of prime importance, leading to the strong association of being “literate” with the ability to read and
write.
Miles (1973) divides this conventional concept of literacy into three categories:
1. Basic Literacy
 Ability to correspond visual shapes to spoken sounds in order to decode written
materials and translate them into oral language.
 Ability to correspond letters and words.

2. Comprehension Literacy

 Ability to understand the meaning of what is being read.

3. Functional or Practical Literacy

 Ability to read (i.e., decodes and comprehend) written materials needed to perform
everyday vocational tasks.
 It is about much more than getting a job. It’s also about preserving skills our whole
society needs to function. If we don’t have individuals with mathematical knowledge,
reading and writing skills, or analytical abilities, we won’t have functioning businesses,
governments, or communities. In other words, we need functional literacy to have a
functional society.

Others:
1. Traditional Literacy – or the ability to read, write and understand text, is a primary
source of information and communication. There is some evidence that one's capacity to
use the Internet remains contingent on his or her level of traditional literacy

2. Early literacy/emergent literacy- is the term used to describe the reading and writing
experiences of young children before they learn to write and read conventionally (Teale
& Sulzby, 1986). Emergent literacy begins at birth, regardless of whether or not a child
has a disability.

Based on this conventional view of literacy, we notice two things for reading (and therefore
literacy) to exist: (1) a text (consisting of symbols and grammar) to be read; and (2) a meaning
or message being communicated by the text for the reader to extract. Without a text, there
would be nothing to read; without meaning, the text is reduced to series of incomprehensible
doodles.
It should therefore be noted that even in Miller’s definition of literacy, the act of reading implies a
level of understanding. Simply knowing how to say a word (or a series of words) is not the same
as being able to understand that it means. Without understanding of the meaning of the words,
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

reading has not taken place. Based on this, Schlechty (2001) defines concept of functional
illiteracy as the state of being able to read, but not well enough to manage daily living and
employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level.

As the rest of this chapter will argue, this synchronicity between decoding textual
symbols and being able to extract and understand their meaning is a necessary part of being
literate, even as the new contexts of the 21st century change the nature of what the “text” is,
and what it means to “read and write.”

Lesson 2: Definitions of the 21st Century Literacies

Despite the ubiquity of the traditional view of literacy, Roberts (1995) notes that “in the
past fifty years, hundreds of definition of ‘literacy’ have been advanced by scholars, adult
literacy workers, and programme planners,” with even the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2006) acknowledging that literacy as a concept
has proven to be complex and dynamic, it being continually defined and interpreted in multiple
ways.
In 2004, UNESCO formally defined literacy as “the ability to identify, understand,
interpret, create, communicate, and compute, using printed and written materials
associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling
individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to
participate fully in their community and wider society.”
Note that “reading” does not appear in UNESCO’s definition of literacy. Instead, literacy
has taken on a definition more akin to “knowing about something and what to do with it.” In this
vein, Mkandawire (2018) more succinctly posits that literacy is “a form knowledge, competence,
competence, and skills in a particular field or area,” being supported by UNESCO (2006),
Barton (2007), and Mkandawire, Siooaya Mudenda, & Cheelo ( 2017), which acknowledged that
— as we have just pointed out— modern views appear to equate literacy with knowledge. This
shift in the definition of literacy from “reading and writing” to “knowledge” is especially important
as we explore the “new” literacies of the 21st century that seem far-removed from the contexts
upon which conventional literacy is based.
When viewed from the perspective of conventional/traditional literacy, the concept of
“new” literacies is a bit of a misnomer, as even these new literacies of the 21st century make
generous use of being able to read and write, rather than supplant them skills necessary for
survival. However, when viewed from the perspective of literacy as knowledge, the new
literacies begin to make sense as they are the “skills” and bodies of knowledge” that are
necessary for survival and productivity in the information age. In the same vein of reasoning, the
new literacies are not “new” per se— as in the sense that they never existed before. Rather, we
consider them to be new because the contexts in which old skills and knowledge are being
employed are new, both in nature and in scope. The ability to translate textual information into
images is not a new skill, but it is the ability to do so in a way that is concise, complete, and
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

clear that is certainly new, given that it will be how ninety percent of the population will be
informed on the issue. Similarly, being able to verify the truth-value and veracity of a documents
is not a new skill— but being able to do so when there are a hundred similar documents
available to you online.
Case in point: Throughout history, humans have communicated on levels part from the
spoken and written word, for example, visually, using the long-distance communication system
of smoke signals used by the ancient Chinese, the ancient Greeks, and the indigenous people
of North America. In the Victorian era, there was such a thing as the “Language of Flowers,”
where the kind, color, and arrangement of a bouquet of flowers were used to communicate
messages that could not otherwise be spoken aloud in Victorian society (Greenaway, 1884). For
example, a bouquet of oak leaves (representing strength), purple roses (sorrow), white lilies
(resurrection), and pale yellow tulips and rosemary (memory or remembrance) would altogether
communicate a message of sympathy, usually over the death of a loved one. Successfully
interpreting these “visual language” required a kind of “visual literacy” to understand the
message being presented and to manage the information encoded therein— skills which, as
following chapters will further reveal, are coming into use again in the 21st century literacies.
The difference is that now we are not analyzing smoke signals or bouquets, but rather sounds,
texts, and images from a hundred different sources at a nearly non-stop rate to the point where
accuracy, validity, and reliability of the messages we interpret form the basis for some very
important personal and collective decision-making. Another difference involves the questions of
necessity: One did not need to be literate in the language flowers to live a fruitful and fulfilled life
in Victorian-era England, but to be not media or digitally literate in the 21st century makes one
vulnerable to manipulation by those who are, and such manipulation can easily cost an
individual time, money, property, and even life.
These so-called “new” literacies arose from the increasing availability of communication
technologies that were once unavailable to the average individual.
Technologies like blogging and vlogging, social networking, and even text-messaging
change and expand both the extent and the form of our communication— blending text sound,
and images in ways unforeseen and unprecedented (Richardson, 2014). Never before have the
opinions of a twelve year-old child in an unheard-of town in an unheard-of country been scoff at
a child’s opinions, that child might have more than a thousand online subscribers who certainly
think his or her opinions are important, maybe even more so than the opinions of adults.
Simply put, three things have been critical in the rise of the new literacies:
1. Increased Reach

