Information Skills

Information literacy skills are essential for students when integrated with the core curricular areas. These skills enable students to improve and enhance their learning of the other basic skills. Classroom instruction in all subject areas requires students to access, analyze, evaluate, organize, and use information from a wide variety of resources. Students must be able to synthesize information and construct meaning to solve problems, make decisions, and communicate ideas and information in a variety of formats (print, graphical, audio, video, multimedia, web-based) to meet academic and personal needs. Developing, practicing and refining these skills at all grade levels enable students to be effective learners and to make the connection between classroom learning and resources (print, non-print, and electronic), whether accessed in the classroom, library media center, or community. This practice is known in educational literature as resource-based learning. (Haycock, 1991, p. 15-22)