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Portrait of a Learner PK-3

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Portrait of a Learner PK-3 > Factors > Core Academic Literacies

Core Academic Literacies

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How Core Academic Literacies connects to...

In early childhood, children learn through play and experience, gaining knowledge from the world around them. When children begin formal education, they start to further develop fluency with skills related to Core Academic Literacies such as mathematical reasoning, scientific reasoning, language and literacy, the arts, social studies, and technology, into their understanding of how the world works. Mastering skills and fluency in the core subject areas is essential for developing academic literacy, and for supporting young people in becoming active participants in school and society.

Main Ideas

To develop fluency in different academic content areas, students must learn and understand key vocabulary, principles, and relationships within a content area. Over time and with repeated opportunities to make meaning, learners can then organize this information into a conceptual framework, or schema, in Long-term Memory, which becomes a part of their Background Knowledge upon which they can readily draw from and continue to build new schema, fluency, and skills. Core Academic Literacies can include the following:

  • Mathematical Thinking entails basic number sense, spatial reasoning, measurement, abstraction and patterns, and mathematical language and Communication.
  • Scientific Reasoning, often driven by Curiosity, includes fluency with observation, making connections like cause and effect, using Critical Thinking to develop and ask questions, make predictions, engage in experimentation, and document observations.
  • Reading and Writing Literacies, a key aspect of Communication, include foundational reading skills such as print and alphabet knowledge, basic handwriting skills, phonics and decoding skills, vocabulary, comprehension, narrative and storytelling skills.
  • Digital Literacies can include basic technical skills with digital devices, digital media awareness, online safety, and digital etiquette and citizenship.
  • Arts Literacy Invokes Creativity and imagination, and can include: interpreting and communicating with visual elements such as color and shapes; musical elements like rhythm, melody, and harmony; theater, and movement. Arts literacy can support motor skill development, and allow for exploration of different perspectives and cultures, and can be a gateway to other literacies,
  • Social Studies includes learning about and asking questions about society, culture, community relationships and learners' roles in these contexts. It includes basic concepts of community, cultural diversity, geography, history, and is central to a learners' Civic Mindedness.

One of the most powerful ways to use this knowledge is to be able to draw on multiple disciplines and understand how they are connected, to find solutions to real world problems. When students are supported in integrating and applying content knowledge across disciplines and settings, it enables learners to use higher-order learning skills such as Critical Thinking, Collaboration, and Communication to continue to build and apply their knowledge and build deeper networks of knowledge. Having a deeper understanding of content knowledge includes the Metacognitive ability and insight into when and how to use this knowledge in new situations, including inside and outside of the classroom.

While students who have difficulties achieving in these areas may simply have variations in reaching developmental milestones, when students have difficulty with clusters of skills, it can be an early sign of a learning disability or ADHD. For example, students with ADHD may show deficits in Long-term memory due to disruption in the process of encoding and students with dyslexia often have trouble with reading and writing literacies and Communication skills. And students who are eventually diagnosed with developmental dyscalculia often have challenges with key aspects of mathematical thinking but also with reading and writing literacies.

Educators can support their students by first acknowledging that young children are capable of mastering all core academic literacies including math, science, and engineering, and the value that these early experiences have on student learning and academic success as students progress. In addition, by teaching learners information about how systems work (like how the parts of a cell work together) before asking them to memorize facts or details (like the names of different parts of the cell), educators can provide learners with a framework to help them organize new knowledge, and can increase students' Motivation for learning—because an understanding of cause and effect is often more interesting for learners than just memorizing facts. When students are held to high expectations and given room to explore their interests and curiosities and answer real-world across disciplines and contexts, they can see the value in their learning and become empowered to apply their skills and knowledge in new ways to continue their learning.

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