Amy Christman
Literacy History
Personal Literacy Biography
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I feel very fortunate for the literacy opportunities my personal and educational experiences have brought me. Personally, I have always enjoyed reading and I still find it to be both a comfort and a source of education. Although there are many different forms of literacy that describes my daily usage, I will always keep reading books for pleasure as an important part of my life and hopefully the lives of my future children. As a potential teacher in the schools, I expect to integrate literacy into as many lessons and activities as possible.
When I was young, my parents had literacy involved in every aspect of my life. As a toddler, they expected me to practice my alphabet and understand the sounds of each letter. When I was still too young to read myself, my parents would come to my bedside every night to tell me a bedtime story. This was my favorite time of day because most of the nights my parents would make up a story that included me in it. For example, my mother always told me adventure stories that "Amy" would go on with a unicorn (my favorite animal at the time). I will never forget how closely that bonded me and my family.
As I began to read and understand language, Berenstein Bears books was the most interesting for me as a young girl. They were based on a family of bears that took on life's challenges. On a daily basis, my dad and I would squeeze into his lazy boy chair in the living room, turn on the light and snuggled in his arms he would begin to spin the tail written in the book. I would close my eyes and imagine the story as it was told. He would incorporate voices and sounds that made it seem like if I reached out in front of me I would touch the bears themselves.
Each night reading the Berenstein Bears with my dad began to get more and more difficult as he expected me to contribute to the reading process. I see this now as him trying to develop my skills and progressing me through my learning in his own way. This was a time in my life where receiving and expressing the information was involved in my personal and enjoyable aspect of literacy.
During a difficult time in high school, I had just gotten surgery and was incredibly ill from it. I was so nauseous and miserable that I was not even able to watch TV or be comforted by the radio. My parents were at a loss for how to make things more comfortable for me, until the Harry Potter books were released. My mom and dad would take turns sitting in the living room with me as I moaned from pain and would begin to describe the scenes in the books. Since the books were hundreds of pages, they would switch on and off and I began to look forward to different characteristics of each of their readings. My dad would read quietly and with descriptive language as my mother would get animated and scream or make noises that correlated with the scene- her impressions of some of the characters seemed so creative.
Learning to develop my skills at an early age was lucky for my developmental progress. I was able to pronounce words, identify and define words as well as bring meaning to the story at an earlier age than my peers. Pronouncing words just reminds me of my dad pushing me to read the first sentence in the book or my mom incorporating a new word into our bedtime stories.
Identifying and defining words was an area that most likely was expressed in school for me. School was mainly where I learned to letter-sound correspondence and where I built the number of words I was able to identify. Applying meaning to the words came as an application from both home and school. At home, it may have had a more personal spin to a specific story but at school I was able to be pushed towards identifying deeper meanings and implications.
As an adult, I still enjoy reading on my own. These memories that I have been lucky enough to experience have taught me how important reading can be in a child's life. I used to read for pleasure before bedtime every night, but since schoolwork has become part of my daily routine it is not quite as easy for me to incorporate. However, every night I do have time it is always an enjoyable evening for me to relax with a book.
In school, I remember feeling frustrated by the structure of the classes and how they integrated reading into our lessons and homework. I was one of the few students who enjoyed reading for pleasure, but whenever an assignment was created for a chosen book, my interest would suddenly drop. I hated having to answer specific questions about the book I just read or having to interpret deeper meanings that I just did not feel were relevant to appreciating the literature itself but instead was built to ensure the students read the assigned pages.
As a future teacher, in my ideal classroom I would want literacy to become a creative, integrative and important aspect of every day. Allowing students to share, be rewarded for and instructed to progress in literacy terms will only let them feel positively about incorporating literacy into their everyday lives. Although they may not realize how involved literacy already is such as texting, tweeting, status updates or even reading instructions for baking, I want my students to have the passion and enjoyment that I was lucky enough to experience.
I think it is critical to spark the interest in literacy in a child at a young age. At this point in my career I do not know where I will be placed to teach and it is possible I may teach younger children. I hope that I can express the gratitude I have for my literacy incorporation into my students. Every teacher of quality should already be identifying their students literacy usage and how to improve on it. I know that this will be a large part of my future classroom and I hope to remember how my personal experiences made me feel.
