Literacy Skills

According to the dictionary, literacy is:

“The quality or state of being literate,

especially the ability to read and write.”

Literacy is the ability to read, view, write, design, speak and

listen in order to communicate effectively.

The importance of literacy skills

Literacy skills are very relevant in achieving

progress through the early, middle and later

years of study and also to be applied in

personal life.

Ways to support your child’s literacy development

Studies have shown that children’s motivation and

achievement improve when their parents are

involved in their education.

Sharing your knowledge and explaining how you use

literacy in your everyday life.

Encouraging your child to read and view a variety of texts

such as newspapers, novels, comics, magazines,

websites, email and timetables.

Encouraging your child to write and design for a variety of

purposes using different mediums.

Things you can do to encourage literacy learning:

Discussing how texts look different depending

on the purpose and audience.

Favorite authors, producers, directors or

illustrators and what you like about them.

Discussing new and unusual words.

Playing games that develop knowledge and

enjoyment of words.

Types of Literacy skills

Financial Literacy

Health Literacy

Workplace Literacy

Computer Literacy

Critical Thinking

Prose Literacy

Document Literacy

Numeracy

Problem Solving

Be able to work effectively with information

To transmit a good information

we require an understanding

of:

• A need for information

• The resources available

• How to find information

• The need to evaluate results

• How to work with or exploit results

• Ethics and responsibility of use

• How to communicate or share your

findings

• How to manage your findings It is to know how to locate the right sources to get the

information, to know the necessity of that information

and how to evaluate it

Bloom’s taxonomy

Taxonomy means 'a set of classification principles', or 'structure' and domain simply means

'category'. It is a method created by Benjamin Bloom.

Taxonomy of Bloom is used for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives.

This method is formed by six major categories:

Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recallof a pattern, structure, or setting.”

Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what isbeing communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarilyrelating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications.”

Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.”

Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements or parts such that therelative hierarchy of ideas is made clear and/or the relations between ideas expressed are made explicit.”

Synthesis involves the “putting together of elements and parts so as to form a whole.”

Evaluation engenders “judgments about the value of material and methods for given purposes.”

Consuming information

The need to know if the

information is reliable, since there

are many publications that are

prepared by amateurs not by

professionals.

Students need to take on the role

of professional writers and

learning to be effective and

ethical producers of information.

Consuming and producing information

The key is to recognize the elements that are regardless of the

communication, which are the sender, subject and purpose of the

message, medium, receiver, and context

Current levels of data received are equivalent

to 12 hours of consuming information (100, 500

words per day.)

Most of people sleep around 7 hours a day,but three quarters of their waking time is spent

getting information, especially from electronic

means.

The overload of information is distancing

communication and provoking less

interaction between people, turning them

into lonely individuals.

Nowadays, people are so involved in this

world that do not realize much of the

received data is worthless.

People believe in everything media tellsthem.

Worthless information deprive people fromthe capability of analyzing and thinking bythemselves.

Experts recommend we have to take thecontrol of what we see, read and hear.

Instead of being drawn by stimulatingentertainment and driven by subconsciousfears, ‘consumers’ have to seek out relevantand useful information, which can be appliedpositively in their lives.

This self-control-attitude can be created byforging healthy habits and put them into acontrol circle.

“Rather than us consuming

information, it has begun to

consume us.”

– Mathew Warner

Recommendations for healthy

information consumption:

Get rid of cable TV

Buy TV shows and movies individually or go out to watch them somewhere else,rather than having cable TV. Everything made to this system is designed to“hook” us, so we don’t have to “take the bait.”

Go ad-free radio

Pay for an ad-free radio such as Spotify or Pandora.

Use an RSS reader to follow your blogs/news online.

This RSS readers provide users a way to gather all news straight from their favoritesites to an online reader. Some RSS readers are for free, so there is no an excuseto keep reading useless sidebars and teasers.

Sometimes quitting is good.

If you find a movie, TV show, article or book that has not amused you from thebeginning, quit it. There are too many interesting things to consume instead.

Turn off push notifications

Everything has a proper time to be checked, so if you have set out a

schedule for a day, do not allow your email, Facebook or Twitter

accounts to distract you from your plan. You have to decide when it is

time to check it. If something is urgent, people will call you or text you.

Put down your phone

It is a bad habit to use your phone while you are spending time to

another person. There is a proper time to check it. Whether you are at

home or work, place it across the room, not next to you.

Be not afraid of missing out

It is not necessary to know what is going on to somebody or how your

favorite TV show ended. These are trivial facts that do not even give

richness to your life. Try to quit it for a determined period of time and

you will see everything is going to be working on perfectly. Nothing

would have changed, only your priorities.

Plan healthy activities

Create new healthy habits and take your timesaved to do other interesting activities.

Go to dance, invite a nice girl to date, journeyto your favorite place, do some crafts, play asport or do whatever you want to.

Keep your social media in check

Social media are created to hook you to theirsites, especially popping up itchy click fingerand feeding your fear of missing out.

Be responsible and determined, and establishlimits to their usage.

Schedule silence

Plan a time to meditate and find yourself.Disconnect yourself from TVs, computers,technology of any kind or whatever that candistract you.

Begin doing it for a few minutes every and soonit will become a routine.

Locate books in a Library

SET YOUR GOAL

• Determine what kind of book you need.

• Establish what its purpose will be.

LOCATE BOOKS

• When you reach in a library, there will always be a librarian to assist you choosing the book you are looking for.

• What about if you want to do it by your own?

BE CURIOUS

• Investigate: read signs and look for maps and directories.

