Comment: I completely agree that children's literacy comes from their home. Teachers have so many students and so many different subjects to cover everyday that there is just not enough time to focus solely on every child and their literacy skills. The children who have the most literacy support at home are typically the children who excel at literacy in school. These children read more and are able to get more practice than those children who do not read at home. I am concerned at those students that I will have who do not have this solid support at home. I know that literacy in the home is important to children's development in reading and other areas of literacy. This emphasizes the fact that it is so important for teachers to work with parents. A teacher not only needs to help the child, but help the parents help their child. It will very hard to teach a child literacy skills without the support of the parents and much easier to teach with the support of the parents. A teacher should look for help from the home in order to help each child reach their potential. Learning does not stop when a child leaves school and if it does, teachers should try and help bridge that gap.
Quote: How do we as teacher help students who do not have as much educational support at home catch up to those who do? How do we as teachers bridge the gap between the students when some are going to keep growing at home while others will have no support at home?
Sammie, you are so right. What can we do as teachers when parents are supporting their children in the home as they should? I think the best thing we can do is to then go visit the children, or send notes home encouraging parents to read even 10 minutes with their children or to talk with their children about the books the kids are reading in the schools. Also, I think it would be beneficial to treat the child that is not getting the home literacy environment like your own child, where you give them book suggestions and have a dialogue journal where they can write and respond about the books they are reading with at least one adult they admire...you. Those are some ideas, but what about the motivation of the kids? If their parents don't read, will they want to?
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