Essential questions assessment

After reading these three articles, defining literacy can be a very difficult thing. Nowadays, it encompasses so many skills, not like in the past. Just because some countries are less literate then others it does not mean they do not have the ability to learn. . Maybe their lifestyles revolve around oral communication and understanding. Perhaps their lifestyle requires no written text at all.
Another area of interest after reading these articles comes from me questioning how literacy is taught in the classroom. It is true that with NCLB, every child should have the same opportunity to learn and develop. However, this is not always the case. In many classes, there are teachers who are not allowed to deviate from the curriculum. In these classrooms, students are just learning the letters and sounds (characters) the teachers give them at a fast past. If children are not given opportunities to develop at their own level or in their own way, then reading can become a hardship on them. One would think that urban school settings would be more open to new ways of teaching literacy being that their literacy scores are proficiently lower then suburban scores (Wikipeida).
In the Greatest Art for the Littlest Readers article, people are working to step out of the box of tradition reading and writing skills. They are moving towards a way to join the arts and literature. Using children’s art work and combining two mediums s a great way to get kid’s interested in reading and at their own level. Children’s art work should be explored and tapped into for understanding a child’s skills. Who’s really to say which teaching ethic is better?
I question how is it that some schools embrace diverse reading curriculums while others have to stick to what their departments deem successful practice? If people are finding correlations between other medias and literacy, why not deviate from the norm and experiment with new ways of reading, writing, and the like? I believe there are endless ways to connect to a child and their reading ability. I also agree that teachers should not be silent about what they believe in. Teachers are the one in the classroom and their voices need to be head because they know what works. Tapping into other forms of literacy may be a great way for children to developmental grow.