 We are communicating with more people, from more diverse cultures, across vaster
distances than ever before.
2. Increased Means of Communication

 We are communicating in more ways and at faster speeds than ever before.
3. Increased Breadth of Content-
 We are communicating about more things than ever before.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

How do we work together with people of different cultures who might have vastly different
perspective on communication, work ethics, values, religious beliefs, Module I and worldviews?
In an age where information is power— where knowing more and knowing first can spell the
difference between success and failure— how do we leverage both current and emergent
technologies so that our endeavors are both productive and profitable?
Moreover, how do we navigate and manage the veritable minefield of information that was
once considered taboo and private and is now online, for all the world to see and to judge,
whether we like it or not? Answering such complex questions requires new sets of skills and
knowledge— ones that our school system have never had to teach before. With these changes
in with whom, how, and why we communicate, new literacies are required not only to make
sense of the changes, but also to use these new technologies and paradigms in meaningful and
productive ways— something required not only of students, but of teachers as well.

To better address the need for teachers to be literate in these new literacies this book
discusses and explores them in the ensuing chapters, namely:

Globalization and Multicultural Literacy

 It discusses how our increasing ability to communicate with almost anyone, anywhere,
in real time requires new skills and attitudes in interaction with people with cultures, perspective,
worldviews, and priorities different from our own, particularly with the end-view of not only peace
and understanding, but also mutual benefit and productivity.

Social and Financial Literacy

 It explores the need for the ability to navigate our own social networks— of both the
online and offline variety— to not only communicate clearly, but also to leverage resources
which we ourselves might not possess. At the same time, the chapter addresses the notorious
problem of short-sightedness in Filipino culture regarding personal finances and how this must
be addressed at an increasingly earlier age to help mitigate the ever-widening gap between the
rich and the poor.

Media and Cyber/Digital Literacy

 It explores the emerging need to locate, verify, and ultimately manage online
information, especially in an age where information is power and where having the right (and
wrong) information and the ability to communicate it with others and use it to address real-world
problems easily spell the difference between both personal and career success and failure.

Social and Financial Literacy

 It explores the emerging demands for knowing how to effectively and sustainably manage the
natural resources that our increased industrialization and demands for productivity are so
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

rapidly eating up. The chapter also explores how this increase in productivity also brings with it
an increased demand for arts and aesthetics and the need to develop ways of effectively
communicating through the creative arts in industries dominated by objective data.

Critical Literacy

 It addresses the increasing need to discern the underlying (and often tacit) messages
behind the new “texts” of the 21st century, particularly in an ever-increasingly multicultural
society where ideas, cultures, and ideologies vie with one another for power and dominance in
the minds of the masses.

Ecological literacy

 (also referred to as ecoliteracy) is the ability to understand the natural systems that
make life on earth possible.
 To be ecoliterate means understanding the principles of organization of ecological
communities (i.e. ecosystems) and using those principles for creating sustainable human
communities. An ecologically literate society would be a sustainable society which did
not destroy the natural environment on which they depend. Ecological literacy is a
powerful concept as it creates a foundation for an integrated approach to environmental
problems. Advocates champion eco-literacy as a new educational paradigm emerging
around the poles of holism, systems thinking, sustainability, and complexity.

Artistic Literacy

 Artistic literacy is a human right and a teachable skill. It is the ability to connect both
personally and meaningfully to works of art and, through this process, to forge
connections to our humanity and the humanity of others.

LESSON 3: Features of 21st century teaching and learning

Characteristics of a 21st Century Classroom

As we move further into the new millennium, it becomes clear that the 21st Century
classroom needs are very different from the 20th Century classroom needs. In the 21st Century
classroom, teachers are facilitators of student learning and creators of productive classroom
environments in which students can develop the skills they will need in the workplace. The focus
of the 21st Century classroom is on students experiencing the environment they will enter as
21st Century workers. The collaborative project-based curriculum used in this classroom
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

develops the higher order thinking skills, effective communication skills, and knowledge of
technology that students will need in the 21st Century workplace. The interdisciplinary nature of
the 21st Century classroom sets it apart from the 20th Century classroom. Lectures on a single
subject at a time were the norm in the past and today collaboration is the thread for all student
learning. 20th Century teaching strategies are no longer effective. Teachers must embrace new
teaching strategies that are radically different from those employed in the 20th Century
classroom. The curriculum must become more relevant to what students will experience in the
21st Century workplace.

Changes in the Classroom

The 21st Century classroom is student centered, not teacher centered. Teachers no
longer function as lecturers but as facilitators of learning. The students are learning by doing,
and the teacher acts as a coach, helping students as they work on projects. Students learn to
use the inquiry method, and to collaborate with others--a microcosm of the real world they will
experience once they leave the classroom. Students no longer study each subject in isolation.
Instead, they work on interdisciplinary projects that use information and skills from a variety of
subjects and address a number of essential academic standards. For example, books assigned
in reading or English, may be set in a country that is also being explored in social studies. The
final reading of an English book report may require that specific social studies standards be met
as well. Textbooks are no longer the major source of information.

Students use multiple sources, including technology, to find and gather the information
they need. They might keep journals, interview experts, explore the Internet, or use computer
software programs to apply what they have learned or to find information. Instead of being
reserved only for special projects, technology is seamlessly integrated into daily instruction. In
this new classroom, flexible student groupings, based on individual needs, are the norm.

The Characteristics of a 21st Century Classroom teacher still uses whole group
instruction, but it is no longer the primary instructional method used. Teachers assess student
instructional needs and learning styles and then draw on a variety of instructional and learning
methods to meet the needs of all the students in the classroom. The focus of student learning in
this classroom is different.

