My goal as an educator is to create a learner-focused environment that promotes the basic literacy skills reading, writing, listening, speaking and thinking. Children are readers, writers, and thinkers who need language to question and understand. They become members of literate communities using language in real ways for real purposes. Through my own classroom research, I have learned to listen to children, to observe the multitude of ways in which they learn, and to examine the elements that encourage their growth. Each day must be devoted to writing, reading, and interacting with literature.
Children learn to read by reading.
They learn to write by writing. Listening to and talking about literature enhances both processes. Children learn to think, to question, to reflect on what they write, read, and listen to in a classroom that allots a significant amount of time to the interaction and practice of these skills. Children make choices as to what to read, what to write, and how to approach a task. These children who make their own decisions take ownership of their learning and are better able to make meaning within their world.