Life Changing Literacy Experience - Becky

The moment that most influenced my thoughts toward literacy occurred this past summer while I was a nanny for 3 boys in East Lansing. The middle child had just turned 4 and was beginning preschool in the fall, but could barely write his name let alone any other letters or numbers. More often than not he would not even count to 10 in the proper order. I decided that the main goal of the summer for him would be to count and write numbers 1-10 and accomplish most of the alphabet.

This proved to be a daunting task - for starters, he had absolutely no interest in doing anything resembling school work unless it was drawing race tracks on pieces of paper with crayons. The only way I could convince him to do a worksheet or two is if his older brother was doing one also. So I had to search for two levels of workbooks for the boys to work on, along with monitoring both of their work and entertaining the 18-month-old whose only interest was eating the crayons.

It was a stressful time while we were working on his alphabet. The lack of motivation was the biggest issue because it was hard enough to get him to sit still, let alone listen to and remember anything I was telling him. We worked together on one letter page a day - it had room for him to trace the letter, color pictures that begin with that letter, write it himself, and do an art project surrounding the letter. He felt that he was done with those when we reached "D".

Unfortunately, time ran out and I was not able to accomplish even a fraction of what I wanted to with him. I couldn't tell who was more frustrated with the entire thing - him or me!

I learned (the hard way) that certain stages of literacy may be more difficult to accomplish between children. I had a hard time not comparing him to his older brother, who loved to read and write stories.
I also learned that these things cannot be forced. I put so much energy into him accomplishing this goal that I set for him that I grew frustrated when he had no interest in it.

Mainly, I learned that motivation is key. He was obviously not interested in what I had to offer, and I should have spent more time making it fun for him while still trying to teach him his alphabet. This made me realize that I need to take a step back and recognize what the student needs, not just what I want.