The focus is no longer on learning by memorizing and recalling information but on

learning how to learn. Now, students use the information they have learned and demonstrate
their mastery of the content in the projects they work on. Students learn how to ask the right
questions, how to conduct an appropriate investigation, how to find answers, and how to use
information. The emphasis in this classroom is on creating lifelong learners. With this goal in
mind, students move beyond the student role to learn through real world experiences. Just as
student learning has changed so has assessment of that learning. Teachers use a variety of
performance-based assessments to evaluate student learning. Tests that measure a student’s
ability to memorize and to recall facts are no longer the sole means of assessing student
learning. Instead, teachers use student projects, presentations, and other performance-based
assessments to determine students’ achievement and their individual needs. The goal of the
21st Century classroom is to prepare students to become productive members of the workplace.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Changes in Teacher Behavior

Just as the classroom is changing, so must the teacher adapt their roles and
responsibilities. Teachers are no longer teaching in isolation. They now co-teach, team teach,
and collaborate with other department members. Teachers are not the only ones responsible for
student learning. Other stakeholders including administrators, board members, parents, and
students all share responsibility with the teacher for educating the student. Teachers know that
they must engage their students in learning and provide effective instruction using a variety of
instructional methods as well as technology. To do this, teachers keep abreast of what is
happening in the field. As lifelong learners, they are active participants in their own learning.
They seek out professional development that helps them to improve both student learning and
their own performance. The new role of the teacher in the 21st Century classroom requires
changes in teachers’ knowledge and classroom behaviors. The teacher must know how to:

● Act as a classroom facilitator.

They use appropriate resources and opportunities to create a learning environment that
allows each child to construct his or her own knowledge. The teacher is in tune with her
students and knows how to pace lessons and provide meaningful work that actively engages
students in their learning.

● Establish a safe, supportive, and positive learning environment for all students.

This requires planning on the part of the teacher to avoid safety risks, to create room
arrangements that support learning, and to provide accessibility to students with special needs.
The teacher is skilled in managing multiple learning experiences to create a positive and
productive learning environment for all the students in the classroom. Classroom procedures
and policies are an important part of creating a positive learning environment. The teacher
evaluates and implements effective classroom management techniques in a consistent manner.
She uses routines and procedures that maximize instructional time. Students know what is
expected of them, and the teacher knows how to effectively handle disruptions so there is no
adverse impact on students’ instructional time.

● Encourage students’ curiosity and intrinsic motivation to learn.

The teacher helps students become independent, creative, and critical thinkers by
providing experiences that develop his/her students’ independent, critical and creative thinking
and problem solving skills. The teacher provides enough time for students to complete tasks,
and is clear about her expectations. Students are actively involved in their own learning within a
climate that respects their unique developmental needs and fosters positive expectations and
mutual respect.

● Make students feel valued.

 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

The teacher emphasizes cooperative group effort rather than individual competitive effort
through collaborative projects and a team spirit.

● Communicate effectively with students, parents, colleagues, and other stakeholders.

The teacher uses written, oral, and technological communication to establish a positive
learning experience and to involve other stakeholders in student learning.

● Use language to foster self-expression, identity development, and learning in her students.

● Listen thoughtfully and responsively.

● Foster cultural awareness and cultural sensitivity in her students.

The teacher encourages students to learn about other cultures and instills in her
students a respect for others and their differences.

Conclusion

If students are to be productive members of the 21st Century workplace, they must
move beyond the skills of the 20th Century and master those of the 21st Century. Teachers are
entrusted with mastering these skills as well and with modeling these skills in the classroom.
The characteristics of the 21st Century classroom will be very different from those of in the
classrooms of the past because the focus is on producing students who are highly productive,
effective communicators, inventive thinkers, and masters of technology.

7 Key Features of 21st Century Education are:

1. Personalized learning.
2. Equity, diversity and inclusivity.
3. Learning through doing.
4. Changed role of the teacher.
5. Community relationships.
6. Technology.
7. Teacher professionalization

7 Characteristics Of 21st Century Education

These 7 features of 21st Century learning and teaching are adapted from (and build upon)
Bolstad et al. (2012).

1. Personalized Learning

A personalized approach recognizes that not all students learn in the same manner.

Personalized learning involves differentiating instruction so that students can learn in ways

that suit their personal needs. 
Educators can adjust their teaching methods in several ways. They could:
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

 Differentiate content difficulty;

 Differentiate modes of delivery; and 
 Differentiate assessment strategies. 
By contrast, the 20th Century approach was characterized by a one size fits all approach.
In the old model, all students in the class were taught the same content in the same way at the
same time. Instruction was usually transmission-style under a paradigm of teaching often
referred to as the banking model of education.
The significant shift from the one size fits all to personalized approach can be attributed to
evolving understandings of how people learn.

Theories such as the sociocultural theory gained prominence in the latter decades of the 20th
Century, which are now dominant in the 21st Century. These theories recognize that learners
are influenced significantly by social, cultural and environmental factors which lead to
differentiated outcomes.
Many theorists now believe that students need to learn through various different learning
modalities depending on the student’s needs.

Examples of personalized learning include:

 Differentiated instruction;
 Individualized education plans;
 Student-led projects in the classroom;
 Enhanced freedom of choice in the classroom.

2. Equity, Diversity And Inclusivity

In the 20th Century students were expected to conform to the mainstream or be excluded. But
in the 21st Century, social inclusion and difference are celebrated.

We embrace equity, diversity and inclusivity in classrooms by:

 Equity: A goal of 21st Century educators is to achieve equality of outcomes. Educators

are attempting to close achievement gaps between rich and poor. Hopefully one day
your family’s wealth will not determine how successful you are at school.
 Diversity: Diversity is now considered a strength in classrooms. When students are
different, they learn that difference is okay. They befriend people of different cultures and
learn not to be afraid of other cultures around them.
 Inclusivity: We now believe that people of all ability levels, physical disabilities, or
learning disabilities deserve to be included in mainstream classrooms. This can help
them contribute to mainstream life and show them they are welcome and equal
participants in the world.
Driving factors behind the turn toward increased equity, diversity and inclusivity include:
 A shift to the social model of disability, which argues that society needs to adapt to
include people with learning and physical disabilities into mainstream classrooms;
 Increased cultural diversity leading to greater awareness of differences between
cultures;
 Feminist and critical theories gaining currency in society, leading to awareness of the
need for greater gender equality
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

3. Learning Through Doing

Old behaviorist methods of education that were typical in the 20th Century saw learning as:
 Memorization of information.
 Transmission of information from teacher to student.
 Filling your mind up with facts.
These methods are thrown out in a 21st Century learning approach. 

