Teaching Literacy

It is true that there are “success guaranteed literacy programs” developed by people (???). Why would that even be considered a good option to rely on a program manufactured for profit as a main priority, and not for learning. In the book “Literacy as Snake Oil” by Joanne Larson, a teacher, Lynn Astarita Gatto, explains how her school began to mandate the use of a “literacy program” in order to pass state exams as per NCLB. She discusses how incompetent to program in teaching literacy and compares it to the way that she teaches, which has earned her many prestigious teaching awards. So being tenacious and passionate about teaching, she worked around having to use the mandated program only supplementing her unit with activities and stories from the prescribed anthology. It is so inspiring to learn about how she engages the students in a project to build a butterfly vivarium; creating an environment for immersion. The students get fully immersed into the project integrating so many aspects of literacy, math, and science; her students are creators of their own knowledge (they ask questions and research to answer those questions) and the teacher guides the students through their quest for knowledge. The teacher describes her teaching as response – collaborative which elicits analytical and interpretive responses, unlike the reading programs prescribed script of initiation, response, evaluation. She eloquently “bashes” theses prescribed literacy programs and shows through good teaching practice how a great teacher teaches.

As a future educator learning about and emulating great teachers is important in my evolution in becoming a good teacher; Lynn Gatto is a great teacher. I was so inspired when I read about how the students were so motivated to learn, read and discuss. Many students aren’t motivated to learn and school is just part of their day that they can’t wait until it is over; the only good thing is that they get to socialize and simultaneously are forced to learn. Lynn Gatto shows that learning and literacy doesn’t have to be that way and that it is so important for teacher to think outside the box when teaching and be innovative; literacy is something that students do not something that they practice to use later.