Literacy Views From An Individual And Class Perspective Essay

From the time when I was a little boy, growing up in Graves County, Kentucky, I have had problems with my reading and writing. Things never seemed to click for me, a trait that the teachers attributed to a mild case of dyslexia mixed with a healthy dose of attention deficit disorder. I knew, however, that no disorder was the cause of my distaste of reading and writing. Rather, there was nothing really interesting surrounding me that would grab my interest in the classroom. The teachers I encountered never took any interest in what their students wanted to read or write; they developed assignments based on what the curriculum, a course of study developed by some politicians at the Board of Education, told them to

Summary of chapters: Tompkins, E Gail. (2014). Literacy for the 21st Century A Balanced Approach

As a future teacher of a fast-changing generation that searches restlessly for new interests, I believe that old and new must meet to keep the basic values of a balanced literacy. Focusing on prior knowledge, collaborating with colleagues, peers, families, and community, creating connections with our surrounding, and empowering students’ learning style throughout the process of gaining knowledge of reading and writing. Foremost, my personal philosophy of teaching literacy is based on constructivism and sociolinguistic, where hands on experience and guidance are priority in an informational world. To facilitate a child’s acquisition of literacy skills , as I plan for literacy instruction for my future classroom, I will take into consideration

Learning to read and write as a child is an experience that all can relate to. The average child learns to read and write at the early ages of three and four. Developing literacy at an early age is crucial to academic development as well as to performance in life. Early development can be just what a child needs to stimulate their minds, which in turn is assisting in the evolution of their future. The early and latter stages of development in a child’s literacy journey are the makings for their reading and writing skills. It also plays part in their analysis of obstacles as well as their developed or problematic literacy future. A child

Reading and writing have been in our lives and around our lives ever since the beginning of time. It is something we are naturally born into. Almost every human being has performed some type of reading or writing, whether they live in the big city, or whether they live in the woods. They have all performed some form of reading or writing in their life. It is human nature. We are born into it. I have many memories of reading and writing, though I may not be very fond of it when it concerns schoolwork, it is something I have naturally adjusted to and it somehow has made me, and probably everyone else around me as well, who we are today.

Since I was very young, I have had a strong passion and fascination with words, an interest that was especially encouraged by family and developed through a variety of mediums. Like most babies, my first word was rather simple: “Da-dee” (“Daddy”). When learning my alphabet and numbers, my mom would play popular kid shows of the time, including “Sesame Street” and “Arthur,” on television and on audio tapes in the car. In addition, I enjoyed singing along with various Disney tapes and childhood favorites, such as Barney, Raffi, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. “I suppose you could say I was the ‘gatekeeper of my children,’” Mom recollects. “Without a doubt, I preferred for them to listen to musical tapes that were both educational and fun and believe it or not, if we listened to a tape plenty of times, I would actually start to sing along, too!” she laughs. When I was able to start formulating short phrases and sentences,

Throughout my childhood, the idea of having a college education was greatly stressed. As a result, it was my duty as the next generational child, to excel in my studies and achieve a life of prosperity and success. Learning became the basic foundation of my growth. Therefore, my youth was overtaken by many hours spent reading and writing what was known to be correct "Standard" English. I first found this to be a great shortcoming, but as I grew older, I began to realize the many rewards acquired by having the ability to be literate.

In first grade, I had started reading, or that is what I recall as my first time. My stuttering problem was always there, but I was a “great reader” according to my teacher Ms. Brown. She was a kind elderly woman, who wanted to see everybody in her class succeed in reading a whole book. Then second grade came at the snap of a finger. There, I wrote my first paragraph full of “mumbo jumbo”. Even though I wrote my first paragraph in second grade, I did not learn about the writing process until high school. After I left high school, I learned that we had barely touched on the writing process due to a significant place in my life… College! In my first English class (Eng 180), my professor went over the ideas of rhetoric, the writing process, and discourse community. Since my old professor did not go in depth on these topics, meant that they were still fresh in my head with no place to stay. In English 280, we went into full detail on these topics and understood more about the meaning and purpose of them all. I know that the writing process includes brainstorming, researching, proofreading, revising, and etc.; however, I felt like I have been doing it all wrong for years. I have made many improvements to my writing due to English 280, but the skills that I improved in the most were researching and synthesizing.