Now, we encourage students to learn through doing.

The central idea in the ‘learning through doing’ approach is that we are much better at knowing,
remembering and using knowledge if we learn actively, rather than through passive learning.
When we are learning through doing, we:
 Have first-hand experience with applying information to the real world.
 Get the opportunity to learn through trial-and-error (so we know why something is true or
not).
 Aren’t told something, but rather we discover things through our engagement with the
world around us.
 Learn information that isn’t just theoretical but can be applied to things in our lives
somehow.
There are many approaches to education that fit within this 21st Century ‘learning through
doing’ paradigm. Here are just a few:

 Cognitive Constructivism: This is a theory of learning that believe we learn by

constructing ideas in our heads (rather than having them inserted into our minds). We
construct information when we place ideas in our working memory, compare it to our
existing prior knowledge, and make decisions about how useful, truthful or valuable this
new knowledge is to us before saving it, using it to change our minds, or discarding it.
We don’t just take bits of information for granted: we ‘mull them over’ and ‘consider
them’ before deciding how to use them.
 Problem Based Learning: PBL is a teaching strategy based on
cognitive constructivism. It involves learning through solving problems. This is clearly
very different to learning by being told facts. That’s because students aren’t given
answers to problems: they have to solve the problems themselves to discover the truth.
That’s why sometimes we also call PBL discovery learning.
 Problem Posing Education (PPE): PPE is very similar to problem based learning. In a
problem posing environment, the teacher or student will come up with a problem and
present the problem to the class. The class and the teacher need to learn the answer to
this problem together. So, not even the teacher enters the classroom with the answers in
this approach. It therefore creates a very democratic co-learning atmosphere in the
classroom.
 Project Based Learning: In a project-based classroom, students will work on one big
problem for many lessons (maybe even weeks or months) at a time. Students will often
work together and use resources around them like community members or the internet
to create something new (their project!).
 Phenomenon Based Learning (PhBL): PhBL is an approach that is popular in Finland.
Rather than learning through subjects (mathematics, languages, science, history),
students focus on a ‘phenomenon’ (or ‘topic’) that requires them to use multiple
different forms of knowledge from different subject areas to learn about the phenomenon
in a holistic way.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

4. Rethinking Learner and Teacher Roles

In the 21st Century, classrooms have changed from being teacher-centered to student-
centered.
In the past the students all focused on the teacher and listened to the teacher’s words. Now, the
teacher focuses on the students who are the center of attention. The teacher’s job is to help
coach the students as they learn.

In the 20th Century, teacher and learner roles were very rigid:
 Teacher as Authority: The teacher was the active participant. They did all the talking
and were the ultimate authority on all topics. They were the ‘sage on the stage’. This is
why we often call a 20th Century approach “teacher-centered”.
 Passive Students: The student was the passive participant. They sat, listened and
memorized. They had very few opportunities to contribute their prior knowledge,
exercise choice or challenge the teacher’s points.
In the 21st Century, the roles of both the teacher and the student have changed:
 Teacher as Facilitator: The teacher is now a co-learner with the students. The teacher
may still need to control the environment by making it safe and focused on learning. The
atmosphere of the classroom is still very much up to the teacher. However, teachers are
no longer just the authorities on topics. Instead, their job is to help guide students as the
students learn through active processes. The teacher is no longer the center of
attention – that’s the student!
 Active Students: Students learn through doing rather than listening. The teacher is no
longer the authority on knowledge, so students need to come to conclusions themselves
using their critical thinking and creative skills.

5. Community Relationships

We are increasingly realizing how important community engagement is for learning.

In our communities there are amazingly useful people who can teach and inspire our students
far better than we can.

Teachers know they can’t be experts on everything. But there is an expert for every topic out
there in the world.

So teachers need to seek out experts and bring them into the classroom. By leveraging the
skills and knowledge of the community, we can create a better learning experience for our
students.

In multicultural societies, community members can also teach us about how to best teach
children within their cultures. For example, children from Indigenous cultures may have grown
up with very different learning styles from other children in the class. By engaging with local
Indigenous people, teachers can learn how best to teach those children in their class.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Bringing people from different walks of life into the classroom also helps our students to create
connections with people who aren’t like themselves. This can help inclusion, education for social
justice, and create links between people of different cultures.

6. Technology

Modern technologies can be incredibly helpful in classrooms today. Walk into a classroom now
and you’ll be shocked at how much things have changed in just a decade. Technology is
everywhere!

It is important to use new learning technologies in appropriate ways. Students shouldn’t use
technology to prevent them from thinking or help them cheat. Instead, technology should be
used to help students access information or think in ways they couldn’t have done so otherwise.
We call technologies that help students think harder ‘cognitive tools’ for learning.

7. Teacher Professionalization

Teaching children in this century is clearly much more complicated than it was in the last one!
We need to create personalized lessons, be inclusive, aim for eqaulity, encourage creativity,
engage with the community, use technology to enhance learning, and more!

To ensure students get the best learning possible, teachers in the 21st Century need ongoing
training and support. They need to know all the latest research on best teaching practices. They
need opportunities to ask questions themselves, try out new strategies and learn from experts
throughout their career.

One of the biggest challenges for teachers is the rapidly changing educational environment.
New technologies are quickly coming into classrooms to help us personalize and support
learning for all our students.

Teachers need time and space to learn how to use technology and new pedagogies in ways
that will best help their students. 

The 7 elements outlined in this article are adapted from:

 Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting
future oriented learning and teaching. New Zealand: New Zealand Council for
Educational Research.

Lesson 4: Critical Attributes of the 21st Century Education

 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

1. Integrated and interdisciplinary

Elements of Integration in the Classroom

Definitions of Integration
To integrate means to coordinate, blend, or bring together separate parts into a
functioning, unified, and harmonious whole. According to McNeil (1985), curricular integration
assists students to identify the links, not only between ideas and processes within a single field,
but also between ideas and processes, in separate fields, and in the world outside of school.
The integration of knowledge and skills can be categorized according to three main types of
curricular connections
 within one subject alone
 between two or more subjects
 beyond the subjects

It is also imperative that the cognitive, affective, and social domains provide a context for
learning, and they become an integral part of the teaching-learning process, regardless of the
type of curricular integration (D'Hainaut, 1979 in Legendre, 1993). These domains are non-
subject specific and involve the active and deliberate construction of meaning. 

