Multiple Literacies

There were many great points made by Mari Haneda in her article, "Becoming Literate in a Second Language: Connecting Home, Community, and School Literacy Practices" but I was absolutely taken back by the story about a young Cambodian ELL student named Nan.  Nan was the child of two parents who were not considered literate in any language, but she was still able to practice her literacy and improve her English skills both at home and at school.  At home she would write and act out her own plays, the text being supported or sometimes altogether supplemented with pictures or oral narratives when she had things she wasn't able to express in writing.  But at school, even though she was able to do these thing at home, she was considered below the bar and less literate than she should be because she was not able to easily comprehend textbooks.

This was truly eyeopening to me.  It was clear example of how I feel about literacy and determining whether someone is literate or not.  I do not think that literacy is something that can be measured on a common scale.  In other words, I don't think that each child's literacy can be determined using the same book.  I think that each child's talents and different techniques need to be taken into account.  The problem with this is, teacher's cannot be at home with every student.  Therefore, teachers cannot see all of the things that students are doing at home to prove their literacy that they don't get the chance to show or demonstrate at school.

Personally, I think that it would be ridiculously fascinating to see how "literate" children are in school compared to how "literate " they are in school.  This makes me wonder if we're missing something or doing something wrong.  Nan isn't the only child I've heard of who seems to be more literate at home.  Some children need other ways to express themselves (like in Nan's case) and other children feel too pressured at school.  I think literacy is something that requires at least a little bit of freedom, even if it is as simple as allowing children to choose their own books to read rather than assigning one to them.  I think this is the case because like I said previously, I don't think literacy can be measured one single way, I think it is something that is very different student to student and there cannot be one set standard for it.