Literacy and Numeracy

The level of literacy and numeracy of students differs a lot individually at tertiary institutions. Some of them are good in reading but cannot extract the theme of the text they read. The tertiary educators dealing with literacy and numeracy should understand their learners’ skills of literacy and numeracy and accordingly plan their strategy to enable the learner to meet the demand of the course.

I would like to mention the teaching session on reading by Pariya Williams at Language Learning Centre. The learners were diverse in terms of age, gender and understanding. Among the male learners some were mature adults and three of them were young adults. Among the females also two were mature and others were young adults. They were from China and other South East Asian countries.

Rebecca (2011) mentions in her blog the following techniques for reading.

1.      Show and tell

2.      Tap into Prior Knowledge

3.      Give time to talk

4.      Pre-teach Vocabulary

5.      Use visual aids

6.      Pause , ask questions , pause , Review

 I observed some of the techniques in Pariya’s class. She used different scaffolding techniques to develop their reading. She divided the whole text into small pieces and told them to read a small part. She also applied the differentiation technique and facilitated those learners who were struggling with vocabulary. She emphasized on ‘Think Aloud’ technique in which the students discussed in groups the topic sentence and tried to understand the theme of the passage. She started with the topic sentence of the passage and the students understood that the theme of the passage is to find the causative factor of shortage of teachers in the United Kingdom. She gave them time to talk and was taking pauses and asking questions after a little pause.

Similarly the other constituents (writing and speaking) of literacy can be developed through scaffolding and differentiation techniques. The educators should try to develop their lesson plans keeping in mind the context and culture of the adult learners because these are the two essential elements to engage the adult learners.  

The New Zealand Ministry of Education (2010) launched various numeracy projects which provide guidelines for students, parents and facilitators. The online material to learn numeracy is organized.   Numeracy can be best developed in the context. The best way to start with is learning about numbers by counting the objects. The selection of objects to be counted should of their interest for example an adult farmer can be asked to count the number of sheep in the pictures. Gradually they should learn the recognition of number from 0 to 9. This can be done by displaying charts and cards. Initially the number should be written in order. Later on cards with jumbled numbers should be given to them and they should be asked to rewrite them in correct order. In this way using scaffolding and differentiation techniques the facilitator should teach them large numbers, add, and subtract, multiply and numerical word problems. The statements of the word problems should be selected with utmost care. For example: “Martin went to the supermarket. He had $25. He bought a packet of bread for $2, 1 kg. cooking oil for $6, two packets of biscuits for $1.15 each. How much did he spend in all? How much money had he left with?” The problems should be related to their daily life. I would like to give the example of a numeracy project launched by the local govt. for the farmers in my home town. It was held in the grain market in 2006. The facilitators enabled the illiterate farmers to learn about numbers by counting the sacks of wheat. They were practicing numeracy orally. How many sacks were packed each day? How many of them are loaded into the trucks? How many of them are left? After getting oral practice, they were taught to recognize the numbers through cards and feedback was taken by asking them questions about the numbers written on different objects in the market. The next step was to write the numbers and the practice was given through a number chart and they were told to count the number of sacks packed per hour and note down the number on paper by looking at the chart for each hour. They also learnt to prepare a bill for the crop sold in the last two days. The facilitator took the copies of the bill and enabled them to practice. Initially they calculated for small amount and with practice they learnt to prepare the bill for large calculation.

Alber, R. (2011). The six scaffolding strategies to use with your students. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/scaffolding-lessons-six-strategies-rebecca-alber on August 31, 2013.

The New Zealand Ministry of education. (2010). Numeracy Projects. Retrieved from http://nzmaths.co.nz/numeracy-projects on August 31, 2013.