Why Not Now? (and Lighting the Fire)

Hey, y'all!
Welcome to a little dream of mine called "Lifetime of Literacy".

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved to read.  I love everything about books.  The way they smell.  They way they sound when you flip pages.  The way they feel in my hands.  I remember vividly starting kindergarten with my Pocahontas t-shirt and matching purple jelly shoes with the sole purpose of learning how to read.  In my mind, reading was all I would need to be successful.  

I also distinctly remember my mom reading to me.  Not just whole books but also notes we wrote together.  She would write something and read it to me, and I would, in turn, write it and read it back to her.  I also can't tell you the number of hours I have witnessed my own mother reading book, after book, after book.  It was almost a given that I would learn to love it. 

Then, in fifth grade, I read about racial inequality among friends and I realized that books could make me care about things.  Books could give me opinions.  Laura Ingalls Wilder taught me all about life on the prairie.  Harper Lee taught me to be kind to everyone. Jay Gatsby taught me to have hope under the most dreary circumstances.  Harry Potter taught me that magic exists.  John Green made me cry (over and over).  

Now, I often don't have time to read.  When I do, however, I still get lost in books and can't put them down.  That's why I often don't start them if I know it will be a few days before I can pick them up again.  I also can't read in bed for this reason.  I'll keep the mister up all night.  But then again... There is something so soothing about opening up a good book on a rainy day, snuggled with my fur baby and sipping coffee.  I can't not make time for it when I have time to spare.  

That's me, though.  I am under no illusion that the entire universe loves to read as much as I do.  To me, that's a darn shame.  There is magic in books.  

Try to imagine for a moment what it was like to be a six-, seven-, or eight-year-old.  Try to imagine a classroom, lit by the soft glow of lamps or string lights, and a teacher with wire-rimmed glasses reading a story that completely entrances you.  How do you feel?  Relaxed?  Happy?  Can you picture the story in your mind?  What if I told you the teacher is reading the story with different accents, pitches, and dramatic pauses?  Can you imagine it?  

Now, imagine that same teacher is forcing you to read the book she was just reading aloud.  You have to read it, stumbling upon letters, sounds, and digraphs with which you may or may not be familiar, with other children staring at you as you slowly die your slow death from this book?  Now, how do you feel about reading?  You hate it, don't you?  It isn't useful to you, and it made you feel stupid.

This, friends, is the rub.  One bad experience with reading, and a child's entire opinion of the act is shifted and tainted for the rest of his school experience unless, somewhere, along the way, a teacher cares enough to change it.  

If you are a teacher, how often do you see your own students scooting toward you on the rug, begging to see pictures again?  How often do they ask you to read their favorite stories ("Please, Mrs. Elkins, read Knufflebunny one more time!")?  

The read-aloud magic is always there.  Always.

However, when you tell your students, "Okay, boys and girls, now I want you to read to me," they look at you as if you have promptly told them you'll be taking away recess for the rest of the year.  

Our soul job, as educators, is not to teach kids what to learn.  It's to make kids want to learn.  

By expecting our children to automatically love reading on their own, we are doing them a huge disservice.  For a little background research, I highly suggest reading up on the Matthew effects of reading.  Or, if you're feeling really froggy, read through Hart and Risley's book, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children.  All children are not created or prepared for school equally.  Jane may have parents that talk to her and read to her every single day.  Johnny may see his mom for five minutes before she heads to one of three jobs.  Ann may love to read and devour anything you put in front of her.  Luke may only know seven sounds when he enters first grade.  

So, friends, how do we fight the good fight without committing reading homicide in the minds of our kids?  

Pay attention.  

This blog is going to be all about it.  

I am blessed/cursed/privileged/honored to work in a Title I school.  I am surrounded, day in and day out, with some of the most inspiring, fabulous teachers and some of the most devoted, fabulous kids.  The cursed part?  These babies often hate reading.  

So, why now, in the middle of graduate school am I choosing to start Lifetime of Literacy (LoL for short)?  Well, why not now?  I am currently working on a literacy degree, and it has opened my eyes and heart to the world around me.  It has shown me that literacy comes from a place in your heart, not in a book.  

That's cheesy, I know.

Ron Clark told me, though, that I have to sell whatever it is I'm teaching.  Literacy, and reading, is no different.  You better sell it like you need the money to keep your lights on. 

My vision for LoL was originally to reach children all over the world.  I am not, however, unrealistic.  I've no doubt that my tiny blog will not make it to the darkest, most illiterate parts of the world.  

So, the vision changed.  Now, the vision can be simply put into three words: Light the fire. My hope is this:  Through pouring my heart, soul, and passion into making myself a better literacy teacher and sharing that with the world, I will light a fire.  One tiny spark will trickle down' on a teacher's grass somewhere, and she'll think, "Hey!  Look at that!  A literacy fire!", and then she'll send out sparks of her own.  

My mission is to teach my students to want to read.  It's also to show you how I'm going to do it.  

I'm no expert.  I'm a twenty-something year old teacher in my fifth year that learns a little more each day about the kind of teacher I want to be.  I'm not here to tell you what to do or how to run your classroom.  That would be offensive.  I'm here to show you what does and does not work for my own little class of first graders in a Title I school in small town Mississippi.  

I hope you learn and grow along with me on this journey.

PS:  Stay tuned for big things, such as a TpT store with reading resources, an Instagram page to keep up with the latest from LoL, and a YouTube page to give you the rundown on how I use the resources!