Code Breaker - Functional Literacy

As a child my mum always provided me with every learning aid possible. Like the fairy tales she read to me before bed she displayed posters around my room with the alphabet letters and visual images to assist with my learning of the pronunciation of each letter.

Mum would read out the letters to me A is for Apple B is for Bird and so on until we completed the chart. Before long I was reading the chart by myself and identifying other words that started with the same letter like B is for Bees and C is for Cat. As I continued my learning at school mum created cards with particular words on them and through the same way I had learnt the alphabet I began to understand the words on each card recognising the symbols and "sounding out" my letters.

The literacy process I was undertaking was the role of 'code breaker' described by Freebody and Luke as the individual’s ability to break down the codes and conventions of texts in written, visual or spoken forms (1999).

So what is functional Literacy?

It can be identified as a way of teaching people how to understand texts well enough to function in a complex society (SIL International 1999). Functional literacy gives students the applicable or useful life skills needed to socialise and work in today's society. If we consider this in a school setting using the methods of functional literacy as teachers we are then providing inclusivity and equitable practices in our classroom.