RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

Hi, my name is Carol Holt and I currently work as a Title One Reading teacher for students in 1st through 5th grade. It’s surprising that I became a reading teacher when I think of my early experiences with reading in school. I do have fond memories of thumbing through Dr. Seuss books at home and occasionally visiting the library downtown. But I don’t remember particularly enjoying reading in elementary school (1st-8th) or high school (9th-12th). As a result, I didn’t do a lot of reading on my own!

In elementary school we always sat in rows of desks and took turns reading aloud. Because I was so nervous about reading aloud in front of the whole class, I would always count the students and the paragraphs and pre-read my paragraph. Then I would continue to take a head count and recount the paragraphs. Needless to say, I would never fully comprehend what we were reading, much less enjoy the story. In high school we sat in rows alphabetically and I just never got into reading.

I did enjoy writing, though. I remember writing lots of stories just for fun and creating little books. I would take the stories when we visited my grandmother and read them to her. She always smiled and told me what a good writer I was. We were able to get a pen pal through school and my pen pal was from Japan. I enjoyed writing to him and sending him little gifts from the United States. It was always exciting to receive his letters and gifts.

It was not until I started a family of my own that I realized I had a passion for children’s literature. I have spent a small fortune on children’s books. I used to sit on the floor in the middle of the aisles at the bookstore and flip through picture book after picture book. I have a BA in Art, so the illustrations would grab my attention just as much as the story. My children and I would read books together any time of day, but we especially enjoyed reading at bedtime after piling into bed and snuggling up with a good book or two.

After graduating from UNC-Wilmington with a degree in Art, I worked in UNC-W’s Printing Services Department as a lithographer. One benefit for employees included being able to take a class a semester for free, so I began taking courses in education. It was a long range goal, but eventually I was certified to teach Elementary Education K-6. Literature for Children was my favorite class! While I was a stay-at-home mom I worked as a reading tutor. Once both of my children entered elementary school, that tutoring position became a full time Title One Reading position. I received my Reading K-12 license from ASU.

I love my job! I get to work with small groups of children who struggle in reading, and I try my best to make it the most enjoyable part of their day. The ASU graduate program has been instrumental in helping me help these students. I have learned so much about reading assessment and how to meet the needs of my students. I understand the importance of creating a friendly, safe environment, and the value of choice in reading. How do I feel about reading now? I think reading is wonderful! I believe reading is the cornerstone of all learning. I thoroughly enjoy children’s literature, and maybe after grad school, I’ll check out some good literature for adults. By the way, this is my last class! : )

Carol Holt

Hello, my name is Karin Scott and I am a first grade teacher at Fall Creek Elementary in Yadkin County. I have been teaching for ten years and I have been in first grade all but one of those ten years. I have been in the Reading Graduate program for two years and will graduate next spring. My experience thus far with ASU has been wonderful. I have learned so much in my graduate classes that I have been able to implement in my classroom, and that has been great!
My earliest memories of reading in school was in the first grade and reading Dick and Jane. I remember my teacher flashing sight words at me and I had to read the words back to her. The older I got I remember whole class reading activities where we would sit at our desks and take turns reading out loud to the whole class. This made me very nervous, because I wasn't a very strong reader. I don't remember ever spending time just reading in class, like silent reading time. Nor do I remebmer going to the library to check-put books on a regular basis. I never remember reading with my teacher in a small group or one-on-one. It was always whole group activities. I'm sure my teacher's read out loud to me through my K-3 years, but I don't recall any read alouds until later in elementary years. I know times have changed, but I think about all the research we now have about reading to children and best practices in how to teach children to read and I stop to think how different my learning experience would have been if only I had the same exposure to books at an early age. As I reflect on the reading opportunities that my students and my daughter has today to read, I hate that I didn't have the same opportunities as a child.
I don't recall my mother every reading to me as a child. I think it was becasue she and my father were so...busy working and trying to provide for our family. I do recall reading with my grandmother. My grandparents lived in Maryland and I would go spend the summers with them and my mother always made sure I hade plenty of reading practice books to keep me busy over the summer. Despite those efforts on behalf of my mother and grandmother I still struggled in reading. I had no interest or desire to read.
As I grew older it didn't stand out as bad and didn't seem to be a problem for me. After graduating with a teaching degree and I actually started teaching children to read in the first grade, reading has become my life. I want to teach my students to read and I want to immerse them in good children's literature so that they will have a desire to be life long readers. As I continue through my graduate work I am learning how to teach struggling readers to read and it has been so...rewarding. Several years ago these struggling readers would have been labeled, but now we are doing what it takes to reach these students and it has been an awsome experiece.
I am currently taking Children's Literature and we have read many books within all genres. We had two author's blogging with us and discussing their work. It's amazing how all subjects can be integrated through good literature. I have learned that the old days of using the text books to teach the curriculm are long pass. If teachers have the right trade books for instruction these books can provide more in-depth coverage of topics than a textbook while accommodating various reading levels. This way everyone wins.
I just recently had to complete a philosphical questioning activity with my first grade students and this was an eye-opener. Our topic was bavery and what makes a person brave. There were various questions I asked about bavery and we had a great in-depth discussion. I was blown away at the responses to some of the questions. Children are natural-born philosphers and we need to give them oportunities to learn and discuss issues. For so many years we (adults) have tried to protect children from the world they live in, but it's their world and they need to know how to function in it. They need to be prepared for what's out there and they are already thinking about worldly issues so why not lead them in these discussions and allow them to become thinkers and not just followers. The only way to guide them through these types of discussions is to share great literature with them and use the topics in those books to not only teach the curriculum but also life-long concepts/issues. By immersing our students in good literature they can learn about the world in which they live and my goal as a teacher is to help my students become life-long readers.