Throughout my first year as a middle school Language Arts teacher, I have developed a theoretical understanding of what I believe are the necessary components to providing a meaningful and generative environment in which students develop and expand literacy skills. The teaching of literacy needs to include a balance of reading, writing, speaking and listening activities, and needs to be a social endeavor that provides a variety of instructional strategies to meet the needs of all diverse learners. My teaching strategies, beliefs and personality that I bring to my classroom can be characterized as a blend of two types of philosophical theories: social constructivism and relational teaching and

Literacy is defined as being literate, that is, being able to read and write in a language. My personal experience with literacy began at an early age, at the age of 4 when I began to sit and read words and letters in the back of my mother’s car. Soon enough, she would bring me a magazine called “Majed” which, in the 90’s, was a popular magazine. With this, I began even more interested in reading and writing and reviewed every word in the magazine associated with each of the short pictured stories. It was the first memory I deeply recall of literacy and it was what laid the foundation for my personal love of reading and writing. The methodology used for this is an interview. There are three interviews which are analyzed and brought together in the form of a narrative. This narrative serves to better explain the emotions and thoughts that the interviewees had about the idea of literacy.

Literacy is the cornerstone to all learning; it is imperative to future academic success. (Tracey and Morrow, 2012). Due to the significance of literacy instruction, there are a myriad of ways to teach literacy. Literacy is a complex subject, honing in on balancing reading, writing, speaking, and listening. As a result of the complexity of literacy instruction, we arrive at the age-old debate of what is the best literacy instruction. My philosophy of literacy instruction centralizes around the Whole Language Theory and Balanced Literacy; however, I also blend in additional theories/approaches to teach effective literacy.

Throughout my time writing at the City College of New York, I experienced a slow and dramatic transition to my first semester of this college course. During that time, I've learned from several feedback and lessons from certain peers and my professor. Because of the strict comments written in my drafts by my professor, a few helpful suggestions to include in my writing, and a few miserably failures, I was able to see how my writing and habits have changed during the duration of this course. Back in high school, I was always comfortable writing only five paragraph essays (Introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion), but I've never expected to write something more complex. Here, I was encouraged to include as much detail as I can instead of writing something vague

Is it important to be a literate person in today’s society? The ability to function well depends on whether or not a person is literate and can comprehend what is going on around them. If a person doesn’t have the basic ability to read, they will feel the stress and dependency on others because of their illiteracy. Illiteracy is a big problem because without the knowledge of reading, illiterate people can’t perform daily tasks and responsibilities in daily life. When all it would take is a mere two minutes out of your day, don’t you think illiteracy can be helped or even extinguished?

I wouldn’t say that I am a good writer, and I really don’t like to read books either. Through my years in school I became literate in these two categories. I was and still am not interested in writing, or reading books in my spare time. The only writing I have ever done is for school. Writing just does not interest me, and the only reading I do out of class is reading about sports in magazines, or reading the news, or looking at web pages. I have only read a couple of books on my own, 95% of all the books I have read have been for school. The reason for not writing out of class is probably attributed to the fact that I am a very impatient person, and I have a short attention span. I have no interest in writing and reading so when

Many students are passed on through the education system without having proper reading skills. These skills consist of fluency, comprehension, and phonemic awareness. Reading skills are foundational building blocks for elementary aged students. Students who lack proper reading skills, such as fluency or the rate in which they read, will ultimately lack comprehension of what they are reading due to the amount of time in which it takes the students to read. This leads to the question, how does fifth grade students lack of fluency affect his or her reading comprehension? Unfortunately, because reading skills taught in kindergarten and first grade focus mainly on phonemic