Introduction
My name is Kali Walters and I am a senior this year, and I love studying education
because it is something I have always known I wanted to do. When I was younger I was always
the kid that wanted to play teacher, and had my sister act as a student while I would read her
books and "teach" her about them. Reading was my favorite pass time as child and I wanted to
share it with everyone. I am currently working in my local school system as a substitute and it
has reassured me that teaching is what I want to do. Literacy is understood to be a person's
ability to read or write, and I have had a significant experience with literacy. Literacy is
important because if children are not able to read or write they will not have the ability to
communicate with the world. Reading is so important because it allows people to dive into their
imagination or connect the work of an author to their personal life. After reading, being able to
write about it is how we share what we take away from reading.
Personal Experiences with Literacy
For me literacy is more than just reading a book, but rather a way for me to learn, and
communicate with the world. Without the ability to read we would miss out on learning about
history, science, and even the word of God. Because people were able to write and turn that into
text, we are able to know about things that happened before our time, and have the ability to pass
the information through many generations. Literacy was also a way for me to expand my
imagination as a child because reading was an everyday thing for me. I love that when I was
reading a book I got to use my imagination to see what the character's lives look like. Now that I
am working in the school system as a long term substitute, I am also able to use literacy to
connect with my students. The most important form of literacy for me is reading the Bible. I
practice this skill by reading the word, and use writing to reflect on what I have read and learn
from it. Literacy is a huge part of my life.
Goals for Literacy Instruction
From completing work in the classroom as a full time substitute, I believe that teachers
are the ones who have the most impact in developing literacy skills. Teachers should give
students as any resources as possible so that students can expand as readers. This requires
teachers getting to know each of their students as much as they can so they can determine what
practice is needed. From my experience, each student will be at different reading levels and have
different needs to grow their literacy skills. Teachers are faced with the challenge of having to
use multiple strategies for each student based off of their needs. This can be tricky because there
is simply not enough time to spend with each and every student individually as needed. An
example of this would be when I lead guided reading groups for my class, one group would
focus on phonics, another group would work on fluency, while another group focused on
comprehension of the story. For my readers that were strugglers, I made everything for them
about reading in any way possible. Without literacy I would not have a Biblical worldview
because I would not have the skills to read the word of God.
Conclusion
Literacy became one of the most important parts of my life at a young age because I
believe it connects me with the rest of the world. Through reading fiction books I was able to
open up my imagination and see the world through the eyes of the author and whatever it was
that they were trying to convey. When reading non-fiction books I was able to learn about the
world that was before me, and the world that is happening around me that I may not see or pay
attention to. Literacy gives me the ability to connect to God by reading his word, writing my
interpretations, and using those tools to share his message with others. When it comes to my
classroom literacy will be one of the main focuses because you cannot do much school work if
you are unable to read and write. As a teacher it is my goal to give my students the ability to read
so they are able to find their own connection to the world.
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