Karin Scott

My name is Marlene Wright, but I go by the nickname Marlee. I graduated from Meredith College in 1979 with a degree in Music Education and Elementary Ed. I have taught music, kindergarten and first grade, primarily. I am a kindergarten teacher now, in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools.

My mother tells the story that I wanted to quit school after the very first day. She says that I came home and told her I was not going back to school because they had not taught me to read! I have loved books for as long as I can remember, and I really wanted to learn how to read. I was that child who would hurry through work so that I could get back to my book. I would become so absorbed in what I was reading that I would look up and realize that my classmates had gone out to recess. It didn’t bother me, though; I would simply get back to my book and read until they came in! I learned to read with the Dick and Jane series, and I can even remember my first story. It read “Go, go. Go, Dick, go! Help, help!” I loved to get to know characters in books, and I read books from many different series, including The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and the Happy Hollisters. I think that, as I read book after book with the same cast of characters, I felt like I knew them, like they were friends.

I enjoyed writing, as well. At one point, when all of my friends wanted to be movie stars, I wanted to be an author. I was fortunate enough to have teachers who nurtured that aspect of my education, and who encouraged me in my reading and writing. I think that is what inspired me to want to become a teacher.

Although I graduated with a degree in education, I have not always been a teacher. When I got married and moved to High Point, there was a surplus of teachers, so positions were difficult to find. I took a job in the private sector, working in customer service, credit, and purchasing departments of a local textile manufacturer. I experienced life “on the other side of the fence,” and I found that “the grass is not always greener.” Although I liked my job, and I liked the people with whom I worked, I was truly meant to be a teacher, and when I returned to the field of teaching, I realized that working with children was what I was meant to do. I love my job. It thrills me when a child looks up at me and says “I can do it – I really can read!” The experience of “watching the lights come on” for students touches my heart in a very special way. Likewise, the frustration that I see in children who are having difficulty in reading touches my heart – I want to find a way to help these children. This desire is what led me to begin the graduate program in Reading Education. As I have participated in graduate classes I have, on countless occasions, said to myself “So that’s what was going on with ___!” If we could only go back in time and work with those children again....

Marlee Wright

I couldn't imagine having to double think every aspect of my being just to be accepted, but I guess that is exactly how minority groups feel. To feel like you had to change who your are just to be "adequate". Language is a part of our soul and part of what makes us who we are. I think it is very important for teachers to gain knowledge about the home language of children. The example in the article about the employee that was brillant in computer technology, but her speech pattern was an issue. None of the companies could move past her language to appreciate her expertise. So, do we as a society negatively assess someone's intelligents and potential based on what we can only see and hear? I understand that in the professional world the issue is professionalism, but who sets the standards for what is professional? If I hold an administration position I have to ask myself, do I want the person that will do the best job, or do I want the person that will reflect my standards and what I consider professional? Who says that what I say is professional isn't wrong? If someone can't be themselves and be comfortable being who they are...that's sad. We all have students everyday trying to please us. Do we really want teacher pleasers, or would we rather have students that feel comfortable with who they are and have the freedom to be who they are? This goes back to the article when students' interests are addressed in school, they are more likely to connect with the school, with teachers, and with their work. Is that not what we want for our students? I think we must look at the BIG picture...are they learning what they need to be successful in life and are we creating life-long learners. Language is part of who we are and we must strive to understand the differences...it's a multicultural world and the teachers more so than the students need to understand the differences we have within our own classrooms. With that being said, I do strongly feel that students should be taught proper English and grammar and be encouraged to speak it. BUT, we must embrace who they are and the dialect that is part of their family without doing more harm than good. As teachers we sometimes listen to the way our students speak rather than what they are saying. We need to listen beyond the words and hear what is being said.

Karin Scott

When I think of quantitative research within a school, I think of demographic information, state assessments and grades. The teaching and learning that goes on within a classroom is more qualitative in nature, because there are unique features or characteristics of the teacher’s instruction, the students and their work. I was able to conduct an action research project while taking Teacher as Researcher. The research required careful analysis of several sources of data from two subjects. I know replication is not a goal in qualitative research, but I don’t see how it could be replicated. When I think of the research that I conducted, I could not find two other students who are just like the subjects in my study. The students, their needs, their work and even my teaching could not be exactly replicated. I believe qualitative research is important because detailed research conducted by professionals can add essential information to our current ideas concerning education.

Carol Holt