The ability to read and write as a child is influenced by very many factors. The influence of the parents on the literacy acquisition of children is impregnable. I grew up in a middle income family. As the child of a teacher, my mother placed a lot of emphasis on education for me and my siblings. My mother modeled me when I was growing up to be able to read and write. It was during these sessions that I was taught culture and mannerisms. When I look back, my parents had an undue influence on my literacy acquisition skills (Hall, Joanne & Jackie 56).
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- Describe how you learned to read and write (10 points)
My socialization to literary acquisition started when I was a toddler. I might not have been conscious of my surroundings back then, but looking back retrospectively now, I reckon that my surroundings contributed to my literary acquisition. My room in the house was painted with murals and letters of the alphabet. The room was also painted with different colors and littered with different objects. In my present understanding, these were literacy-based stimuli. There were also pictures of different objects and common items in the house hang on the walls of my room.
I had problems learning how to read and write in kindergarten. My mother first attempted the traditional approach to schooling. In my mother’s words, this approach was not very fruitful. My biggest impediment in learning how to read was sounding out words. This was attributable to the limited amount of time spent on a pupil by the teacher (Duranti, Elinor & Bambi 28). As such, I had minimal practice in school and little motivation to do it during my spare time. In order to avoid stagnation, my mother purchased a computer program that enabled me to write and read. The program was very interactive and made use of common symbols to illustrate different words.
The program also allowed me to sing along to certain words. This way, I learnt how to sound the words. My mother complemented this program trough dictation and spelling sessions. She would read out some words and I would write them down. She also read stories from my favorite books just before I went to bed. During these sessions, my mother required me to identify the moral lesson in the story. This enabled me to learn double whammy. I not only learned how to read and write, but also on morality, mannerisms and culture. This gave me a foundation that I used in kindergarten and other levels of education.
- Compare your experience of literacy acquisition with those of children in Maintown, Roadville, and Trackton described by Heath.
- Which one was your socialization to literacy most like, Maintown, Roadville, or Trackton? (10 points)
My socialization to literacy was most like that of children in Roadville. Literary socialization for the children in Roadville is structured. The children are not expected to just learn from their natural environment more specifically, their environment is altered in order to make learning possible. For instance, their rooms are remodeled in order to stimulate them to acquire literacy skills. My mother narrates with nostalgia how she remodeled my room with murals of different colors in order to stimulate by brain. Children in Roadville are provided with features, labels and what-explanations. Parents prescribe performing behaviors and listening for their preschool children. On the contrary, the environment that the children are exposed to in Trackton is very natural. Their rooms are not necessarily remodeled to enhance literacy stimulation. In Maintown, what explanations and labeling procedures is significant part of literacy socialization. This kind of knowledge construction and classification is continued into the child’s environment and in school. The parents make running commentaries on old experiences and items in comparison to emerging ones.
- In what specific ways (list at least two)? (10 points)
My literacy socialization is more like that of children in Roadville in the following specific ways: -
- Remodeling the environment to stimulate the acquisition of literacy skills
- Use of behavior performance, what explanations and listening
- In what ways was your socialization to literacy at home helpful to you later in school? Use Heath’s analysis in answering this question. (10 points)
The socialization to literacy at home as an influence later on a child’s school work. According to Heath, children bring to school that which they learn from the community. In this sense, the also conceptualize knowledge according to their community’s way of ‘taking things.’ When the ways learnt from the community are antagonistic to those professed in school, a lot of adaptation is required on the student’s part. At times, the student is required to run contrary to the patterns learnt at home (Heath 70). In my experience, the literacy socialization I had at home helped me in school. My mother required me to conceptualize the meaning from the bedtime stories by myself. She would ask for my rationale and engage me in a debate in case she thought that my moral lessons were misinformed. This gave me autonomy in thought and enabled me to construct knowledge o my own. This helped me in school because I was able to pick and retain knowledge from books on school.
- Is there anything you would do differently with your own children? If so, what and why? (10 points)
Yes, there is something that I would do differently with my own children. I would socialize my children a little more like Maintown children. More specifically, I would continue the construction of knowledge in to the school years. This is because this links old knowledge to new knowledge for the child. In order to avoid confusion on the part of the child, running commentaries by the parent are necessary.
Works cited
Duranti, Alessandro, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi B. Schieffelin. The Handbook of Language Socialization. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Print.
Hall, Nigel, Joanne Larson, and Jackie Marsh. Handbook of Early Childhood Literacy. London. SAGE, 2003. Print.
Heath, Shirley. What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School. Language in Society. 11. 1 (1982): 49-76. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
