Numeracy & Literacy Integration of this skill into all subject areas!!!!

Literacy in Canada  22% of adult Canadians have serious problems dealing with any printed materials.  An additional 24 % of Canadians can deal only with simple reading tasks.  There is a strong relationship between educational attainment and literacy level. Those with more education have higher literacy skills and those with less education have lower literacy skills.  74% of young Canadians who graduate from high school have strong literacy skills. The remaining percentage can handle simple reading and writing tasks.  Canadians with the lowest literacy skills have higher rates of unemployment (26%) and those with the highest skills have lower rates of unemployment (4%).  Each additional year of education a person receives is worth 8.3% on their pay cheque. Using an annual base salary of $30,000, this amounts to an additional $2,490 per year. (Literacy, Numeracy and Labour Market Outcomes in Canada, Statistics Canada, 2001)

Literacy: The Benefits  Once functional levels of literacy are achieved the reader is able to read text at a much faster rate than they would normally hear speech. WHY?  grammatical structures are more compressed and more varied than those of speech  Level of redundancy is low  NO pauses, hesitations, false starts  Reader may review, anticipate, skip paragraphs etc - go at own pace  greater efficiency and autonomy in reading than in hearing speech

Influences on literacy  Home life:  influence of preschool reading  financial consideration  importance of privacy and space  parental interest  Cultural compatibility hypothesis

Numeracy in Canada  Numeracy - Reading and numeracy skills are closely related  62% of Canadians have numeracy skills sufficient to handle the numerical tasks normally encountered in every day life.  24% do not possess the necessary skills to meet most everyday numeracy requirements but can deal with familiar documents that require simple math skills such as addition and subtraction.  The remaining 14% of Canadians cannot perform numerical operations consistently but can recognize numbers in isolation or in a short text.

Math Skills for everyone  Estimate in numerical or geometric situations  Question, reason and solve problems  Generate, interpret and compare data  Communicate using mathematical reasoning

Integrating Numeracy skills or Creating a Positive Math environment  Encouraging connections with everyday life  Displaying a positive attitude toward math  Help students see,hear & experience success in using math concepts  Look for opportunities for students to practice a math skill  Create an environment that shows math as sensible, useful, worthwhile

Problem Solving  Education for All MOE (2005)  “ outcomes for children across ability levels and for children with specific difficulties in Math are improved when math problem solving instruction is overt, systematic and clear!” ( pg77)  Look at pages 77 – 80 for specific information

Action #1:  Individually or with a partner go to eccurric.html  Find the 9/10 curriculum document for your subject  For each of the numeracy skills listed on slide 6 list 2 expectations that require the identified math skill

Action #2 Interview Question!  Improving numeracy capabilities amongst all students is a focus at our school. Describe for the interview team how you will integrate numeracy into your subject area

Math Resources   mathswap.ca  mathforum.org/te     