Righting Ain't So Ez

    Several Sundays ago, I spent the day babysitting for two of my nephews and one of my nieces. We had a lazy Sunday filled with reading, snacking, and board games. Towards the afternoon, my sister called an asked me to help Eily with her homework. Eily is five years old and in kindergarten. For her homework, she had to find four topics that she could write stories about. Not only did she have to be knowledgeable about these four things, but they had to be things that she was interested in. Her list included gymnastics, American Girl dolls, kittens, and nail polish. Helping Eily decide what she knew a lot about wasn't the hard part. The tricky part came when I had to help her spell the words and she had to write them on the paper.  Eily had to write only seven words. This task that would take me seconds to complete, took Eily and I twenty frustrating minutes.

Eily Kate

    The assignment appeared to be easy. I spell the words and Eily writes them down. She was ready and armed with her glittery pink pencil. I didn't just want to give her the letters, I wanted to see if she could spell them herself. The first word was gymnastics. I asked Eily what does gymnastics start with. She said a j and wrote it on the paper. I told her it started with a g.  She laughed and explained that sometimes she forgets.  Eily erased and started again. To make things simpler, I just gave her the letters.  But then Eily ran out of room on each line. She wrote letters backwards, left huge spaces between letters, left little or no space between wards, and wrote capital letters in the middle of words. I tried to explain why we leave space between words and how small spaces between letters gives us more room to write, but it was lost on her. After the twenty minutes were gone and I was looking at her sheet, I was struck with fear. Is this normal? Will Eily ever learn to write well?
    I am only Eily's aunt, so I can only imagine the fears that parents must have in regards to their children learning to read and write. Luckily for me, one of my graduate professors assigned a reading that gave me some reassurance. In her article, Every Mark on the Page: Educating Family and Community Members about Young Children's Writing, Kate Foley Cusumano offers insights into developing children into writers. Cusumano provides reassurance that everything at this stage of writing is normal. She illustrates by giving examples of common and normal errors children often make when learning to write, such as writing letters backwards, switching between capitals and lower case, inventive spelling, writing largely, etc. Along with the reassurances, Cusumano offers ways family and community members can support and engage children in writing. But most importantly, Cusumano reminds us that writing and reading is hard work. Children are rapidly learning how to write, so mistakes are inevitable. The best way to support is to "provide praise and encouragement for the ideas without criticizing the errors in conventions." In other words, put their work in perspective to the skills they have acquired so far. Praise them for their hard work and put the red pen down.

Where's Literacy? : A Waldo-esque search

Earlier this week, I participated in a Literacy Dig for a school assignment. What's a Literacy Dig, you ask? A Literacy Dig is an activity teachers use to get their students engaged in their own literacy learning. Instead of reading from books and practicing phonics, grammar, and writing, students go out into the world and look for the literacy they have been learning. Allow me to demonstrate a Literacy Dig with my own experience.

The Location: Target
The Diggers: Myself and four classmates ( Robyn, Ashley, Joal, and Becca )

Map of Target through the eyes of Becca

The moment I walked into Target, I instantly went to the dollar section. Minutes later, I remembered why I was here in the first place, to find literacy! 
While Target is large and full of shiny and eye-catching items, you can't help but notice the many signs.  Each department is clearly labeled with a bright red sign that denotes what items will be found in that area. I looked above for the Toys sign and headed that way. The toys in the Toys department and divided into different aisles. You have the Barbie aisle, the baby doll aisle, the Lego and other building toys aisle, the puzzle aisle, the baby and toddler toy aisle, the Super Hero aisle, etc. Each aisle was labeled with a letter and number and it listed the toys that could be found in the aisle. As an aunt who is typical in a hurry to buy birthday presents, I find this layout extremely helpfull.

There were many people in the Toys department. Mothers, fathers, grandmothers, children, you name it and they were there. Children were playing and exploring the many aisles, why parents watched.  Parents were reading the backs of toy packages, while simultaneously comparing it to another toy's package. Grandparents were searching each aisle for the perfect gift. Older siblings were chasing after little siblings. And I stood there in awe. 

