Orthography

My perspective on literacy has constantly changed over the years of my childhood. I’ve come across many treacherous roadblocks along the way, some in which I still face to this day. My journey in understanding, interpreting, and creating literature has been tough yet enjoyable. It has gotten me to set high goals in becoming more literate and profound when communicating in the English language. My development in literacy consists of my past experiences, my current sentiment towards reading and…

Phonics are a key factor when teaching a student how to read. In the article that I read, “Theoretical Review of Phonics Instruction for Struggling/Beginning Readers of English”, they discuss why phonics are so important in the early elementary years. The article explains why in the early years of elementary school students need to spend time on focus phonics. Students need to have a strong base in phonics in order to read, spell and write. In the article that I read about phonemes and phonemic…

Over the past year I have spent time teaching young children and have grown increasingly interested in understanding more about early literacy. I am specifically interested in understanding how children's books are designed to promote literacy development. Often also known as emergent literacy, early literacy is an important time in children’s development, when “knowledge, skills and disposition that precedes learning to read and write in primary grades” occurs (Roskos 3). Early literacy…

Against masculinity When I was a small, school-age child, perhaps 7 or 8, I brought a new book to class for morning reading. It happened to be “Baby Island,” a 1937 novel that Wikipedia describes as “Robinson Crusoe… but with four babies.” My intention, on that brisk fall morning, was to pull the paperback out of my backpack and open it to my bookmark. “What is that? Why are you reading that?” someone asked. A cluster formed around my desk, to see the boy who was not reading a very boyish book…

Chris Tovani’s ideas to help adolescents in reading are specific to students at the middle and high school level. Feasible ways to help every student move forward. Strategies for instruction and ways to manage that instruction through learning targets. One idea from Tovani was to eliminate “fake reading.” Students can often make it through an assignment without every really reading for comprehension. To change reading from just decoding words to comprehension and construction of meaning. One…

Before we started writing, I told Triven we would be writing for ten minutes and that he could write a narrative or true story on any of the topics that we listed the day before. It took him ten minutes to write two sentences, so I gave him some more time. We spent a total of fourteen minutes writing, I had to prompt him to keep writing about 3-4 times. Triven is in 3rd grade and he exhibited very little enthusiasm when reading his piece back to me. He mumbled and didn’t seem very confident with…

Common App Essay For me, while letters were drifting around the page, numbers were always grounded. In elementary school, I would rather count how many words were on each page than actually read them. My entire life I have been treated differently in the classroom because I was labeled: labeled with Dyslexia, labeled with Auditory Processing Disorder, labeled with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Because of these learning disabilities, I had a different set of instructions. One of…

As far back as I can remember, reading has always been a tremendous part of my life. Growing up, my mother introduced reading as one of the most important skills I could learn. Throughout my childhood, my entire family constantly incorporated reading into my daily schedule by helping me complete word searches, reading books, or rehearsing the ABC’s. Every night before bed, my mother and I would read a page out of a children’s bible book called Blessings Every Day as opposed to the classic Green…

When I was younger, I would eat up books faster than I got them. I’d frequently been caught reading books in the zaniest of places. I remember wanting to try writing, although I could never fully convey the words in my mind onto paper. Every once in a blue moon when I was able to; only I could understand what I wrote. It had fascinated me, and honestly frustrated me, that people could write these whimsical and arcane books that I’d held onto like a mother to her child. When I’d entered middle…

I was a great writer in middle school and I believe I still am, but I could always be better. My 7th grade English class consisted of my good friend Kris and two girls named Hailey and Reilly. Well, I really liked Reilly and decided to ask her out. I used to be a very nervous kid, especially around attractive girls, so I wrote a letter, asking her to go out with me. I gave it to Hailey, her friend that was sitting next to her at the time. She put it on her desk when Reilly wasn’t looking and…