Influences on Reading and Writing

     The factors that impacted my love of reading and writing are significant because they emerged from my experiences growing up at home.

    First, I grew up in a home environment where books were sacred. They were neatly wrapped, dusted and laid out in bookcases in very room of the house. My mother had special books she preserved from her years at college; my father did the same, but they added to their collection: books for the home- for their children to enjoy. A collection of stories-fairytales, cookbooks, short stories, school readers, novels about the Caribbean a set of encyclopedias, books about science experiments, the wonders of the world, colouring books and Bibles were all available for us to pour over in our spare time. These not only kept us busy browsing but were useful resources during homework sessions. Continuous interaction among siblings also made literacy events fun. We, the older ones, read to the younger children-just like the parents did-modulating our voices and being dramatic. Long car rides involved singing songs, talking and sharing comics. We spent a lot of time together being entertained by the physical and audio cassette books we had, playing word/board games and watching only three hours of television. Life for us, as children at home, directly and indirectly involved reading, and we did not mind one bit!

    Second, warm feelings are evoked when I recall doing homework. Projects were always a family event. Everyone assisted until the wee hours to see its completion. Materials were laid out on the floor and small booklets were compiled, notes neatly rewritten, pictures cut from magazine amid the clutter of glue and scraps. It was during one of these sessions that I was guided through the writing process. My father provided reems of newsprint to be used to create literal rough drafts of a story being done for homework. Yes, he pointed out the importance of organizing the ideas, and doing a rough copy before publishing the fair copy in my notebook. That ended the frustration of ripping out a page and restarting whenever an idea came to revise the story's events. I was impressed at how more efficient writing a longer story became. I looked forward to the rereading session at the end of it all to find spelling errors and punctuation errors, despite those word cards landing on a wall above our bed to learn their spelling (a traditional word wall?). Nevertheless, the support at home made learning at school manageable. 

    A third factor that directly impacted my literacy journey was having models at home for guidance. Both parents continued studying after having children, so at various periods in my childhood, we studied alongside each other. Hence the atmosphere at home at some points felt like a library. Family members spoke in hushed tones because somebody was studying for an exam, or even assisted by typing assignments. When those programmes ended, our literacy journey continued. We were paid (sometimes) to type sermons, letters of recommendation, research topics on the internet, meeting agenda, minutes for meetings, notices, vote of thanks, eulogies among other things. My parents were teachers and active community members who always took work home and involved my siblings or me in various steps of these documents' production. My mother wrote beautifully in script and cursive. She hovered over our notebooks and constantly corrected letter formation. I practised to write based on models of her handwriting. My signature, for example, was distinctly a model of hers. We had much practice on the smooth wooden door or mini chalkboard in our room. Certainly, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and adults who are aware of this, model their best attributes and skills for children.

    As a consequence of our home environment, support received and positive attitude of adult influencers to literacy, I became a voracious reader. I often imagined the scenes I read in stories and poems and tried sketching the most vivid ones. I fancied myself an artist after winning $10 (in 1983) in a competition by drawing an image from a storytelling session at school about centaurs (a creature in Greek mythology that is half horse and half man). I kept journals to record interesting life events as a child, had pen pals worldwide, entered essay competitions and hunted popular series of novels and magazines to consume as soon as one was complete.  Most naturally, English, literature, history, geography and agriculture were my favourite subjects at high school because of my inclination to read, visualize and draw. That was over thirty years ago 😁! Today, I read and write for a living as an academic and try to impact the literacy growth of my students to becoming lifelong learners. 

    The influences on children's literacy are varied and sometimes negative. Thus, many youths find the process of reading and writing tortuous and are reluctant to do so beyond the requirement of classes. Even then, many avoid both reading and writing and may resort to having a Google Assistant read for them and 'cut and paste' instead of writing, for example. My story is just one perspective, what influenced your literacy journey? What do you now think of reading and writing as an adult?