Literacy, Week 4, Writing and Literacy Skills

Writing Essentials Chapter 2: All students, especially those who begin school with limited literacy skills, need to think of themselves as readers and writers, see the processes as meaningful, and have positive attitudes about literacy before they can successfully engage in literacy practices? (p. 34). How do you respond to this quote? What connections can you make between this quote, your field placement, and/or your own experiences?

My immdiate response to this quote springs out of my own experience as a preschool teacher and a teacher of foreign languages. The I-can-do-it attitude is perhaps the most important aspect of success in learning. The first year I taught in a classroom setting, I had the same student in a senior creative writing class and a French I class, only he was not the same student in each. In Creative Writing, he had the idea that he could do the work. Therefore, he applied himself with the outcome of A's for the class. However, he did not see himself as a student of the French language, did not apply himself and barely got by with D level work. It was an amazing process for me, as a first year teacher, to witness. It seemed that no matter what I did to interest this student in French, including arranging pen pals with students from France, he believed that he couldn't do it and therefore, he didn't do it.

In six years of teaching at a preschool I also saw this at the entry level of a student's formal education. The first skill a student masters in preschool is how to use scissors for independent work. How many times have I heard "Miss Ann, I can't do this!" Students quickly learned not to say the "I can't" phrase because it hurt Miss Ann's ears. But what I saw often, especially for those who struggled, were students determined that they couldn't do something therefore they wouldn't. The challenge for teachers is to help students to see that they can, even when some are struggling and especially when the strugglers witness others in the class for whom the task at hand seems to come naturally.

Therefore, I can understand why it is important for teachers to help students, whether they are emergent literacy, ELL, or well into their years at school, to see themselves as readers and writers. Because not seeing themselves as such is a huge obstacle to overcome.