On the fifth day of the institute, we
heard Dr. Pamela Mason discuss literacy. Dr. Mason is the director of the
Language and Literacy master’s program at Harvard, and she was the person in charge
of our entire institute. She’s great. Her presentation was particularly
applicable to me because while I taught literacy at the high school level, I
never had the privilege of teaching someone to read like the primary grade
teachers in my school.
She began her presentation by asking us
what we do when we read. There are some easy answers – make meaning, decode,
etc., but can you really describe what happens in your brain when you’re
reading? I don’t think I’ve ever tried
before, and I don’t know that I was successful. And I am a for real, hard core reader. We looked at samples of text that was
all jumbled (which we could all still read, just slowly) and text that had such
rich vocabulary that we could read it but had no idea what it said. Dr. Mason
likened this to the way people with reading disabilities or who don’t have a
good vocabulary may see text.
She discussed four pillars of literacy: phonemic
awareness/oral literacy, phonics, vocabulary, fluency; and together these
pillars hold up text comprehension. Writing and motivation serve as additional
pillars. What most interested me was the designation of large and small problem
areas, with vocabulary and comprehension in the “large problem areas” part of
the diagram.
Throughout the institute, vocabulary
continued to come up as vital part of literacy and learning. Mason advocates
explicit instruction in vocabulary, and I questioned how much of that we do at
my school. She stated that students should learn 3000-5000 academic words a
year. That’s a lot! But now more than
ever I believe it’s necessary to increase students learning. Kids need words!
She asked us specific reflective questions
about our schools and literacy. The questions were powerful for all school
leaders, and if I can find them online published by Dr. Mason I’ll link them
here. To me, they all spoke of rigor. Are we challenging kids with text and
their responses to it, both in writing and orally? She also asked us to think
about whether or not our kids are reading online. That’s certainly a life skill
in the 21st century as much as reading print.
My English teacher heart was happy to
hear her say that we shouldn’t throw out the canon, but we should expand it,
including culturally relevant texts right alongside Shakespeare. I also would
like to mention that she recommend The
Warmth of Other Suns as a book that was meaningful to her, and it’s now on
my “to read” list.
She concluded her presentation with an
excerpt from a Kofi Anon quote that I think I’d like framed in my office:
“Literacy is a bridge from misery to
hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against
poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to
investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for
democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national
identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and
nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in
general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human
progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his
or her full potential.”
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