Within Subject Areas

An intradisciplinary approach involves an arrangement of the knowledge and skills within one
subject area. This approach respects the subject's way of knowing distinct conceptual structures
and methods of inquiry. It aims at integrating the subject's knowledge and skills into a coherent
whole. Also a part of this approach is vertical integration where knowledge and skills within
one subject area are connected from grade-to-grade (teachers need to be aware of the scope
and sequence of their subject area in Kindergarten through Senior 4).

Examples
 Integrating listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and representing in the study of
language
 Integrating ecology, physics, and chemistry in the study of sciences at Early Years

Between Subject Areas

In a multidisciplinary or a pluridisciplinary approach, subject areas are independent of one
another. In this approach, teachers deliberately coordinate the timing and delivery of related
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

topics, but they make no attempt to synthesize or draw together different subject area
perspectives.
Note: Before teachers can begin to make connections between subject areas, the first type of
integration, intradisciplinary integration, must be established.
Examples
 The language arts teacher presents The Diary of Anne Frank at the same time the
social studies teacher introduces World War II.
 The mathematics teacher focuses on graphing skills, while the science teacher has
students carry out experiments where results are presented in graph form.
 A school timetables mathematics to be taught prior to physics; this arrangement
allows students to acquire prerequisite mathematics skills.
An interdisciplinary approach (also called horizontal integration) connects the
interdependent knowledge and skills from more than one subject area to examine a
central theme, issue, problem, topic, or experience. It is a holistic approach that
stresses linkages.

Example
Using sustainable development as a theme, students pursue learning outcomes from science,
social studies, and language arts to better understand a complex issue.

Beyond Subject Areas

A transdisciplinary approach places the characteristics, needs, interests, and personal
learning processes of students at the forefront of the learning experience. Students engage in
independent projects which aim to develop
 initiative
 imagination and creativity
 research skills
 analysis and synthesis skills
 autonomy
As students work on projects, they acquire knowledge and skills that are based in the
subject areas. However, the subject areas are subordinate to the project goals.

Example
Students work on independent research projects. The formal timetable is left behind while
teachers guide students in their research.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

2. Media and Technology

The addition of technology into the classroom can help transform the classroom
experience from a classic teacher centered one into a student-centered experience – with
students taking a more active role in their learning. In a student-centered classroom, the teacher
becomes more of a guide as the students engage with and tackle the day’s lesson. And there is
nothing better than seeing your students fully engaged! It is important to understand that
integrating technology into the classroom is by no means a replacement for an effective
teacher. To put it simply, the ideal classroom environment would be one that is student centered
and includes a carefully selected blend of instructional technologies with face-to-face
communication.

Technology provides teachers and students with access to a variety of educational

resources that inspire creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.

 It promotes inclusion and the development of digital literacy skills.

 It extends learning beyond the text – and beyond the classroom walls.
 It ultimately exposes students and teachers to new online global communities. This in
turn promotes a global awareness, which is an essential component to a 21st century
education.

There has been, and will continue to be, different levels of students in our classrooms – and
with uniquely important learning needs. Through the use of instructional technology,
differentiated instruction can be made much easier. It can become more of a reality! With
differentiated instruction, students are provided an education that is personalized – and that
meets them where they are, developmentally. More students are able to benefit from this type of
instruction. The use of technology also provides students access to very rich learning materials
outside of the classroom.

It is of paramount important that while in school, students use tools that will best prepare
them for their future academic and professional experiences. – This includes a blend of new
tech and old tech. Integrating technology into the classroom provides students with a set of
skills to navigate through the variety of online tools we have today! It also provides teachers
opportunities to educate students on digital citizenship and the new challenges to academic
integrity.

Effective integration of technology into the classroom isn’t easy! Successful integration

requires time, customization, experimentation, and support. While there are many schools
successfully integrating technology into their classrooms, there is an even larger number of
schools that are faced with obstacles impeding this process.

A major obstacle for teachers and students is unreliable technology. Even the best prepared
lesson can collapse when there are technical issues! The typical teacher population in most
schools includes novice, intermediate, and advanced technology users. Placement into each
category is based on a teacher’s ability to integrate technology into their classroom.

3. Global classrooms
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

The concept of the “global classroom” is becoming more and more common as
instructors encounter students from all over the world. Teaching in a multiple culture/multiple
language classroom is the new reality.  It offers some unique challenges but is not impossible.
The burden is on the instructor to create a classroom culture that is conducive to learning.
Success begins with the course introduction.  The introduction sets the tone for the entire class.
A little more time getting to know each other at the beginning creates an atmosphere that unifies
the class and promotes learning. A warm and friendly introduction where the teacher gets to
know the students and vice versa goes a long way to overcoming disparities in culture and
language.

 Characteristics Of Global Learning by Terry Heick

1. Local–> Global pattern

When learning is first personal, and local, it has the ability for immediacy,
authenticity, and responsiveness not available when it seeks to be immediately “global.”

A student connecting with an international peer set in school-to-school

collaboration, or reaching out to help solve global challenges must first employ self-
knowledge–see themselves as thinkers and learners and agents of both change and
collaboration, and this self-knowledge focus is always, of course, entirely “local.”

The learning process may also, at times, have to be first global then local, but the
critical role of an authentic local context remains.

2. Self-Directed

While obviously students can’t be handed a broadband internet signal, an iPad,

and be told to “go play” with global peer sets, self-directed learning is becoming
increasingly obvious in light of radically improved data access of this information age.
This makes self-directed learning paramount to extracting the most out of this newfound
scale.

3. Iterative & Spiraled

Formal academic learning is often tightly sequenced, aligned, packaged, and

tightly bound.

This all becomes less accessible–though not impossible–as the shift to global
learning is made due to increased number of collaborators, increasingly complex
technology, and the nature of self-directed learning in general. This makes learning that
is iterative and spiraled more natural than a cover-and-move-on approach.

