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Introduction
Growing up, there were many different influences that factored my literacy development. I had a very supportive family that always encouraged doing well in school. My grandparents always bought me books as well as my parents. I grew up in my fathers restaurant so I was always around people of all ages and races. -
Reading for fun- 4th grade
During fourth grade, Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) was implemented various times throughout the school day. I always read "Magic Tree House" books by Mary Pope Osbourne. -
Kindergarten buddies- 4th grade
Throughout the entire fourth grade year, our entire class would go to a Kindergarten classroom to help them read. We got assigned a kindergarten student and we would read to them and then they would try to read to us. I enjoyed this so much that whenever I had free time at the end of the school day, my teacher would let me go to the kindergarten classroom and read to their class. -
Pretend Teacher- 4th grade
My best friend had a playroom with a whiteboard and teacher edition books because her mom was a school teacher. We played school every time i was at her house. When I was at my house, I would always read to my stuffed animals and pretend they were my students. -
First Novel- 4th grade
Up until the fourth grade the only reading we did as a class was out of a textbook. The first novel in school read as a class was "Holes" by Louis Sachar -
Bookworm- 5th grade
The summer going into the fifth grade, my grandma took my to Bookworm all the time. She would buy me two or three books each time we went there. -
Reading- 5th grade
As the school year progressed, I found myself not enjoying to read as much as I did in the school years prior to fifth grade. During fifth grade we only read straight out of the text books and rarely did any fun and/or engaging activities that went along with what we read. However we did do some fun role playing activities in Social Studies. -
Sports- 5th grade
Fifth grade was the first year to participate in sports through the school. I played softball, basketball, volleyball, and I ran track throughout the course of the year. I started to become very busy and didn't have any free time to read for fun. -
Grandpa- 5th grade
I spent a lot of time at my grandparents house growing up. My grandpa was a teacher so he always encouraged me to do well in school. He especially advocated doing well in school when I started to get so busy because he didn't want me to fall behind. -
"Hatchet"- 6th grade
In 6th grade, I started to enjoy reading again. We read "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen as a class. I really enjoyed reading this as a class because throughout the book we did different activites that were so much fun. After we finished the book, we watch the Mary- Kate and Ashley movie, "The Challenge". After the movie we played our own Survivor type game as a class. -
Journals- 6th grade
In class each day my teacher would put three sentences on the board. These sentences had multiple grammatical errors. We had to write the sentences down in our journals, and then correct them in the journal. -
Computer games- 6th grade
I spent a lot of time playing computer games. A lot of the games I played were educational games. I don't remember the names of the games, but one was a haunted mansion game with different math and reading activities you had to solve to find all of the missing people on the haunted mansion. I played this almost everyday in 6th grade. -
Mississippi Flyway- 6th grade
My dad owned a restaurant called Mississippi Flyway. It was open before I was born and closed when I was a junior in high school. I spent so much of my time here. When I was younger I would always walk around the restaurant and talk to every table and I would always read to the workers. I used to always write love letters to the cooks. When I got older, I mostly did my homework when I would sit in there. I remember in sixth grade getting help with math from the workers. -
SSR- 7th grade
Everyday in both seventh and eighth grade we had at least ten minutes of SSR. We got to read a book of our choice, but we had to read during this time. If you forgot your book, you had to borrow one from the teacher. -
Journals- 7th grade
The ten minutes of SSR each day was documented in journal entries. These journal entires were basically summaries of what we read that day. At the end of each quarter, each of us would type up a book report using these entries as a reference. We then presented these book reports to the class. -
"True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle"- 7th grade
One of the books we read as a class in seventh grade was "The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle" by Avi. I personally found this book to be very, very boring. I followed along when we popcorn read in class, but I never did the reading assignments outside of class. We would have reading assignments and quizzes about the book and then a giant test over it at the end. I dreaded her class because my teacher never did anything to engage us or even discuss what we read each day. -
French Class- 7th grade
In both seventh and eighth grade, we had French class for two weeks. Initially I was very excited when I got to seventh grade to have French, but this changed very quickly. Our librarian taught our French class, and it was a horrible experience. Instead of teaching us simple words, we watched different travel videos of a lady going to different places in France. The last two days of class we watched Madagascar in French and then the class was over. I lost all interest in learning French. -
Social Life- 8th grade
Eighth grade is when I remember social media becoming a big part of my life. Every night before bed I would get on Instant Messenger. I had MSN messenger and AIM messenger. My friends and I would talk back and forth for hours, even though I saw most of them all day everyday at school. -
Free time reading - 8th grade
Eighth grade was about the time I really stopped reading books for fun. I read my SSR book and any other reading material for school at school only, unless I had to finish at home. I did however get really into reading magazines. Every time I went to the grocery store I begged my mom to buy me multiple magazines. -
Writing class- 8th grade
One thing I disliked in seventh grade but enjoyed a lot more in eighth grade was the journals we kept in my writing class. My writing teacher gave us a pack of loose leaf paper stapled together and this was our journal for his class. We wrote in it each day about anything going on in our lives. Monday's entries usually consisted on what we did over the weekend, and the weekdays were random or what we did the previous night. This was his way of getting to know us on a more personal level. -
Science Fair- 8th grade
Each student in seventh and eighth grade was required to start a science fair project but only to a certain point. However, I did the entire project, wrote a review of literature, and went to SIU to present my project to the judges. I enjoyed doing this both years because I have always been really shy but I was so proud of my science fair projects both years so presenting it to judges was a way to practice overcoming my shyness. -
Conclusion
When I think of my literacy development rom fourth through eighth grade, a lot of my development is very fuzzy. This made me think about how when I have a classroom of my own I want to find ways to engage the students in everything we do. The things I remember most were the fun and/or hands-on activities I did. I also remember the really boring things. I want my students to have fun with what they learn in my classroom.
