Securing literacy requires finding a balance between student engagement and retention of skills. Assessments must be relevant and authentic, like podcasts or social media ads assessing theme comprehension. Thinking routines help build literacy skills through technological, situational, deliberate, and dialectical reflection. Students can strengthen informational text reading by examining craft, purpose, ideas, and details. Technology allows boundary-free instruction and collaboration globally, but must be monitored to prevent misuse while cultivating exposure to other cultures.

1. SECURING
LITERACY

2. LITERARY SECURITY
• Securing literacy is a recursive and cyclical process.
Student and teachers must find a balance between
engagement and retention.
• To ensure that, that balance is achieved,assessments have
to be relevant and authentic. Examples of this would be
creating a podcast to assess students' ability to determine
the theme of a story and how the plot helps it unfold.
Another way to gauge understandingwould be to allow
students to create social media advertisements to
illustrate their comprehension of persuasive writing.

3. SOLIDIFYING LITERARY SKILLS
• Thinkingroutines provide a healthy level of retention. They help the participant build and
develop their literary skills. Accordingto Lana M. Danielson, author of "Fostering Reflection,"
states that "technological, situational, deliberate, and dialectical...[are] useful for making
routine decisions to the higher-level reflection needed for complex dilemmas." Reading complex
texts is one of the greatest challenges faced in the educational system. Being able to think,
comprehensively, can remove the struggles students face while reading. The following slides
provide a deeper glimpse into the aforementioned thinking routines.

4. FORMULAIC/TECHNOLOGICAL
• Technologicalor formulaic thinking is based on prepackaged knowledge from an external
source. It relies on practices that have proven efficient and effective.

5. SITUATIONAL THINKING
• When teachers make decisions using situational thinking, they focus only on information
embedded in a specific context at a specific time, such as student behavior they are observingin
the moment. They reflect quickly and act on a problem immediately.

6. DELIBERATE THINKING
• With deliberate thinking, an educator purposefully seeks more information than the immediate
context provides by, for example, revisitingtheory, talking with colleagues, interviewing
students or reviewingstudent records. The goal is to learn more to better understand the
dilemma.

7. DIALECTICAL THINKING
• The dialectical mode builds on deliberate thinkingto gain understandingof a situation and
generate solutions. The greater a teacher's ability to suspend judgment and the broader the
repertoire of pedagogical strategies, the more flexible dialectical thinkingwill be.

8. READING SKILLS: INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
• Students can strengthen their informationaltext reading skills by engaging in the following:
• Examine the author's craft.
• Analyze the author's purpose, ideas, and reasons.
• Cleary identify the main ideas, relevant and specific supporting details, sequence of events,
relationship among ideas, facts and opinions.

9. INCORPORATING TECHNOLOGY
• Technology has transitioned our society into a world of instantaneous convenience. This
transition can be seen and felt in the classroom as well. Today's classrooms have been
deliberately digitalized and positioned to compete in the 21st century. Our learning and
teaching have been greatly impacted and influenced by technology. Educators have to
intentionally make sure that the classroom layout is conduciveto optimal student success and
accessibility. Those ideals entail that everything is physically, collaboratively, and theoretically
and conceptually attainable. Technology ensures that all of those things are within reach.

10. INCORPORATING TECHNOLOGY CONTINUED...
• Leading our students into the future requires the use of technology to provide a new reality of
physicality. For example, teachers are able to provide boundary-freeinstruction. Teachers can
teach and reach students who are sitting two feet away from them or thousands of miles away.
Students are positioned to use tools like virtual reality and avatars. These digital tools help
students see themselves through their own lenses and perspectives. Unfortunately, they can be
abused by acting as disguises or places to conduct inappropriateactivities and behaviors.
Keeping an understandingbetween all parties involved, can minimizethese cons.

11. INCORPORATING TECHNOLOGY CONTINUED...
• Being able to collaborate through technology has been a saving grace for a lot of people,
cultures, and subcultures. With that said, open channels of communicationhave been expanded
and enlarged with technology. Students are presented with the opportunity to communicate
with other students from different cultures, countries, and backgrounds. These powerful
channels of communication have opened up a higher level of exposure to different languages.
Students are able to communicate via Teams, Zoom, or social media. This heightened exposure
is beneficial to the well-roundedness of the student. On the darker side, these platforms can also
be cyberbullyinghavens. Making sure that these channels are being properly monitored,will
add a layer of safety.

12. IN CONCLUSION
• In conclusion, securing literary skills is a multi-faceted process that requires dedication,
determination, and expertise.