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Introducing Momma-J aka Mo-Jama, Mumsy,Mummy,Mother Dearest
My incredible mother was the primary caregiver to my brothers and I and we were very fortunate that she was a stay-at-home mom. She played an enormous role in my literacy development since day one. As a teacher, I realize that the majority of my students will have two working parents and will not necessarily have the same enormous level of educational support at home. However, I need to ensure that all children have a high level of support in my classroom and that they can approach me for help. -
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A Look into Alicia's Personal Literacy History
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First Steps in Literacy LEARNING
Every individual begins literacy development almost right from day one. As a teacher, I understand that this development differs amongst every learner and that every leaner has a different starting point and various strengths and weaknesses. The following are some of my early experiences with literacy in preschool and primary years. -
The Berenstain Bears
Berenstain Bears site
The stories I recall the most were the Berenstain Bears. They combined humour with family values and life lessons. My mom and I would read them together daily and take turns reading the pages. To this day I continue to read and collect them. I will use them in my classroom because I believe the issues presented in each story are relatable and meaningful to many students, which is critical for engaging our learners. -
Phonics, Phonics, A-B-C
I remember learning through phonics early on and it continued throughout education. At home and at school I practiced memorizing the sounds of letters and blends and how sounds came together to make words. I do believe this is one way that children need to learn our complex language, but it needs to work in parallel with other methods such as tying in experiences and whole language approaches as well. Phonics is amazing, but it's not the Only way to learn language. -
Flash Cards
Accompanied with learning phonics, my mother believed in learning through flash cards so that I learned to recognize and read high frequency words. I do agree that this method was effective with me and benefitted me in the class, however, as teachers we need to understand that not all parents can take the time to do this with their children. Therefore, not all children will pick up on high frequency words as quickly without that extra practice. -
Unscrambling Sentences
Along with flashcards, I spent much of my spare time completing other literacy activities that Momma-J had planned for me. Instead of going out often on weekdays, I recall doing activities such as unscrambling sentences. My mom thought it was a blast and always committed so much time to creating scrambled sentences for me to solve. This is one way of having students practice sentence structure and flow, which is necessary for students to learn how to make meaningful sentences with proper format. -
Writing Short Stories
It wasn't long until I started writing so many short stories. Many were written in school but most were written outside of school because my mom encouraged me to use my imagination and write her a story about anything. I believe this is so critical for children to write their own stories because it gives them ownership and purpose to their writing as well as promotes their imagination, creativity and ability to express themselves. It also helps to organize ideas and present them clearly. -
"Car, Sticker, Turn, Four": 'R' Words = No thanks.
It was my grade 3 teacher who finally brought it to my parents' attention that I had a speech impediment. Similar to a number of young children, I suffered with not being able to pronounce my R's. This was such a challenging area for me and I have so many humiliating memories in my childhood from my trying to hide this problem. I thought I had been doing a great job of hiding it, but my grade 3 teacher knew exactly what was going on and wanted to help me. -
Second Steps in Literacy LEARNING
Once there is a foundation for literacy, the development of literacy continues to grow and develop when accompanied by strong, comprehensive literacy programs and activities. The following are a part of my junior experiences with literacy learning. -
'R' Issue Resolved!
After regularly seeing a speech pathologist over the course of the year, my R issue became resolved! I felt so relieved! I had nothing I needed to hide anymore and nothing to be ashamed of when speaking. I was now comfortable speaking out loud. As teachers, we forget that some students face challenges that may hinder their literacy development and that these challenges may not always be evident. My issue still presents itself when I am nervous or am speaking too quickly, but c'est la vie! -
Speeches
From grades 4-8 our school had every student write a speech each year. Every year I was chosen to represent my class to speak in front of a panel of judges. Speeches became a strongpoint for me and my topics were always entertaining or informational, and my speaking confidence was growing. I understand that oral communication is not every student`s strongpoint but that a safe, positive learning community will help students feel comfortable speaking in front of others. -
Poetry - My Escape
Poetry became a huge part of my life. I found poetry randomly one day when writing a poem for a friend, and from then on it was my escape and what I did to express myself. As a teacher, this is very important to me because we need to give our students opportunities to find ways they can comfortably and enjoyably express themselves. -
English Award
After years of writing poems and stories, I was so proud of winning the English award at my grade 8 graduation. I know this is only one culminating award, but I feel that it is important as teachers that we do acknowledge our students` progress in literacy and praise them for this effort and growth. Sometimes students need that boost of confidence and praise and even a certificate for something they did really well in literacy. -
Third Steps in Literacy LEARNING
As students step into high school, the literacy experiences become focused on less on `learning the basics`and more on applying what they know and strengthening their writing. The following represents some of my high school experiences with relation to literacy learning. -
Essays/Novels
