Literacy

Literacy is the ability to read and write, which are skills requiring specific instruction and diligent practice to learn and become proficient. Reading and writing are not biologically natural when you consider that printed text only emerged around 6,000 years ago as a form of communication. Thus, a few students will learn the code with relative ease while the vast majority require explicit instruction to do so. Learning how to read and write (and spell) consists of complex skill building and requires many components to work together. Once all components are well developed the student is on their way to becoming a skilled reader. Generally, the components are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, oral language, writing, spelling, and morphology. All the components work together in an interwoven way and given time and practice, skilled reading emerges.