What I Believe About Literacy Learning & Teaching
And How I
Came To Believe It
I don’t
remember a time in my life when I couldn’t read. I remember my mother reading to my sister,
father, and me after dinner on winter nights around the wood stove in the living
room. Outstanding in my memory of those
times are books like the Chronicles of
Narnia, the Tolkien series, and even The
House of Seven Gables. In that same
cozy room, my sister and I lay with our heads near the radio to hear the
current book being read on NPR on Saturday nights before bed. I spent any free time flopped on my bed or
draped over a chair reading novels of all sorts. My sister and I were well known at the library
for routinely checking out fifteen books a week. And, as I got a little older,
I began to haunt used book sales, looking for those deals that allowed for the
purchaser to fill a paper grocery bag for a dollar.
I
often tried to write books and still have many of my outlines, story ideas, and
partial stories. Books were my window
into the world and the more I learned of it through my reading adventures, the
more I wanted to try my hand at creating my own worlds. My family didn’t have a TV, VCR, or computer,
so outside of music, reading was my downtime habit.
I
think it served me well. I have a fair
command of vocabulary and conventional spelling and language usage. I still enjoy writing, although my adult goal
is to be published. I worry some about
my own children and if their environment is rich enough because we do have a
TV, VCR, and computer. We have chosen
not to have cable, but have a collection of favorite movies instead. My children do not know how to access the
internet. Instead, we have a few
stimulating games, and they know how to access word files and paint programs
whenever they would like. I have been
pleased with the emphasis on arts integration in my children’s classrooms
because they spend most of their spare time acting out stories and drawing all
kinds of wonderful things. My oldest son
is a reader, and so I have complete confidence that he is well-prepared for the
years of learning ahead of him and, really, even beyond. But, until all my children embrace a reading
lifestyle, I admit to nagging concern for their well-being in the future.
So
that would be the foundation to my literacy beliefs. Children need to become readers. However, I also believe that they need to
experience their environment in a variety of different ways. Although I didn’t get to experience the arts
integration, I have been impressed with the worlds that my children access
through their playing and drawing. Those
activities seem to be key elements to literacy as well.
Integration
across the curriculum is also fundamental in my opinion. A teacher can accomplish more curriculum
goals in shorter time through integration.
Children also seem to gain keener understanding of the skills being
taught when they aren’t always separated out into individual pieces. Therefore, my classrooms tend to read, write,
draw, sing, dance, and explore as part of our daily experiences. That doesn’t apply only to my elementary
grade experiences, but to middle and secondary as well. Once my older students recognized that those
were serious and real expectations, they rose to the occasion and seemed to
enjoy themselves in the learning process.
Literacy
is fundamental to broad and ongoing academic and life skill acquisition. It is a world that must be opened up,
explored, and enjoyed. Classrooms need
to embrace that world if children are to succeed in their quest for
knowledge. I love being a teacher
because I love the challenge of creating environments that help my students
broaden and enlighten their world view.
I
know that hasn’t always been why I wanted to be a teacher. My earliest memories of wanting to teach
involve my neighborhood friends coming to my yard in the summer so that I could
“teach” them. I would make spelling and
math tests and would test and grade each child continually until they were
tired of the game and moved on. I remember
getting a two foot by three foot blackboard as a Christmas gift and being
delighted to write my name and date and math problems on it. I assume today as I look back that the way I
taught in those early days reflected the way I was being taught. I find it amazing today that I loved it and
wanted to model it!
I
also remember always being wherever younger children were as I was growing
up. Especially at church, I was most
happy in the nursery playing games with the small children. I was allowed to teach Sunday School at the age of twelve and progressively worked my way
from preschool to grade three as I got older.
I also started going to
A
pivotal point in these experiences that changed me from a mere echo of what I
saw around me to the beginning of establishing my own methodology was the
introduction of a young friend of the family who was deaf. I wanted to communicate with him and play
with him and, of course, watch over him.
However, he ONLY communicated in sign language and I had never even seen
it before. He patiently taught me
and the joy of actually being able to communicate was unfathomable. The feeling was so gratifying and addictive
that I began to shape a plan in my head that I would not just teach, but become
a teacher of the deaf! That stayed with
me for eight years – until my second year in college. At that point I discovered that the deaf
community really embraces its’ own and that I would more often be battling to
teach as opposed to being a valuable help.
That was not interesting to me, so I finally let go of my plans to get a
graduate degree in that field.
Meanwhile,
I was discovering that the same joy that I had experienced in my communications
with Daniel could also be had with regular education. However, it could only be found with diligent
and focused effort to meet my student(s) where they were, not make them follow
the old “formula” of test instruction that I had once copied. When I actually approached teaching a topic
from a new and creative perspective, not only did my students stick around but
I enjoyed it a lot more, too!
With
that epiphany, I approached my studies in education with great enthusiasm and
many long hours! I have found even
today, that I can’t seem to teach any subject without a lot of time and
preparation because I enjoy it so much.
The ultimate reward for time invested in a lesson is to watch the light
bulbs turn on as my students understand what we’re doing and enjoy it!
For
instruction in literacy, I believe that acquisition of that skill can be a
painless and enjoyable process. The teacher absolutely needs to enjoy the
process and make it interesting. One of
my favorite examples for my students in writing comes in the demonstration of “everybody
has a story tell” (a regular saying of mine).
I wait and listen and try to “catch” them telling each other one of
their daily anecdotes. At the completion
of the tale I say, if you wrote what you just said it
would be a great story! Sometimes that
can work to spark reluctant writers. My
personal theory is: once started, how can you stop!
The
final key to literacy learning comes from their habits and the environment
outside of school. I believe that
individual reading time makes a huge difference to literacy acquisition, as I
said before, and that is most often developed with support and encouragement at
home. That is not controllable from the
classroom, but it can certainly be influenced by the teacher. Setting expectations and motivating and
encouraging students from school can make a difference for many children.
As
for me and my house, we will continue the tradition started in my
childhood. In my own home we engage in
reading in many settings from the bedrooms to the fireplace in our living
room. My husband and I are looking
forward to this as the first winter that our children will all be old enough to
enjoy a family chapter book! I hope that
they, too, will look back on those days with fondness and find their minds
opened to the many worlds that literacy can offer.