KAT
Promotes Literacy for Democracy
Reflections on Literacy
Addressing
Your Concerns:
Literacy:
Necessary but NOT Sufficient
Gleanings
from the Field:
From Vocabulary Exercises to KAT Applications
Notes
about the Centerfold Lesson
Using KAT to Enhance
Literacy, Comprehension & Civic Action
CenterFold
Lesson
Aspects of the Literacy Issue for KAT Study
Adding
to Your Resource Base
BreakOut
Lesson
Literacy for Democray
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Adding to Your Resource Base
With
literacy the focus of so many programs and organizations,
it may be hard to comprehend why it remains such a serious
problem in so many of our communities. Yet even literate adults
are often reading less than previous generations. This means
that our citizens may be limiting their exposure to diverse
voices/opinions/experiences, and become increasingly prey to
manipulation, media hype and over-simplification.
 The
Internet could help
to counter some of these dangers by offering access to government,
university, and private research, professional journals and
viewpoints. However, indiscriminate or uncritical use of
such information can also present dangers. Furthermore, much
of the use of the Internet is for gambling and other forms
of “adult” entertainment,
rather than for edification. Use reputable sources. Teach the
students how to decipher which sources are likely to be more
reliable than others and why. The University of California
, Berkeley Library System has an Internet workshop to help
teach responsible use of the Internet: www.lib.berkeley.edu (Use
Search to find tutorials from Teaching Library on the subjects
of Finding Information on the Internet or Evaluating Web Pages,
or click to Instruction & Tours, and then click onto Workshops
or Tutorials.)
Your
local libraries remain fabulous resources. Classical advice
still holds: Befriend your reference librarian! Beyond
that, tap into the American Library Association website
(www.ala.org).
You can read about ALA ’s family literacy initiatives
across the country. You may also want to probe the importance
of “information literacy” which is akin to learning
the skills for information access, analysis and application – essentially
lifelong learning. Most states and regions have their own
ALA chapters (PA Library Association: www.palibraries.org )
and there are additional professional associations(for instance,
Pennsylvania School Librarians Association: www.psla.org ),
all of which could also provide meaningful local partners
to benefit your KAT class.
Find
publishers of materials at appropriate reading levels that
engage your students’ interests and can prompt
further research and discussion into the topic. For example, The
Rosen Publishing Group has hundreds of high interest,
low reading proficiency titles ranging from Coping with an
Illiterate Parent to Hearing the Pitch: Evaluating All Kinds
of Advertising . Use a variety of written formats – news
articles, poems, letters, songs, etc. - as springboards for
lessons.
Check
out these literacy-oriented organizations to get started:
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