To me, this should be a promoted belief by all teachers. If a teacher does not truly believe this, then how can he/she possibly build a struggling student's self efficacy to motivate him/her to want to do better?
Pinnell also noted that "...there are daily decisions that teachers can make to benefit students..." (Para. 3). We must keep in mind that we may not have 100% control over the entire scheme of things or the entire curriculum we administer, but we can make a difference on a small scale. We must make the effort, where we can, for the benefit of our students when it comes to building on their literacy skills.
I love the area that covers putting your theory to action. To me, we have no control over these students' home lives and how much time that they are able to dedicate to reading, but we can control things within the context of our classrooms. One theory that I will ensure to employ within my classroom is to ensure that my students read continuous text every day through reading workshops and cross curriculum. Just the exposure to the written word is vital to these students' literacy development.
Understanding that we do not have 100% control is so hard sometimes, but extremely helpful. Lessons may not progress as smoothly as we would like them, students may have home lives we wish we could change but these situations allow us to model how to learn from all of life's experiences, good or bad.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love that passage about all students becoming literate. I agree with you that if that is not our belief then what are we even doing in this profession!?
ReplyDeleteI agree with that teachers should promote the literacy belief in all classrooms. As a teacher, not having control all the time is extremely hard especially when it comes to students learning because we want all of our students to learn.
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