• Notice that shelves and some areas will be marked with specific tags.

CHECK THE LIBRARY CATALOG

•Libraries are equipped withaccesible computers.

•Books are stored alphabetically.

•Some old catalogs are housedin drawers.

FINDING A BOOK

•Type the title of the book youneed.

•Look for the book’s authorname.

•Type the subject or keywords.

AVAILABILITY

•Check out if your resource book is in the library through the catalog.

•If your work is unavailable, search for another reference.

EACH BOOK HAS A SPECIFIC NUMBER

• All books registered in a library have a call number.

• Write down the number and otherimportant information from the work.

• Some sort of books are stored under a classification system.

GET YOUR BOOK

• Follow the indications of the library.

• Move on and search through theshelves the levels concerning thecategory you are looking for.

• Check the tags on the spine of eachbook.

OTHER RESOURCES

• A library offers not only books, but magazines, digital files, audiobooks, music recordings, computer software, videos, DVDs, CDs, newspapers, etc.

• If you need a special book and don’t find it in the catalog, drive yourself to the librarian. She or he will recommend you more options.

NOTE: Some call

numbers are preceded

by a location prefix

indicating that the item

is shelved in a specific

location and may have

loan restrictions.

For example:

Ref - Reference item

located on the

Reference shelves on

the 1st floor.

Oversize - Large or

oversized items

shelved in the Oversize

sections on each floor.

Use a card catalog in a library

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines card catalog as “a set of cards

in a library that have information about books, journals, etc., written on

them and are arranged in alphabetical order.”

The card catalogs were created to list book titles alphabetically under a

specific category, such as architecture, mathematic, religion,

adventure, philosophy, etc.

A card catalog makes easier to search of a book in a library.

Works can be found by subject indexes, where information is stored in

drawers and listed in alphabetical order.

Types of library card

catalogs: Name of the author (s)

Title catalog

Dictionary catalog

Keyword

Mixed alphabetic forms

Systematic or classified

Shelf list

Locate and use general reference books

These are works that people use to find

background information or quick facts. Reference

books are located in the reference area of a

library and online.

The Business Dictionary defines reference

book as any “Atlas, dictionary, directory,

encyclopedia, handbook, thesaurus, or any

other work designed to be used in finding

specific items of information, rather than for

cover to cover reading.”

Reference books are very varied,

some of them are a one-volume

works and some others multi-

volume ones.

They may be used exclusively

within the library facilities, so it

means they cannot be borrowedfrom it.

It contains an index to guide

readers to find the topics they are

looking for and a biographical list

at the end of the material.

• It is allowed to photocopy them or

taking notes.

• It is necessary these reference books

always be available for everyone who

needs them.

• Data provided in a reference book is

arranged alphabetically.

There are two categories for reference

books:

General reference books: These works

cover all subject areas and branches of

knowledge; that is the reason why they

are broad in scope and are not limited

to any single subject.

Subject-related or specialized

reference books: These works provide

detailed information concerning one

particular topic. This information is

brought together from several other

sources.

Reading

materials:

Almanacs and yearbooks: these materials bearhistorical information, specific facts, statistical data,tables of comparative information and organizedlists of basis reference information related topeople, places, events, social media, etc. Whileyearbooks provide the same information butdivided for single years.

Atlases: they are organized group of physical,political, road and thematic maps, as well assymbols, scales, and terms used in the atlas (whichare explained within the work.)

Bibliographies: they are lists of resources andmaterials that share some common attributes suchas locations, publishing date, subject, author, andetcetera.

Dictionaries: these ones contain the meaning ofwords and explanations about their origin andusage in a grammatical structure.

Directories: they contain lists of people or organizationsof some type. Including addresses, phone numbers,email addresses, etc.

General enciclopedias: provide information organizedalphabetically of a broad range of subjects with basicinformation for each entry.

Subject enciclopedias: these contain limitedinformation about a specific topic or field of study.

Handbooks: they have basic and brief informationrelated to one specific subject.

Indexes: these ones locate information in periodicals,anthologies, newspapers, etc.

Biographical

Sources

Dictionary

Standard dictionaries give an alphabetical list of words and their definitions, but there are

several different types also classified as dictionaries.

Types of

encyclopedias

Encyclopedias provide detailed information of an area or subject. There are general encyclopedias and subject encyclopedias, and they different as to the level of detail provided in these. Encyclopedias are good for fact-finding, getting general background information about a subject or starting a research Project.

General

General encyclopedias are multi-

volume and cover in brief detail every topic imaginable.

Examples of General

Encyclopedias:

• World Book

• Encyclopedia Britannica

Subject encyclopedias focus on a specific topic in more detail such as zoology or medicine. They can be one-volume or multi-volume.

Examples of Subject Encyclopedias:

• Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia

• Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine

• Marshall Cavendish Encyclopedia of Health

Subject or Specialized

Dictionary of Quotations

Oxford Dictionaries defines a quotation as ‘A

group of words taken from a text or speech

and repeated by someone other than the

original author or speaker’. A quotation is a

saying that other people think worth repeating

because it is well expressed whether it is

beautiful or funny.

Literary Index

A literary index a great method to do a quick search. It combines a cross

reference search with various authors and titles.

Periodicals

Periodicals is a general term used to refer to newspapers,

magazines and journals. Periodical articles are often the best way

for finding the most current and concise information on a topic.

New York Times Index

The New York Times Index was published since 1913 by The New York

Times newspaper. It is intended to serve as a reference for

accessing stories printed the previous years in the newspaper.