Emergent Literacy

I can certainly understand that children need to be introduced to reading at an early age. Children these days do not even see books until their first day at school. With so many kids waiting until they get into school before they start to read, you can understand how it is so easy to get behind. The kids struggle throughout the school year learning how to read and have trouble understanding the meaning of sentences or word. It is easy to see how the children who get behind could get frustrated and just want to sit back and not try their best.
Everyday I see a large range of people that struggle to read simple sentences or spell words that some people would think were "no brainers." With the discussion from last Wednesday, I can see now why I had trouble in school while I was young. I used to hate reading, and everything else in school for that matter. It makes sense now that since I hated to read, I had trouble understanding questions on tests or quizzes. This already gives me a perspective on some of the teenagers that I deal with at work. Some are in high school and read at a middle school sixth grade level. With that, they also don't understand certain aspects well while in school and they show their frustration by being defiant.
With this defiance they skip school or drop out all together. It is easy to just shrug these teenagers off and think that they are like this because they are thugs. But, it makes me think about how many children out there could have been better off in life if parents took the time to read to them when they were little. The parents could have easily read just a few pages a night. They could have easily started to have their children help with the reading and get involved.
With the exercises that we did in class, it gets me thinking that even though I was able to read through misprints and errors but so many would have troubles. It is also trouble to think how some people could see gibberish just from looking at a street sign or a restaurant menu.
I also think that it is very important for the students to get the opportunity to read books and articles that they choose. Even if they choose one book a semester, it could help to engage the minds of the students and then the teacher can teach them how to question and analyze just what they are reading without stressing out about it.
I like chapter twelve as well because I feel that if you get the students to discuss with the other students then they would feel more comfortable. This would help especially with the kids that are afraid to say something because they do not want other kids to make fun of their style of thinking. This would also mean that the teach would have to make the environment suitable, and nobody should make another person feel stupid for their input in the readings