In the Toys department of Target, I had my Where's Waldo "aha!" moment. I found literacy! There were many different forms of literacy occurring all at once. For starters there was a plethora of written literacy! Signs for the department, signs for the aisles, sale signs, brand signs, price tags and more. Parents and children alike were reading the different toy packages to determine the content.  I observed a mother and father comparing two sale toys to determine which one was more economic. The Brave toy set had several items for the low cost of $8, while the baby doll had only a bottle and was $7. In the end, their daughter chose which one she liked best. Next there was the visual literacy! I saw a two year old girl point to the Barbie logo and say "Barbie." She was a bit too young to read, but she was able use her experiences to recognize the Barbie symbol. This observation reminded me of a time when my three year old nephew, Callum, pointed to a Harry Potter book and said "P-Potter." He was not reading the book's title, he simply recognized the Harry Potter logo.  

 Another form of literacy that I observed was technological literacy. At Target there are Price-Check scanners. In order to use the machine, you can either read the instructions on the screen, or if you are familiar with these types of devices follow your own instincts. There are also Self-checkouts.  Similar to the Price-Check scanners, you can read the instructions on the screen or use your own knowledge to check yourself out. 

After observing all of these different forms of literacy, I had another "aha!" moment. I am twenty-three years old. I have been successfully reading on my own for at least seventeen years. Because of this, I take for granted being able to read. Do I realize when I am shopping at Target that I am participating in these different forms of literacy? No, I simply find what I need and get out as fast as i can.  While preparing for this post, I recalled many different memories of my same nephew first learning to read.  I remember his struggles, but mostly I remember how excited he was when he was able to read a word.  We would be at the grocery store and he would read the word 'ice cream.' Or we could be stopped at a stop sign and he would read the word 'stop.' Callum was so excited that he was able to read and he took great pleasure in doing it. 

Remembering Callum's experiences with learning to read brought a recent article I have read to mind. In their article "The Donut House: Real World Literacy in an Urban Kindergarten Classroom" Rebecca Powell and Nancy Davidson discuss the effects of rigorous literacy instruction on students.  Such focus on school literacy like phonics, reading, and writing distances students from literacy.  It causes some students to feel pressured and overwhelmed and they do not enjoy the reading experience. Powell and Davidson instead offer a different approach to literacy instruction.  Powell and Davidson state that situated literacy is when literacy is embedded within real-world events. This method engages students in real life literacy.  A great example of situated literacy is the Literacy Dig activity!

As a future teacher and a devoted aunt, I believe that a move towards situated literacy is one way of improving literacy instruction. Young readers should have experiences like my nephew Callum.  They should be proud of themselves when they can read words all on their own.   They should be excited when they can use their ability to read in their world.  They should not feel pressured and overwhelmed.  When a child learns to read, a new world is open to them. A world of books. And that is something to get excited about!









    

A simple guide to learning

As a preservice teacher, I spend much of my time worrying about my teaching capabilities. In order to never let my future students down, I am constantly studying various teaching strategies and learning about the different ways students learn. I can prepare lesson after lesson and as many activities that I am able to create, but how can I ensure that these are effective strategies? How can I make sure I am reaching all of my students?

I’m sure there are many teachers and parents out there that wish there were a teaching and parenting manual. Wouldn’t life be that much easier if every child came with instructions? Well, unfortunately students don’t, so teachers and parents are left with their own devices. One such device that I recently come across in a reading for one of my graduate classes is the article Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning: Twenty years of inquiry by Brian Cambourne.

In the article, Cambourne uses twenty years of teaching and researching experience to formulate a productive way to teach children to read. While his “educationally relevant theory of literacy” is most interesting, I found his research on the conditions of learning to be most relevant.  While he uses the conditions of learning to model learning as it applies to literacy, the conditions can be applied to learning almost anything.

As I read each of Cambourne’s descriptions of the different conditions of learning, a light bulb went off in my head. While the conditions of learning are not quite an instruction manual, they are in fact a great starting point and an excellent tool in designing future lesson plans. The gist of the conditions of learning are as followed:

·      Immersion- students must be immersed in what they are learning

·      Demonstration- students must observe what they have to learn

·      Engagement- students must be engaged in what they are learning through immersion, demonstration, and the role of the teacher

·      Expectations- students must know what is expected of them to learn i.e. be able to read or do division

·      Responsibility- it is the responsibility of the student to know how to use what they learned

·      Approximation- students need the opportunity to try to emulate what is being demonstrated

·      Employment- students need the opportunity to practice what they are learning

·      Response- students need feedback in how they are developing

While many may say “duh! This is so simple,” sometimes the best teaching strategies are the simple ones. I find that teachers and parents will go to extremes and do all that they can if it means they are helping their students and children. Yes, sometimes these complex strategies and theories work in the end, but that is not always the case. Maybe, we teachers and parents need to try a simple plan for a change.