The Right to Literacy

Apprenticeship in Literacy: Transitions across reading and writing by Dorn, French, & Jones (1998) state, “For children to be successful learners, they need us, as teachers, to be knowledgeable about the literacy process and to provide them with constructive reading and writing opportunities that guarantee their right to literacy.” In this book, literacy is construed by social and cultural contexts. It is a process of interacting and interpreting students’ knowledge and learning needs. Therefore it is imperative that teachers create and use instructional strategies that support the child’s primary discourse, in terms of Gee, as a way to construct new learning. Educators must be able to articulate what children already know, so that they may guide them towards deeper understanding and learning. Wells and Chang-Wells (1992), coined the notion of “leading from behind,” which is this exact idea of teachers enhancing the level of development within their students by utilize the student’s foundational knowledge.

Scaffolding is a hot topic in the education world, and I say this because many teachers believe it is a good idea, yet do not practice it. Why would someone know that scaffolding students’ learning processes are beneficial, but not put more effort into utilize it as a resource? According to Wood (1980, 1988), “the critical part of scaffolding is the adult’s ability to determine the child’s zone of proximal development, thus providing appropriate instructional strategies that create a shift in the child’s level of cognitive functioning.” All research seems to point out that scaffolding is a temporary way to help enhance children’s learning.

Apprenticeship to Literacy continually relies on foundational theories by Vygotsky to conclude that a child’s learning is not an individual process. Children need the assistance of adults to guide them to higher levels of understanding. “Learning awakens a variety of internal developmental processes that are able to operate only when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers” (Vygotsky, 1978). This book gives an example of a young girl, Allison, learning literacy, while being guided along by her teacher. Things for teachers to think about in such a situation are, is what I am saying helping the child relate the story verbally to the written version, am I encouraging the student to use reflection as a way to evaluate their work, and does the student understand that written work is communication intended to be read in a coherent and meaningful way by a particular audience.

Paulo Freire (1987) says that people read and write the word, as well as read and write the world. This is most evident in children as they become aware of their world they are continually reading, writing, and rewriting it. It is not until a structured system, such as school, is added to their world that they read and write the word. A child’s consciousness is formulated through their interactions of the world, namely their interactions with other people.