INTRODUCTION

Literacy can be defined as the acquisition of essential knowledge and skills that enables

individual to participate actively in all the different activities in which it is necessary in the

development of reading and writing. Being able to identify written and spoken language in and

around our environment.

Being literate is important in developing a strong sense of belonging. Persons who developed

strong reading skills are known to be better performers in school and have a healthier self-image.

They become lifelong learners who are equipped employees. (Dr. Kirk Panneton).

The development of literacy plays a crucial part of the child’s initial growth. It is the core for

performing well at school, literacy skills helps children to socialize well with colleagues and

other people, develop problem-solving skills, decision making, being independent, and are wise

at money management, and are able to work in a dynamic world. Hence, before any child is able

to read and write, they need to develop the foundation for literacy – being able to speak, listen,

read, and write. For the grade one student to have the ability to read and write fluently,

developing literacy skills helps students to be well rounded citizens, these skills are as follows:

Phonemic Awareness, and Visual Discrimination.

Firstly, Phonemic Awareness is described as the ability to listen and articulate phonemes (talked

sounds), without the access of print. In other words, children should be able to listen and say

letter sounds without seeing them and be mindful of sound acknowledgement. It plays an

imperative part of learning the connection between letters and sounds. It is important to help

students develop their Phonemic Awareness because it has nothing to do with intelligence but in
more ways than one, equip children to be ready for later reading instruction in in the future.

(Adams et al, 1998).

In addition to that, Visual discrimination is a skill that allows children to make differentiations

between color, shape, size, orientation, and position (Pams, 2013). The grade one students have

limited knowledge of letters because maybe their visual discrimination is not fully developed.

Thus, it is very important for teachers and parents to address this issue because in the event that

the child do not know the difference between letter, “b” from the letter, “p,” the child may end

up reading the word incorrectly “bat” as “pat.” These letters may look the same to a child who

is just learning to read. These skills need to be taught and practice as it prepares them for

reading letters and words.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE THEORY

The constructivism theories were developed by Jean Piaget, his theory is known to be as one of

the very first theorists in this area of study. His theories points out that human create knowledge

through the interaction among their ideas and experiences.

Jean Piaget came up with this theory when he was working at Binet Institute in the 1920s, where

his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became

intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required

logical thinking.

He thinks that when the student answer incorrect showed him the huge and important

differences between the thinking of adults and children. What Piaget wanted to do was not to

measure how well children could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q.

What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of

number, time, quantity, causality, justice and so on emerged.

Piaget decided to study on his own with a new set of assumptions about children’s intelligence:
Assimilation, this is when we take in new information in our previously current schema is called

assimilation. The brain is like a machine that process. It takes in different forms of information,

which includes thoughts, emotions, and cultural knowledge.

Adaptation, this is a twofold process which involves both assimilation and accommodation,

which are the essence of intelligent behaviour.

The importance of the theorist work Constructivist learning can be transferred. In a classroom

which are constructivist classrooms, students create principles that are organizing that they can

take with them to employ in other learning settings.

Firstly, learning should be whole, authentic and real in order to be effective. Constructivism

allows students to gives ownership of what they learn, since learning is based on students'

receiving new information and replacing it with the previous knowledge Because learner mind

are open to receive new information students will be able to express themselves in a variety of

ways. This knowledge will likely to be retained and can be used in real world situation.

Secondly, learning is an active process rather than passive,

Activity

Assimilation, the process of receiving new information or responding to new position in

obedience to with what is already available in consciousness (Miriam Webster)

An activity that can stimulate constructivism in the real world situation is the KWL chart

students will be reading a book name three little rabbits. The KWL stands for what you want
Know about the topic, what you want to know about a topic and what they learn at the end of the

topic. This strategy is easy to apply and will help the students to learn before reading, during

reading and after reading. This strategy is connected to the constructivist theory because it helps

the students to build on existing knowledge and accommodates new information.

1. Know

Student will be given a KWL Chart or teacher can ask the students to draw the table one on a

piece of paper or in their books. Students will show the students a book titles the three little

rabbits question students to see what they already know have discussion with them about what

they already know about the story. students will record a what they want to learn in the K

column.

2. Want to Know

Base on the selected picture learners will discuss what they would like to learn about the story, or

teacher will be asking different questions they have about the story in the W column.

3. Learned

At the end of reading the story ask the students if the get any clarification to the questions they

wrote down in the W column. Allow the students to write what they learn in the L column.

The skill that this can be used to develop is reading, during reading a child write and read using

synthetic,. The development of reading based on the constructivist approach is that the learner

have to construct their knowledge of reading each learner has a toolkit of knowledge and skills in

the schema which they use in order to develop the meaning of new information so in reading the
learner will decipher the word base on the understanding they have therefore a learner can only

make sense of a new word base on their existing schema.