As we all know, there is a growing population of struggling readers in America. As an elementary teacher in the south, I often had students that struggled with reading and comprehending the English language (Of course, that was unacceptable in my classroom ;-) ). Anyhow, I always wondered how it was possible to live life without knowing how to read. How do you order food at a restaurant? How do you read street signs and directions? How do you sign things that you can't read? How do you send a text, read an email, pass notes?
Well, for the last 3 months, I have been living an illiterate life and it has really helped me put literacy in perspective. I have been living in Gaziantep, Turkey, a place where there is a great desire to learn English but it is rarely used. Consequently, I am a Turkish illiterate. I cannot read the language nor can I speak it very well.
While the thought and realization of being illiterate was surprising to me, what surprised me more is the ability of the brain. The brain automatically copes and adapts. Without knowing how to speak or read much Turkish, I can get a taxi, order from a menu and get my point across. We really are survivors. We learn to be resourceful. So, my next thought was, the reason I made learning Turkish less of a pressing priority is because I felt like I could get by without it. (I am learning Turkish but not at the speed I could be learning it).
And....here's the light bulb. My students weren't invested in reading because they felt like they could live a perfectly "normal" life without it. I am. We need to shift the focus off telling our children they need to read or trying to make them like it. We need to spend a lot of time investing them in the reasons why they need it. If I knew I couldn't get by I would be tackling learning Turkish from all angles. We need to convince them its something that they can't live without. If they think they are just fine without it they won't have a real eagerness or interest in learning it and technology makes this challenge even harder.
So, now I realize how relatively simple it is to get into the rhythm of living a illiterate life. The next step is to figure how to break this mind set that living in a modern age has given us.
Well, for the last 3 months, I have been living an illiterate life and it has really helped me put literacy in perspective. I have been living in Gaziantep, Turkey, a place where there is a great desire to learn English but it is rarely used. Consequently, I am a Turkish illiterate. I cannot read the language nor can I speak it very well.
While the thought and realization of being illiterate was surprising to me, what surprised me more is the ability of the brain. The brain automatically copes and adapts. Without knowing how to speak or read much Turkish, I can get a taxi, order from a menu and get my point across. We really are survivors. We learn to be resourceful. So, my next thought was, the reason I made learning Turkish less of a pressing priority is because I felt like I could get by without it. (I am learning Turkish but not at the speed I could be learning it).
And....here's the light bulb. My students weren't invested in reading because they felt like they could live a perfectly "normal" life without it. I am. We need to shift the focus off telling our children they need to read or trying to make them like it. We need to spend a lot of time investing them in the reasons why they need it. If I knew I couldn't get by I would be tackling learning Turkish from all angles. We need to convince them its something that they can't live without. If they think they are just fine without it they won't have a real eagerness or interest in learning it and technology makes this challenge even harder.
So, now I realize how relatively simple it is to get into the rhythm of living a illiterate life. The next step is to figure how to break this mind set that living in a modern age has given us.
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