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by Dwain Gill, Liandra Ifill, Dshara Scantlebury and Audra Taoum
Literacy has emerged as one of the most dynamic concepts of the decade. Although there has been much improvement worldwide in literacy rates – 85.60 per cent in 2015 and 86.68 per cent in 2020 – there are still many challenges that persist among nations. Indeed, the recent UNESCO report states that there are still “771 million illiterate people around the world, most of whom are women, who lack basic reading and writing skills” (https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/1d-2022-cn-en.pdf).
In Barbados, although universal access to primary and secondary education is provided for the student population, yet many students leave secondary school without mastering the basic literacy skills necessary to make a meaningful contribution to the society.
Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has magnified literacy concerns both locally and internationally since there are many school-aged children who have not been able to maximise the benefits to be accrued from online education because of lack of devices, relevant infrastructure, and the parental support needed to access online classes.
Every year, UNESCO draws attention to the importance of literacy through its worldwide celebration of International Literacy Day.
This year’s theme, Transforming Literacy Learning Spaces, affords us an opportunity to reconceptualize literacy learning spaces inclusive of the physical environment, and the learning materials and activities required to facilitate learning within these spaces.
Additionally, the socio-cultural environment and the political and governmental landscape have coalesced to either hinder or support the changes that are needed in order for children to be able to continue their literacy development in the face of growing challenges.
Moreover, due to the changing definition of literacy globally, literacy learning has moved beyond the traditional classroom to the home, to the community, to the workplace, and to the virtual space to ensure the continuation of learning, not only for children, but also for adults.
The rapid switch to digital education engendered by the COVID-19 pandemic over the last three years, though challenging, has provided opportunities for literacy education to be rebirthed in homes and among families. Parents were forced to bear a large burden of instructing their children over the period.
As a result, the home as a learning space has also been transformed, as many information technology devices have landed on beds, countertops, and dining room tables.
Some even found their way out into gardens and under breadfruit trees in the hands of eager learners. But these devices have not always made things easy for the student nor the teacher. Internet issues have plagued the process, causing much mental stress and lack of interest on the part of students and parents.
In some cases, infrastructural issues have rendered some homes incapable of accommodating the technology, increasing inequalities in education and broadening the digital divide.
Additionally, those parents who are not technologically savvy were hampered in their attempts to assist their children. What these issues have unearthed is the need for more parents to get their hands dirty with technology in the home so that they can give greater support to their children and can better assist them in navigating the digital education space in the home. After all, parents are the first teachers.
The traditional learning space in the school has also undergone transformation. Reading materials in the online classroom are plentiful.
In some cases, cloud storage can be used as a virtual library which allows both teachers and parents to monitor and assess the language development of students. Along with virtual libraries, some online educational resources and materials are still being offered free of cost.
Likewise, websites with free reading and literacy content would have been curated by teachers during the early stages of online learning. These new realities have put thousands of resources in the hands of teachers from the nursery to the tertiary level. This augurs well for the development
of literacy skills.
Assessment, too, has undergone change. The virtual classroom and its associated applications (Google forms and Google docs) assist in the assessment process of language arts concepts. Such tools significantly decrease the time teachers would need in order to assess students’ school work while diversifying assessment strategies and allowing students to know where they may have made errors.
Auto correction, text-to-speech applications, audiobooks, educational games, videos and read-along online materials are ideal tools for helping students with their spelling, phonemic awareness and a general understanding of language and literacy content in a fun way.
It must be noted that such resources prove to be advantageous in the home environment as they promote parental involvement and assistance, thereby giving students a formidable support system for learning.
Another advantage was that instruction models like asynchronous tasks in the virtual classroom allowed students to work at their pace, which is intrinsic to some aspects of language and literacy instruction.
The pandemic has also brought the concept of lifelong learning alive in the workplace and the community at large, transforming them into vibrant literacy learning spaces as individuals have had to quickly learn how to perform various tasks within the digital space.
At the beginning of the pandemic, many employees found it difficult to adapt to the use of digital tools and working remotely from home was a foreign concept.
Therefore, learning how to learn has been one of the positive spinoffs of the COVID-19 pandemic and has resulted in literacy transformation in many workplaces and communities.
With many offices and businesses having to lock their doors due to the onslaught of the virus, employees have had to hone new skills and work without supervision. There is a sense in which returning to the pre-pandemic model of operation in many businesses seems impossible since employees have embraced the more flexible working models.
If we are going to effectively establish new learning spaces, policies must be modernised to accommodate this goal. After all, measures and protocols would have to be established for the comfort and safety of learners.
The Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training provided materials and professional development resources to assist teachers in navigating the online environment. This helped teachers to transform their delivery of instruction and promote student expression through literacy and other disciplines.
The policy of employing user-friendly platforms like Google Classroom established a sense of standardisation
in schools and other learning spaces. Other policies such
as the provision of hardware and devices for students mitigated the prospect of some students being disadvantaged in online classes.
One notable policy introduced during the practice of online learning was the curfew on screen time. Bailey (2014) mentions health issues related to close-up vision, such as eye discomfort, neck strain, headaches, difficulty focusing, and even emotional problems.
We can only imagine the impact this could have on students’ literacy skills. The American Academy of Paediatrics (2018) and other sources established a correlation between declining literacy rates, bad behaviour and excess screen time. Therefore, the concept of the curfew
is beneficial.
Thus, as we in Barbados pause to celebrate International Literacy Day 2022, there is a clarion call for all of us to renew our commitment to literacy and lifelong learning. There must be a willingness to embrace and promote the changes that are taking place within the various literacy learning spaces.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical importance of literacy for sustainable development. Our recovery from this cruel crisis rests, in a large measure, on our ability to continue the process of transformation of our literacy learning spaces so that both children and adults hone the skills needed to move our society forward.
This article was submitted in celebration of International Literacy Day 2022 Authors: Dwain Gill, Liandra Ifill, Dshara Scantlebury and Audra Taoum M.Ed. Graduate Students, Language and Literacy Education 2022-2023 School of Education, Cave Hill Campus.
