When I was growing up, I remember getting excited about anything that had to do with literacy.
Instead of earning candy or Little Debbie snacks as rewards for good behavior, my sister and I would receive a new book of our choice to add to our playroom library. If we were behaving while out running errands with my mom or dad, I remember jumping up and down when I got the treat of going to the library for “Read Aloud” time. For my birthday, I remember being super excited when I received a stuffed Curious George doll. But the most cherished and memorable gift was opening a gold box that contained my very first library card. I will never forget the joy I felt having my very own card with my name on it.
Another memory I will never forget is the “Reading Tub” at my elementary school. I remember how much I couldn’t wait until library day in my class. I loved browsing the shelves for the perfect book, checking it out independently, and then sinking myself into a white porcelain tub that was painted yellow with bright colorful flowers. I would get lost in my new book underneath a bunch of soft, fluffy pillows. It was definitely one of my favorite places to be…
These experiences as a child, greatly influenced how I feel about reading and writing today. Even as an adult, one of my favorite things to do on a Friday night is go to the bookstore. It is not uncommon to find me lounging on some cushions in the childrens’ section, while sipping on a tall vanilla latte. It is where I seem to be the most relaxed and happy. Over the summer, I signed up to be a member at my local neighborhood library. I think I was just as excited to get my membership card on that morning as I was 29 years ago.
I remember loving writing just as much as I loved reading. One of my favorite activities in Miss Webb’s 3rd grade class was our weekly book report. We could read any book of our choice, and then we got to share it with the class. I loved sitting in the rocking chair and reading to my peers. I loved turning the pages, changing my voice, and asking questions when I was finished, just like my teacher did. In addition to reading the story aloud, we got to create something to go with it. It could be a book jacket, a decorated cereal box, a diorama, poster, etc. This example of an activity represents the acquisition view. "The goal of instruction is to enable students to use language for a variety of purposes. To accomplish this goal, teachers provide students with a great deal of language input and use various techniques to make the new language comprehensible. These techniques might include using gestures, pictures, and real things or reading a book with a predictable pattern and clear pictures of key words". (2004, Freeman, pg.33)
At home, my family and I would always leave notes for each other…Whether they were in our lunch boxes, on the kitchen table, in the bathroom, or stuck on the back door, we enjoyed conversing in this medium. One of my favorite places to go to for my birthday was a stationary store called Strawberry Tub. It was filled with personalized pencils, notebooks, markers, diaries, etc. I remember using this special paper to write down a list of the names of my stuffed animals, so that I could take turns sleeping with them. I would also write down my outfits for the week, right down to my socks, earrings and shoes. I I loved making lists.
Again, I feel that in my early years, I was mostly immersed in an acquisition learning environment. Because language was comprehensible to me, I was able to use it for a variety of purposes.
However, I remember receiving a lot of instruction from the "Learning" point of view as well. One memory in particular was spending a lot of time on the proper formation of a sentence and paragraph in the second grade. But when it came to writing, I do not recall my teacher necessarily telling us what we needed to write about. For the most part, we had a lot of ownership over what we decided to read and write.
In junior high, I recall a particular lesson in grammar that involved a very marked up chalkboard. We were diagramming sentences, correcting verb usage, punctuation, etc. This is an example of where my teacher's goal was to teach the language directly so that we had the ability to write out sentences in the correct form. This type of direct instruction would be considered the learning view.
I remember a lot of my literacy experiences in high school involving a lot of research. Our teacher would model the format and the correct way to research a particular subject, but we usually had the opportunity to choose a topic independently that interested us.
Overall, I believe the wonderful experiences I had with literacy growing up molded me into the
person I am today. I still enjoy picking out the perfect book, getting lost in a great story, writing about what I
have read, sharing the knowledge I learn through literature, and above all, teaching all of the wonderful
things that we can learn through reading and writing!
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