4. Social & Digital

 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Global learning is very obviously social; it is global after all. This makes the use
of digital technology, including social media like twitter, YouTube, pinterest and even
upstarts like Vine, fundamental tools in the process.

Learning is inherently social, and in the globalization of it–whether by process

(collaboration) or product (creating a product or service that has global application)–
logical. The use of education technology to support that process then is one of its most
important characteristics.

5. Driven By New Actuators

Globalization is about interdependence and increased consciousness.

This can happen through technology or in person, quickly or gradually–less about

form and process, and more about scale and tone. This makes powerful new actuators,
including game-based learning, mobile learning, blended learning, and challenge-based
learning, all the more seamless.

4. Creating/ adapting to constant personal and social change, and lifelong learning
In the 21st century, learning does not only happen inside the school and during one’s
schooling years and it can take place anywhere, anytime, regardless of one’s age

This means that teachers should facilitate students’ acquisition of Knowledge, Skills,
Attitude and Values that go beyond academics. Learning should take place not only for the
purpose of passing exams, but also for transferring knowledge to real life situations. The
curriculum should be planned in such a way that the students will continue to learn even outside
the school’s portals.

Creating/Adapting to Constant Personal and Social Change

In the field of education in the 21st century context teachers should encourage
active participation and experimentation with ideas among students. Teach students how to
think instead of teaching them what to think. Prepare students to expect the need for
change and to believe in their own ability to take positive steps for the benefit of society.

How Teachers Can Promote Social Change in the Classroom

The philosopher John Dewey wrote, “Education is not a preparation for life but is
life itself.” Dewey reflected extensively on the page about the role of education in a
healthy, ever-evolving democratic society, and he believed classrooms aren’t just a
place to study social change, but a place to spark social change. Dewey wrote about
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

these topics in the early twentieth century, at a time when debates raged about whether
teachers should be tasked with preparing students to conform or to actively push for
progress and improvement where they are necessary.

1. Encourage active participation and experimentation with ideas among students

2. Teach students how to think instead of teaching them what to think.
3. Prepare students to expect the need for change and to believe in their own ability
to take positive steps for the benefit of society.
4. Make classroom processes democratic to establish the idea that if we actively
participate in our communities, we can help make decisions about how they
function.
5. Facilitate discussions among teachers as a group – starting with student
teachers – about the decisions they can make to drive social change.

5. Student-centered

Student-centered teaching and learning

Student-Centered Teaching and Learning focuses on the needs, abilities,

interests, and learning styles of the students and has many implications for the design of
curriculum, course content, and interactivity of courses. Accordingly, a prominent
pedagogy will be teacher-as-coach, to provoke students to learn how to learn and thus
to teach themselves, rather than the more traditional teacher-centered learning with
teacher-as-deliverer-of-instructional-services, which places the teacher at its center in an
active role and students in a passive, receptive role. This pedagogy acknowledges
student voice as central to the learning experience for every learner and requires
students to be active, responsible participants in their own learning. To capitalize on this,
teaching and learning should be personalized to the maximum feasible extent. Decisions
about the details of the course of study, the use of students’ and teachers’ time, and the
choice of teaching materials and specific pedagogies must be unreservedly placed in the
hands of the staff and students.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

6. 21ST Century Skills

21st Century skills are 12 abilities that today’s students need to succeed in their careers
during the Information Age.

The twelve 21st Century skills are:

1. Critical thinking
2. Creativity
3. Collaboration
4. Communication
5. Information literacy
6. Media literacy
7. Technology literacy
8. Flexibility
9. Leadership
10. Initiative
11. Productivity
12. Social skills

These skills are intended to help students keep up with the lightning-pace of today’s modern
markets. Each skill is unique in how it helps students, but they all have one quality in common.

They’re essential in the age of the Internet.

To start, let's dive into the three categories that 21st Century skills fall into.

Learning skills Literacy skills Life skills

Critical thinking Information literacy Flexibility
Creativity Media literacy Leadership
Collaboration Technology literacy Initiative
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Communication Productivity
Social skills

Category 1. Learning Skills (The Four C’s)

The four C’s are by far the most popular 21st Century skills. These skills are also called
learning skills.

More educators know about these skills because they’re universal needs for any career.
They also vary in terms of importance, depending on an individual’s career aspirations.

The 4 C's of 21st Century Skills are:

• Critical thinking: Finding solutions to problems

• Creativity: Thinking outside the box

• Collaboration: Working with others

• Communication: Talking to others

Arguably, critical thinking is the most important quality for someone to have in health
sciences. In business settings, critical thinking is essential to improvement. It’s the mechanism
that weeds out problems and replaces them with fruitful endeavors. It’s what helps students
figure stuff out for themselves when they don’t have a teacher at their disposal.

Creativity is equally important as a means of adaptation. This skill empowers students

to see concepts in a different light, which leads to innovation. In any field, innovation is key to
the adaptability and overall success of a company. Learning creativity as a skill requires
someone to understand that “the way things have always been done” may have been best 10
years ago — but someday, that has to change.

Collaboration means getting students to work together, achieve compromises, and get
the best possible results from solving a problem. Collaboration may be the most difficult concept
in the four C’s. But once it’s mastered, it can bring companies back from the brink of bankruptcy.
The key element of collaboration is willingness. All participants have to be willing to sacrifice
parts of their own ideas and adopt others to get results for the company. That means
understanding the idea of a “greater good,” which in this case tends to be company-wide
success.

Finally, communication is the glue that brings all of these educational qualities together.
Communication is a requirement for any company to maintain profitability. It’s crucial for
students to learn how to effectively convey ideas among different personality types.

That has the potential to eliminate confusion in a workplace, which makes your students
valuable parts of their teams, departments, and companies.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Effective communication is also one of the most underrated soft skills in the United
States. For many, it’s viewed as a “given,” and some companies may even take good
communication for granted. Without understanding proper communication, students in the 21st
Century will lack a pivotal skill to progress their careers.

But the four C’s are only the beginning. 21st Century skills also require students to understand
the information that’s around them.

