Who speaks for reading, writing and literature?

This is a dedicated forum to allow parents to post questions, discuss issues and to ask for, and receive advice about, any concerns they may have regarding their children and the reading instruction that they are given at school.
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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Who speaks for reading, writing and literature?

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

This post seems familiar to me so I might have posted it 'somewhere' already - nevertheless, it has been flagged up via Twitter by Susan Godsland so I thought it would be a good idea to post it here:

http://oilf.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/who- ... g-and.html
Who speaks for reading, writing and literature?

“Do you call reading work? I don’t even remember how I learned. When it was too hot to play, Grandfather would take me into his library where it was dark and cool, and read to me out loud from his books, and later I would sit beside him and read to myself while he studied."
The Witch of Blackbird Pond is one of many novels featuring smart heroes or heroines who learned how to read and/or write without formal instruction. Given that the authors are themselves smart, linguistically gifted people who may likewise have learned language arts informally, with an ear for language naturally tuned for polished prose by their typically avid reading habits, this isn’t surprising.

But what’s problematic is when the highly articulate messages of the small minority of self-taught readers and writers—messages emanating through actual or fictionalized versions of their personal experiences—are generalized to the population as a whole. Most kids won’t learn to read simply by being read to and by being surrounded by interesting books; and most kids won’t become good writers simply by writing a lot and participating in student-centered writer’s workshops. Most kids need intensive instruction in phonics and extensive feedback from discerning adults on their sentences and paragraphs, as well as extensive guidance and practice in revision.
When I speak to audiences during teacher-training events, I ask if people can remember how they were taught, or how they learnt, to read. Most people cannot even remember. That suggests that they are unlikely to have struggled to become literate (although some individuals struggled and invariably can describe their memories).

I point out, then, that as people who found learning to read so easy that they cannot remember how they got that way, they are the last people to know how it must feel to be in the shoes of a child that is struggling to learn to read compared to his or her peers.

This article (link above) is very pertinent and I do hope people will read it in full - it's not long.
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