High School held my first real experiences with proper and lengthy essay writing and having to read and interpret large novels. This brought forward all those foundational skills of literacy and we had to apply them together for much larger assignments. Luckily I felt prepared for this workload because of the literacy programs I had experienced with my elementary teachers. -
Grade 10 Literacy Test
The only big literacy 'testing' I recall was in grade 10. It was accompanied by horrid memories because the marking was mixed up and therefore every student failed, causing us all to have to re-do the tests. While writing, I remember wondering why I should even try because the test seemed so phony. It made me realize that as teachers we need to make our tests meaningful and purposeful to students so that they put forward their best efforts and they are interested in what they are learning. -
Shakespeare.. Not for me
Every year in high school we read Shakespeare. I know he was such a huge literary genius, but I could never connect with the books or read between the lines of what he was saying. Give me a poetry analysis anyday, but not Shakespeare. My dislikes often had to do with how the teachers 'taught' Shakespeare such as quotes quizes (who said what?) - I was always disengaged. This goes back to teachers needing to make learning meaningful. -
First Place Poetry Contest
I entered a poetry contest with a poem that I had originally written in 2001 (when I was 11). I updated the poem and submitted it, with no hopes up for winning the contest. It was a powerful poem called Rather Death than Pain, about a girl who was physically abused by her father when she was young and eventually committed suicide for her father. When I won first place, I was ecstatic and it made me realize that other people believed that I was good at what I enjoyed. I was proud. -
Philosophy <3
In my 5th year of high school, I decided to take a Philosophy class. It made me challenge my pre-existing biases and beliefs. None of my peers liked the class because the teacher was 'tough', but I loved the way he challenged us to think outside of the box. I graduated with the Philosophy Award. Early on, we need to start having students think outside their comfort level, tap into this critical thinking, and encourage students to be critical of texts and also critical of their own perspectives. -
Forth Steps to Literacy LEARNING
As I graduated high school and entered university, I had many new experiences with literacy learning. I felt that the assignments did tap into the reading, writing, oral and critical components of literacy, but the content and meaningfulness of what we were required to do was very limited and disengaging. The following represents some of my university literacy learning experiences. -
Essays, Essays, and more Essays!
My first impression of university was essays galore! We wrote essays about everything and about topics that I didn't even find relevant. I also learned to write research papers and read journal articles. I always thought about how much we were limited in ways to express ourselves. Teachers need to provide students with multiply means to express themselves in their work and not limit `learning` to one type of assignment (essays). Essays also focus only on the product, not the process. -
Referencing... woah..??
So in university we got the rude awakening that we actually needed to cite things that other people said.. I felt like we've grown up in a box because no one has ever taught us this or how to do this until this point. I think this is so important for all teachers because (especially in elementary) we always get our students to copy and paste information rather than putting it in their own words and citing it. This is such an important lifelong skill!! -
Past the Baby Steps.. Steps towards Literacy TEACHING
The following are experiences towards literacy teaching rather than just literacy learning. These experiences began during my university path. This is when I started looking through a different lens of literacy development because I was developing both a teacher and student perspective rather than just a student perspective. I started thinking about what I needed and wanted for an effective literacy program. -
Afterschool Literacy Tutor
My first 'teaching' experience with children actually related to literacy because I worked with a group of students who were below expected reading and writing levels. We worked to improve their literacy skills over the course of a few months and it amazed me how much students can improve when they are given that extra help they needed. This is so important for teachers to realize because some students do need that extra time and practice. -
Leveled Literacy Intervention Leader
I became an LLI group leader for two groups of students who were identified as being below expected literacy levels. I worked with these groups of students 4 days a week for 6 months.By the end, they made significant improvements in their reading and writing skills. This was a great teaching experience for me and I could see what these students did and did not enjoy and what seemed to work with these groups and what didn't. Often strategies are trial and error and every group is different. -
Summer Literacy Programs - 2012/2013
For the past two summers I was an assistant teacher for a summer literacy program, which is a program that targets students in K-3 who are at or below expected literacy levels. I helped to develop and deliver fun literacy activities that engaged students and helped to minimize that summer 'gap'. It's been an amazing teaching experience and now that I will be qualified, I hope to be the teacher! -
1st Teaching Block
During my first block, I didn't teach language to the whole class but I was in charge of small group daily instruction in language. I targeted specific skills that needed extra practice and took groups of students who would benefit from the small group instruction. This was a great experience for me as a teacher and in practicing how to identify the skills that need to be targeted and how to work with small groups of students during class. -
Next Steps in Teaching Literacy
All of my past literacy experiences have brought me to where I am now. I still have much to learn with literacy, but now I am confident to teach it. I believe that there's no 'one way' to learn or teach literacy, but it is about multiple modes of learning, as well as giving students many choices and ways to express themselves in literacy. This will not only engage them, but will promote further learning and growth because they will continue their literacy journey when it's meaningful to them.
