Margi’s Blog

February 4, 2007 mfought

This was an interesting reading as well as a difficult one. I found myself having to reread on numerous occasions to understand the author’s intent. I put together a mental list of my daily interactions with literacy. I was not surprised to see that I am surrounded and immersed in different forms of literacy. However, it did get me to thinking. I am part of my school’s kindergarten assessment team. The school at which I teach at is made up mainly of low income families. As I assess each child’s knowledge of concepts about print, I am amazed at the low scores. So my thinking has always been “It’s obvious these kids are not exposed to literacy.” But now that I have read this article and this quote, “Few children are initiated into the schooling expereince without some knowledge of literacy. The nature of these events and the degree to which the children have directly participated in them,…may vary.” (211), my thinking has changed. These children have had exposure, just not the type of exposure I was thinking of. Their exposure probably comes from videos, video games, fast food menus, gang symbols, etc. I neglected to take into account the multiple types of literacy out there. Therefore, instead of sitting around and complaining about how low our students come to school every year, as educators we should be planning the “many paths to becoming literate” (220) that we will take our students down.