Past Literacy Experiences

I remember reading a lot earlier than my classmates.  This is probably due to the fact that my mom read to me and my sister a lot when we were children.  We had tons of books at home, and she read them often.  Before I went to Kindergarten, I knew all of my ABCs and I could read very simple books, so I was bored a lot.  I was more advanced than my classmates, so my teacher assigned me different books to read, and would often have me go to the 1st grade classrooms to read.  Reading instruction was a lot different when I was in Kindergarten over 23 years ago.  Today, most children learn to read in Kindergarten, but I don't remember that being the case when I was younger.  More focus was on learning to read in 1st grade.

I loved to read as a child.  Early on, I fell in love with the library.  I visited the school library often, and during the summers, I remember attending programs at the public libraries and visiting the BookMobile.  When I was in school, I was a library helper.  I loved spending time there and checking out books.

My elementary school had a program called DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) where we all read for at least 15 minutes a day. I read hundreds of books during my Kindergarten through 2nd grade years.  Not only was I reading at school, but I was reading every night at home as well.  I was lucky to have parents who provided many books at home and helped me read.  I received awards for reading so many books.  Those awards kept encouraging me to read.

We also participated in the Pizza Hut Book It Program.  I had a lot of personal pan pizzas growing up!  When I was in 2nd grade, I was the only student in my classroom to be on the Reader's Honor Roll.  This meant that I completed the Book It! goal for all 5 months.  I was so proud to have my name displayed outside of our classroom door.  My teacher was proud of me too. She gave me a pink and purple caboodle box that was personalized with my name on it.  I still have it today.

Overall, I had very positive literacy experiences growing up.  I can't think of a time when I was younger that I had a bad experience with reading.  My love for reading has wavered over the years, but I feel like I am finally back in a place where I love reading again.  Now, as an adult, I love to read for pleasure, and some times for information.  

Views on Literacy

As both of the articles we read in class described, I believe that literacy has to be woven throughout everything that you do in your classroom.  I remember my teachers incorporating books into other subjects, and I feel that this is very important.

One thing that I liked about the article, "Characteristics of exemplary first-grade literacy instruction," was the detailed description that it gave of the classrooms that the authors were observing.  Creating a literacy environment is important and this article gave me a good understand of what that looks like.

The part of the article "Letting Go of 'Letter of the Week'," that really stood out to me is that you have to understand that children have literacy knowledge before they enter your classroom.  It was interesting to see how the teachers used environmental print to realize how much the students already knew before they were given any formal literacy instruction.

I found both of these articles interesting, and they definitely give me more insight into how to be a more effective teacher of literacy.  I want my students to have positive reading experiences like I had so that they will have a life long love of reading.


Articles:
Morrow, L., Tracey, D., Woo, D., & Pressley, M. (1999). Characteristics of exemplary first-grade literacy instruction. The Reading Teacher, 52(5), 462-476. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20202104?seq=1

Bell, D., & Jarvis, D. (2002). Letting go of "letter of the week".Primary Voices K-6, 11(2), 10-25.