Welcome to our new and exciting RSC Literacy Hub

So, why is literacy important for our students and what is literacy? Being literate is the basis of a functioning society.

“Literacy is the ability to interpret and create texts with appropriateness, accuracy, confidence, fluency and efficacy for learning in and out of school, and for participating in Australian life more generally.” (Source: VCAA, 2016).

It means much more than being able to read and write, being literate also means:

• having the ability to develop knowledge and understanding
• being able to participate actively in the workplace, community and society (UNESCO, 2004).

Literate practices are:

• the knowledge, skills and strategies people use to understand, create, respond to, and manipulate texts.
• the literate practices we use vary depending on the type of text being read or produced; for example, print, digital, oral, or multimodal.

LOW LEVELS OF LITERACY = LOW LEVELS OF ACHIEVEMENT IN LIFE (OCED)

Data published in 2020 by the OCED confirms that the association between poor literacy achievement and unemployment is very strong, particularly for early school leavers. For young people who have not completed upper secondary school, the likelihood of being unemployed is 3 to 4 times higher than those with low literacy skills compared with those at the middle levels of achievement. Those with low literacy skills are between 11 and 25 more times likely to be unemployed than early school leavers with high levels of literacy achievement.

At Rowville Secondary College we nurture curious and powerful learners, and take literacy seriously.

Check out our RSC Literacy Hub to watch our own students share some the skills that are helping them to improve their literacy across all subjects.

literacy hub: video 2

Lila, shares in our second Literacy Hub video how using predication helps you understand the text you are reading.