Category 2. Literacy Skills (IMT)

Literacy skills are the next category of 21st Century skills.

They’re sometimes called IMT skills, and they’re each concerned with a different
element in digital comprehension.

The three 21st Century literacy skills are:

•Information literacy: Understanding facts, figures, statistics, and data

•Media literacy: Understanding the methods and outlets in which information is published

•Technology literacy: Understanding the machines that make the Information Age
possible

 Information literacy is the foundational skill. It helps students understand facts,

especially data points that they’ll encounter online. More importantly, it teaches them
how to separate fact from fiction. In an age of chronic misinformation, finding truth online
has become a job all on its own. It’s crucial that students can identify honesty on their
own. Otherwise, they can fall prey to myths, misconceptions, and outright lies.

 Media literacy is the practice of identifying publishing methods, outlets, and sources
while distinguishing between the ones that are credible and the ones that aren’t. Just like
the previous skill, media literacy is helpful for finding truth in a world that’s saturated with
information. This is how students find trustworthy sources of information in their lives.
Without it, anything that looks credible becomes credible. But with it, they can learn
which media outlets or formats to ignore. They also learn which ones to embrace, which
is equally important.

 Technology literacy goes another step further to teach students about the machines
involved in the Information Age. As computers, cloud programming, and mobile devices
become more important to the world, the world needs more people to understand those
concepts. Technology literacy gives students the basic information they need to
understand what gadgets perform what tasks and why. This understanding removes the
intimidating feeling that technology tends to have. After all, if you don’t understand how
technology works, it might as well be magic. But technology literacy unmasks the high-
powered tools that run today’s world.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

But to truly round out a student’s 21st Century skills, they need to learn from a third category.

Category 3. Life Skills (FLIPS)

Life skills is the final category. Also called FLIPS, these skills all pertain to someone’s
personal life, but they also bleed into professional settings.

The five 21st Century life skills are:

• Flexibility: Deviating from plans as needed

• Leadership: Motivating a team to accomplish a goal

• Initiative: Starting projects, strategies, and plans on one’s own

• Productivity: Maintaining efficiency in an age of distractions

• Social skills: Meeting and networking with others for mutual benefit

 Flexibility is the expression of someone’s ability to adapt to changing

circumstances.This is one of the most challenging qualities to learn for students because
it’s based on two uncomfortable ideas:

1. Your way isn’t always the best way

2. You have to know and admit when you’re wrong

That’s a struggle for a lot of students, especially in an age when you can know
any bit of information at the drop of a hat. Flexibility requires them to show humility and
accept that they’ll always have a lot to learn — even when they’re experienced.

 Leadership is someone’s penchant for setting goals, walking a team through the steps
required, and achieving those goals collaboratively. Whether someone’s a seasoned
entrepreneur or a fresh hire just starting their careers, leadership applies to career.
Entry-level workers need leadership skills for several reasons. The most important is that
it helps them understand the decisions that managers and business leaders make. As
they lead individual departments, they can learn the ins and outs of their specific
careers. That gives ambitious students the expertise they need to grow professionally
and lead whole corporations.

 Initiative only comes naturally to a handful of people. As a result, students need to learn
it to fully succeed. This is one of the hardest skills to learn and practice. Initiative often
means working on projects outside of regular working hours. The rewards for students
with extreme initiative vary from person to person. Sometimes they’re good grades.
Other times they’re new business ventures.
 Productivity is a student’s ability to complete work in an appropriate amount of time. In
business terms, it’s called “efficiency.” The common goal of any professional — from
entry-level employee to CEO — is to get more done in less time.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

 Social skills are crucial to the ongoing success of a professional. Business is frequently
done through the connections one person makes with others around them. This concept
of networking is more active in some industries than others, but proper social skills are
excellent tools for forging long-lasting relationships. But most students need a crash
course in social skills at least. Etiquette, manners, politeness, and small talk still play
major roles in today’s world.

While 21st Century skills have always been important, they’ve become essential in a
worldwide market that moves faster by the day. These skills all double back to one key focus.
Someone’s ability to enact and / or adapt to change. This is because any industry is capable of
changing at a moment’s notice. Industries are now regularly disrupted with new ideas and
methodologies. With that in mind, the world has entered an era where nothing is guaranteed. As
a result, students need to learn to guide the change that’ll inundate their lives. At the very least,
they need to learn how to react to it. Otherwise, they’ll be left behind.

With 21st Century skills, your students will have the adaptive qualities they need to keep up
with a business environment that’s constantly evolving.

7. Project-Based and Research-driven

Project-based learning (PBL) or project-based instruction is an instructional approach

designed to give students the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills through engaging
projects set around challenges and problems they may face in the real world.

For most modern workers, their careers will be marked by a series of projects rather
than years of service to a specific organization. “Solving real-world issues that matter is
important to us as adults—and it’s important to our students,” explain Lathram, Lenz, and
Vander Ark in their ebook, Preparing Students for a Project-Based World.5

In short, if we are to prepare students for success in life, we need to prepare them for a
project-based world. Therefore, when relating project-based learning benefits to students, we
must always include examples of real-world application. This will reinforce for students the
notion that they can break down future problems into their component parts, assemble and lead
a diverse team of stakeholders to process the problem, and implement a solution.

What Are the Essential Elements of Project-Based Learning?

Although definitions and project parameters may vary from school to school, and
PBL is sometimes used interchangeably with “experiential learning” or “discovery
learning,” the characteristics of project-based learning are clear, constant, and share the
spirit of John Dewey’s instrumentalism.

In essence, the PBL model consists of these seven characteristics:

 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

• Focuses on a big and open-ended question, challenge, or problem for the

student to research and respond to and/or solve
• Brings what students should academically know, understand, and be able to do
into the equation
• Is inquiry-based, stimulates intrinsic curiosity, and generates questions as it
helps students seek answers
• Uses 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, communication, collaboration,
and creativity, among others.7
• Builds student choice into the process
• Provides opportunities for feedback and revision of the plan and the project, just
like in real life
• Requires students to present their problems, research process, methods, and
results, just as scientific research or real-world projects must stand before peer
review and constructive criticism

8. Relevant, Rigorous and Real World

Bring the Real World into the Classroom as a Teaching Strategy

Using real-world examples and tackling real-world problems in the classroom can
make learning more meaningful to students. And it can help spark excitement in gaining
knowledge about important issues.

