Learning to write

As children we were taught the proper formation of letters of the alphabet, lower and upper case, and in most instances we were taught cursive.  We were taught proper syntactic and semantics of writing along with the various formats of essay writing, but what for?  As I have grown older and experienced the required practice of assignment writing, it was not until I began to write without a purpose, or for an assignment, that I understood the individual satisfaction of writing.  It is not to say that I do not appreciate the rigor of practicing format and structure, but was content, creativity and descriptive writing forgotten?  Maybe not, but for me as a child, those things definitely took back seat to being grammatically correct. As I have begun the process to teach others about writing, I have begun to think about writing differently.  Does being a writer mean being a booklover?  Does reading correlate to being a better writer?  I am not sure of the answer to these questions, but from what I am learning, it definitely does not hurt to be a person who reads, when it comes to writing. 

I have begun reading the book titled Bird by Bird, written by Anne Lamott, a realistic and funny guide to the challenges that writing can bring; the title comes from the idea that writing comes in steps, processes and ideas.  Lamott describes her struggle with choosing writing as her career path, but she finds value in teaching others about the truth of writing.  As Lamott describes, “good writing is about telling the truth….(yet) telling the truth in an interesting way turns out to be about as easy and pleasurable as bathing a cat” (pp.3).  From reading parts of her book, I understand that teaching others to love writing can be challenging, because writing is challenging.  Most people want to be good at new things immediately, but most of us are not; we need practice, and more practice and most importantly we need connection to what we are writing. 

I am currently working with a young reader and writer, whom is just at the beginning stages of the writing process.  According to Barbara Fox, and her book ,“Word Identification Strategies, he is in the stage of partial alphabetic, meaning he is just beginning to understand the alphabetic principle  (Fox p.18).  As I have begun to work with him, I quickly learned that his favorite thing in the world is SpongeBob.    I have decided to use this knowledge to help gain his attention, by incorporating SpongeBob literature and books into our interactions.  Through his own personal interest in SpongeBob I hope to gain his curiosity in learning more about reading and writing.  My goal as a teacher is to help motivate and facilitate honest, creative ideas while maintaining the principle that we all make mistakes and we just need to use those mistakes to help us learn.   

Week 2

As a child, I learned to read typically, meaning that I do not remember struggling with reading or having any negative memories associated with learning to read.   I also do not remember the method or methods that I was taught to read, phonics maybe, but I cannot be sure.  After reading “Word Identification Strategies,” by Barbra Fox, I was surprised by the amount of phonemic strategies used to help all types of learners at any level to read. 

What I have learned is that to teach someone to read requires very specific intentions, what I mean by this is that the strategies teachers use to facilitate a reader will be specific to their reading needs; there are a lot of ways to read and there are a lot of ways to teach kids to read.  According to Fox, it is important to use phonics and teach phonic awareness to young readers.  Phonics is helpful to young readers because it connects what the students already know, spoken language, and connects it to identifying written words that they do not recognize. 

As a teacher, it is so important to understand the stages associated with learning to read, with this knowledge comes the ability to apply different strategies to best help the stage the specific learner is at.  The quicker a reader can learn word identification strategies, the quicker they can develop their comprehension skills. 

Week One, Post One

What does being literate in our country mean?


When I heard this question, the first thing that popped into my head was power; being literate in our country means to be at an advantage. To better understand why I feel this way, I cannot help but think about the feelings I have had in foreign countries where I was unable to make sense of texts that surrounded me; I felt nervous, insecure, and vulnerable, I was dependent on those around me to make sense of what I could not. These feelings were unknown to me and scary, being able to read is vital. I cannot help but wonder if those people in our country who are unable to read English feel this same way; whether they are young children learning or people who are learning English as a second language.

As a member of a culture that values literacy, I learned how to read pretty young. I developed typically for my age, learning in a series of steps; although I do not remember frustration, I am sure I felt it. As a soon to be educator, I am beginning to experience the challenges that exist for those learning to read. I am confident that this quarter I will learn a lot about the process of reading and strategies to help best accommodate all types of learners.

Part 2

Read-aloud books have always been an important part of my life. I have many fond memories of being read to, both at home and in the classroom. As I continue my journey into teaching, I value my many life experiences with read-alouds and believe that I will continue this form of education in my own classroom some day; but being new in the world of education, I have grappled with the challenges of wanting to teach a really awesome lesson, or book, but lacking academic substance that integrates into the curriculum. As I become savvier with my teaching, I understand that really great ideas can be modified to include standards and read-aloud storybooks can contain curriculum.

I just finished reading the article titled “Brining the Ice Maiden to life: Engaging adolescents in learning through picture book read-alouds in content areas,” this article states that it is possible to stimulate a higher level of thinking through the use of read-aloud books, while covering curriculum. As I aim to teach middle level humanities, I am fascinated by the option of using picture books as a means of supplementing content areas and stimulating a higher level of learning. Stated in the article, the author suggests approaching read-alouds with a three step process: step 1 planning, step 2 preparing, and step 3 producing. Through the combination of these three steps students engage, discuss, and become acquainted with a story’s place and time. Through choosing an appropriate book, teachers are able to facilitate learning through a story book, instead of through a regular style of instruction.

As I learn more throughout our program, I become more and more excited upon learning about the different ways to engage my students.