Quote: "This chapter suggests that, 'educators learn to incorporate students' texts written outside school, but to understand and build on their literacy practices'. This perspective gives educators the challenge of: Finding out about the literacy practices of their students; sharing them in a community of practice with the class; building on these practices in classroom settings."
Comment: I like this quote because it focuses on what we have to do as teachers. I think the step that most teachers don't do is the first one, finding out the literacy practices of their students. This is the most important step to me, because if we don't find out their literacy practices, then we're missing the point the author is trying to make. Researchers have found out that most of children's literacy comes from home and we need to build on all the literacy opportunities they have outside school. One way to do that is to visit their home and find out their funds of knowledge. Home visits can provide many clues to children's literacy practices outside school.
Question: After teacher's find out their children's literacy practices, how should they incorporate all of their children's interests into the curriculum? How does one individualize everything?
That is a very good question, Whitney! I like your idea of home visits to find out about the children's previous knowledge. Then, when you know where a student is coming from you can adapt activities in your lesson plan to their knowledge, like maybe making story problems about fish caught at a lake or add horse books to your class library. The one thing i was thinking, though, was that school is a place for children to learn new things so I don't think it is too bad if we don't adapt everything to fit each child's familiarity. It actually will probably be good for them to learn in new ways and to learn new things that they aren't already literate in. :)
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