There is research to support the value of authenticity when teachers use real-
world problems and scenarios. Not only does it make the lesson more meaningful for
students but they become properly engaged. They also become more aware of the
choices they could make in society.

Here are a few teaching strategies to bring the real world into your classroom.

Look to the News

The first place that you can look is in the news. There will always be
something in the news that you can find to connect to what you are teaching
about in the classroom.

If you’re learning about the weather and storms like hurricanes and
tornados, then talk about Hurricane Katrina or tornados in Oklahoma. If you are
learning about racism, then talk about the police killings that are happening in the
news or the infamous George Floyd incident.

Reading about the stories of real-life storms or situations that

actually occurred can help students connect better to what they are
learning in the classroom. This helps students recognize that these are
issues that really happen outside of the classroom, and that they are not
just stories in a textbook.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Invite Guest Speakers to the Classroom

One of the best ways that you can connect the students to real-
world experiences is to invite a guest speaker into the classroom. Guest
speakers have a wealth of knowledge and give students a real insight into
a specific topic better than any textbook or article can.

Teachers are constantly getting asked why they have to learn this
or why they have to lean that. A guest speaker, like an electrician, is the
perfect person to show students why they have to learn math. A politician
is a perfect example of why it’s important to learn how to write persuasive
essays. Students can learn a lot about real life from someone who is
actually in it.

Take a Class Field Trip

Allow students to experience and observe the world around them

by taking them outside of the classroom. This can be through technology,
such as a virtual field trip — where students can get an inside look at
something like the White House or a spacecraft through digital media.
Physically taking students outside of the classroom helps them learn to
observe the world through their own eyes.

Simulate a Real-Life Experience

If you can’t get a guest speaker to come to your classroom, or get

your students to go outside of the classroom, then your next best option is
to simulate a real-world experience in the classroom. This can be an
extremely effective way to show children how something might play out in
real life.

If you are reading a non-fiction book about an important trial, for

instance, then have students simulate the trial by dressing up and taking
on the roles of the involved parties. This will give students an inside look
into what it felt like to actually be in the courtroom during this time that
they read about. And by taking on the roles of the characters, students
will get a sense of what the person went through while they were there.

Give Students a Real, Tangible Problem to Solve

Give students the opportunity to apply their classroom knowledge

to a real-world problem. There are many ways that you can do this.

First, look at your local environment and government and dive into any
problems that you see there. Students can take a crack at evaluating local issues
like pollution and poverty.

Another way students can do practical problem solving is by looking inside their
school or classroom to see what real problems lie there. They can look into the problems
with cafeteria food (healthy vs. unhealthy) or having soda machines in the school.
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

Students can figure out how to solve the problem with homework on weekends or the
bus route that takes so long to come to and from school. By taking a closer look at these
issues, students are being engaged in topics that affect, and matter to them.

Bringing real-world experiences into the classroom is a great way to give

students a memorable experience that they can always take with them. Whichever
approach you choose to try, remember that your goal is to create an authentic
experience that will help students engage in their learning more.

Lesson 5: Literacy Strategies

Literacy Strategies

Research on reading indicates that good readers use a variety of strategies to make
sense of what they read. This is often referred to as making meaning, or literacy strategies. This
same research has shown that effective readers use specific strategies when reading that show
they understand or comprehend what they're reading. Six such strategies are: making
connections, visualizing, inferring, questioning, determining importance, and synthesizing. Let's
take a closer look at how these six literacy strategies affect reading comprehension.

Making Connections

The brain is a learning machine. Everything you do, think, and wonder has the potential
to be stored as a neuron, or a cell in your brain. These neurons form communities by branching
out and connecting to other neurons. The neurons are grouped by similarities, forming
memories that make sense. For example, your understanding of the word 'round' helps you
understand and make connections to several objects, including the moon or a ball.

Reading is no exception. When children read, they're reminded of previously stored

knowledge, or schema. The books they read can be connected in three ways: text to self,
reminding children of something that happened in their own lives; text to text, when a book
reminds them of another they've read; or text to world, when the text reminds them of something
they've seen in the world at large.

Encourage readers to make connections first text to self, then text to text, then text to
world.

Visualizing

All readers make mental pictures, or visualizations, of the words they read. When
readers visualize the text, they are then able to understand elements of the story, such as plot,
 Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum

in a deeper way. To make learning visible, have children draw and talk about mental pictures
that a story prompts.

Questioning

All readers ask questions as they read. They wonder what will happen next, or what a
character is thinking, or when the story will shift. By asking questions, children engage with the
text and become more deeply involved, which allows them to understand and comprehend in a
rich, powerful way.

Point out the natural questions being asked in your head as you read stories aloud to
children. Create a question chart for the books you read aloud, and begin questioning pages in
your students' reading notebooks.

Inferring

As books become more complex, the plot becomes less straight-forward. Not all
information is directly given to a reader, and we are left to connect the dots, or infer, on our own.
For example, in the story 'Little Red Riding Hood', we know the wolf is mean and selfish
because of the way he acts, not because the story actually tells us so. We've inferred this
important concept.

Teachers should instruct inference by showing how students are already doing it on their
own. Reread some simple stories and talk about what's in the text and what has been inferred.

Importance

Books generally contain a lot of information! However, not all information is important to
the plot of the story. The description of what Little Red Riding Hood is wearing is fun to read but
doesn't matter when it comes time to make sense of the plot. Explain to students that authors
write to entertain and teach us. They use words to make the story interesting, but not all words
are critical to plot.

Synthesizing

The most complex reading strategy, synthesizing, is the process of merging ideas over
the course of a text in order to further understanding. Like summarizing, synthesizing requires
readers to read the full story. However, synthesizing doesn't just happen at the end of the book;
rather, it happens as the reader gets new information. The reader pieces new insights together
to understand and make new predictions throughout the book.

This complex strategy can be taught at any age. By its nature, it should be taught after
students have had practice with the other five strategies.
Building and Enhancing New Literacies Across the Curriculum