A Brief Overview of My Literacy Experience

I have a lot of literacy memories from my childhood, most of which have occurred during school time. Some of these memories include revising the alphabet as a class, taking turns at reading out sounding words and sitting on the floor as a class listening to the teacher read out loud. I can also remember being taught the basics of spelling, reading and writing. As the years progressed my ability to do all of these things improved and gradually the tasks involving them became harder and harder. For example as my reading ability improved I progressed in reading levels. Thus, exposing me to a range of written words I hadn’t previously had much exposure to.

When I was really young the text that impacted on my development included ‘Alphabet’ by Active Minds, ‘Busy Birthday’ by Susan Baun and books from the Ladybird ‘Read It Yourself’ series. The picture book of ‘Alphabet’ helped me to learn my alphabet and understand what the various letters looked like and stood for. The pictures in ‘Busy Birthday’ were labeled, thus helping to make sense of my surroundings. Where as the Ladybird ‘Read It Yourself’ series supported my ability to read as by having different level groups to progress through my reading gradually improved.

Today my knowledge of literacy is still being added to as I am now learning how to be an effective teacher of literacy. The reason I am learning this is because one day it will be my responsibility to teach students vital literacy skills. Santoro (2004) states all teachers are teachers of literacy (p.52). So regardless of what subject I am teaching it is important that I help students with their development of literacy. As “students literacy skills affect how well they learn subject content” (Santoro, 2004, p.51). The Los Angeles Times also realizes the significance of literacy as it quoted; no skill is more crucial to the future of a child, or to a democratic and prosperous society, than literacy (Sutz, 1996).

Nevertheless, the subsequent blogs relate specifically to my earliest literacy and how it can be critically appraised through The Four Resources Model which is a contemporary model of language development.