Paradigms of Literacy and Instruction

1. Paradigms of Literacy and Instruction

2. The 6 Major Paradigms • Technical Paradigm (psycholinguistics) • “Cultural Literacy” Paradigm • Neuroscience/Skills Paradigm • Multiple Literacies/New Literacies Paradigm • Sociocultural Literacy Paradigm • Critical Literacy Paradigm

3. Technical Paradigm • Phonics • Vocab Recognition (“What Reading Does for the Mind”) • Easily Measured, Tested, Studied • Currently the Dominant Paradigm in the U.S.

4. “Cultural Literacy” Paradigm • E.D. Hirsch • Reading Requires Cultural Knowledge As Well As Phonological Awareness and Vocabulary Knowledge. • Extremely Controversial Theory. Big Part Of The “Culture Wars” In the 1980s And 1990s.

5. Critical Literacy • “Learning to read and write as part of the process of becoming conscious of one’s experience as historically constructed within specific power relations” –Anderson & Irvine 1993 • “Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional cliches, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse.” - Ira Shor • “Reading the Word and the World” –Paulo Freire

6. Multiple Literacies • Technology • Connection between literacy and social, political, and economic spheres • “Design” and “Redisign” of social, economic, and public lives • Multiple perspectives • Multilingualism • Developing Metalinguistic Knowledge

7. Principles of SocioculturalTheoryof Reading • Literacy is a social practice of classrooms, communities, workplaces, places of worship, homes, and so forth. (Luke& Freebody, 1990) • The mind is social, cultural, and embedded in the world – it is always situated in specific sociocultural practices and experiences (Gee, 2000) • Knowledge is present when students are socially engaged in discussion or collaborative learning activities (Gee, 2000)

8. Aligning Sociocultural Theory of Reading With Historical Eras Era: Sociocultural Learning (1986-1995) Alexander & Fox, 2004 • group orientations replace earlier view of individualistic learning • shared understanding of the many, rather than the private knowledge of one • learning as a sociocultural, collaborative experience • learner as a member of a learning community

9. Conditions That Prompted Sociocultural Theory of Reading • Students did not benefit from explicit instruction designed to improve text-based learning • Vygotsky – students should be exposed to naturally occurring texts in natural settings – homes, classrooms, workplace • Tor many students the literacy practices of the home and local communities do not map onto standard literacy practices in school. • It is through social interaction that students learn Alexander & Fox, 2004

10. Sociocultural Theory From Two Directions • Language Evolves in a Social and Cultural Space – AAVE • Genres and Discourse Evolve From a Social and Cultural Space – Youth Culture

11. The 6 Major Paradigms • Technical Paradigm • “Cultural Literacy” Paradigm • Neuroscience/Skills Paradigm • Multiple Literacies/New Literacies Paradigm • Sociocultural Literacy Paradigm • Critical Literacy Paradigm