Prelude and Chapter 1

In class, when we were told we would have to be doing blog entries every week, I became a little nervous. I have never done blog entries before, let alone set one up myself. However, I know as this class continues, I will see the great importance of having a blog, and how this will become very useful in my own future classroom.

For our readings this week, we had to read from Ellin Oliver Keene’s book. In the Prelude, Keene started by saying “I can find 110,000 things to do instead of writing.” (xv, Keene) I completely agree! Sometimes it is hard to sit down and start writing, but normally for myself, as soon as I sit down and have one sentence written, my fingers begin to move so easily. But as Keene stated, “It’s that sitting down thing.” (xv, Keene)

The Prelude continued to talk about how every child, no matter what kind of childhood they may be going through, has the potential to be whoever they want to be. As a young child, I had a learning disability. I was classified to be in special education, from the time I entered school until the beginning of 6^th grade. I did not talk until I was 6 years old, half way through Kindergarten. I was told by most of my elementary teachers that I would struggle my entire educational career and that my success would be limited because of my oral learning disability. Keene wrote, “I came to believe that any child who has the intellectual capacity to develop oral language in the first five years of life is capable of becoming one of the leading original thinkers of the future.” (xviii, Keene) That quote caught my attention and made me think that even though I was struggling throughout my elementary education, I pushed through. Now I am a Graduate student looking to teach any child that no matter what disability or strength they may have, they can succeed!

Chapter 1 of Keene’s book, states “Is it possible to create for much younger children the kinds of intellectual engagement most of us first experienced in college? Can we avoid the all-too-common scenario in which children plod through our classrooms completing assignments, reading the required books, sitting through endless state and local assessments-getting by, but rarely engaging.” (9, Keene) Anyone who has gone through elementary, middle, and high school can completely relate to this. How often do we go to class, do what is told, and realize after we take the required assessment, we have no idea what we had just learned? It goes in one year and out the other. I am sure I am not the only student who has had this happen to them. As a teacher, I want to make learning enjoyable, so my students do not just memorize and skim through the entire year. I want them to make the most of the books they read and after a year or two can go back and talk about it with their friends and family.

Keene’s book has a lot of great information and I am excited to continue to read it and use some of the ideas in my future classroom.

Keene, Ellin Oliver. (2008). To Understand New Horizons in Reading Comprehension. Prelude, Rethinking Understanding, xv-19.