Literacy Autobiography EDU 3410-OL1

Fall 2016

Shontaire Butler

My Literacy Exposure-The Birth of it All

My Literacy Exposure- The First Trimester
Being of a mature age, my memories of my early literacy experiences are fuzzy and
artifacts are few and far between. I have always been excited about learning no matter the
subject. In looking at this literacy journey that I have been on since saying my first words, I
related it to my three pregnancies. I feel there are 3 trimesters, a labor and a birth clearly defined
by my elementary, middle, high school, college and adulthood years. Thinking back on my
elementary school years, I had never had anxiety about reading and writing. As this is a little
different from the First Trimester of my pregnancies in which I did have anxiety, there was
also the sense of excitement and impending happiness. It is the time I discovered new things and
embraced the changes that were happening.
I was always exposed to books as a child and had access to literacy strategies because of
my mom. My mom was a pre-school teacher that brought her work home all the time. I
remember cutting out letters and pictures for bulletin boards in middle school and at times did
them for my teachers as a part of special projects. Early memories include standing in front of
the class, reading to my peers and looking up to see the smile on my teachers face when I
pronounced a difficult word. I remember reading scriptures in front of the church and
introducing speakers on Sunday. With there being a 6-year gap between my next oldest sibling, I
was left to entertain myself and remember walks to the library and coming home with tons of
books. I also remember taking the CAT test year after year and scoring in the 97th percentile or
higher. I used to look forward to projects that required me to produce my own pieces of writing
as well. I would look forward to being able to display my writing in the hallways.

This is my 4th grade picture along with my report card for that year. I always had a book in my hands and loved the As in reading.
The third picture is of my CAT test scores where my Language Arts percentile was described as Superior.

My Literacy Exposure- The Second Trimester

As with my First Trimester of literacy, the literacy memories are not as clear for my
middle school years but I do recall loving Language Arts class and all of my teachers. I also can
think of times when I would rush home to start a new assignment. I had a teacher in the 6th grade
that allowed me to do a bulletin board on nouns. With my Second Trimester of literacy, I
escaped the awkward stage by submerging myself into reading and academics. As with the
second trimester of pregnancy, you start to feel better and become a little more comfortable with
what is going on. Being a part of the Gifted and Talented program during my middle school
years also allowed me to be exposed to advanced ideas and produced a growth of knowledge.
This was oftentimes through the reading of literature, articles and information outside of what
was required in my regular classes. During the mid1980s, I remember a lot of focus on
grammar, diagraming sentences, developing different sentence structures and increasing
vocabulary. I loved it all.
Below is a copy of my final 8th grade report card for Language Arts displaying an A in Reading, Composition, Spelling and English.

My Literacy Exposure- The Third Trimester and Labor

My confidence in my literacy level allowed me to be a stellar student in high school
which I wish had carried over into my college years. The Third Trimester and Labor of my
literacy journey was filled with mountains and valleys. High School or for the purpose of this
paper my Third Trimester brought opportunities to display that confidence by doing public
speaking, holding offices in clubs and serving as the Editor-In-Chief of the yearbook. As with the
third trimester of pregnancy, I was looking forward to great things and making plans. I was
joyous and excited about what was happening and what was about to come. An understanding of
literacy and its importance also helped me excel in all subjects as I was awarded an award for
highest average in French, a chemistry award and a full academic scholarship courtesy of
Veterans Affairs.

During my senior year, I was asked by the guidance counselor to preside over the Academic Awards Ceremony. As president of the
National Honor Society, I happily agreed.

Unfortunately, I thought my literacy excellence had peeked too soon as I entered college
and found all the other factors about academia distracting. During the Labor of my literacy
journey, I struggled a bit in college. I cried so bad when I got my first F, my mother thought I
was going to tell her I was pregnant. It basically came down to the fact that if I had read more for
my classes then I would have had better grades. I made it out of the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelors of Science in Public Health with a decent GPA but it
was not up to my standards at all.
My Literacy Exposure- The Birth
Reading for me became a relaxing, private space as I entered into my adult life and faced
real adult problems. I have accrued many late fees at the library and have used most of my
memory on my Kindle with books that take me to places I have never been. I think my comfort
level with reading allowed me to excel in other subjects and made me a great student but an even
better mother and educator. This denotes the Birth part of my literacy path. I read to my own
children and my daycare kids. Because of my love of children and books, I have a small library
to expose my daycare kids and my 6-year old daughter to books. They often ask Can we open
the library today? and get excited when they get to pick their favorite book from the Book
Basket. My library and book baskets are full of Eric Carle and classics like There Was an
Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Jump, Frog, Jump.

This is part of my Book Nook in my home daycare. I have book baskets all over the childcare area as well as a book shelf in
my daughters room. This bookshelf opens and closes and the kiddies call it the library and asks every day to open it.

As with the birth of my children, I forget the labor that I endured in order for them to be
here. My daughter enjoys shopping for her Fancy Nancy and Pinkaliscious books and has had a
hard time keeping to her 6 book limit when we go to the library. She takes pride in keeping up
with her library card. She gets just as excited as I used to get about the library. I am going to
take some credit for that and feel this is the ultimate reward for a happy, healthy, strengthening
process in literacy just like a pregnancy and the birth of a child.

I have always had the attention to detail when it comes to things in print where I would
find grammatical mistakes in the weirded places. I think this came from my exposure to books.
Understanding we all make mistakes, reading something full of grammatical and spelling errors
is like nails on a chalkboard. I was a technical writer previously and found the job exhilarating
even if it was the most mundane subjects. In one of my latest career endeavors, I was an
Instructional Assistant in a severe and profound Pre-K classroom where many students did not
have the physical or cognitive ability to master the understanding of books without assistance.
Having worked with these students with profound special needs, I have learned that reading and
literacy are a source of normalcy and accomplishment. We may think these students are not
aware that they are different but they are. By some unexplainable reason, even they understand
and cherish the joy of a book. Just the idea of a book brings excitement to some of these
students. In my classroom, assistive technology was needed to simply turn the pages of a book
for some students. We also used adapted books that had bigger pictures, less words and
encouraged comprehension by allowing the students to make choices throughout the book.
Because these students had such profound vision and dexterity issues, we used devices such as
the Bookworm that allowed students to turn the page of a prerecorded book by touching a
switch. As my service hours for a previous class, 30 books were recorded by myself, my son and
my daughter so that these students could enjoy the benefit of reading. As with a new baby, you
look past the puffy face, sometimes blotchy skin, and little bodies to see the most beautiful thing
you will ever see in your life. To see a child with so many challenges hear and understand a
book for the first time is one of the greatest experiences I have ever had making it another benefit
to my literacy journey.

Many special needs student have difficulty following standard books so adapted books are created to aid in their understanding
of a book. The first picture gives an example of this. The second picture is of an electronic type of assistive technology called a
Bookworm. This can be attached to a switch for the student read (hear) the next page. Both of these were used daily in my
classroom.

Understanding the importance of literacy and reading is important for a teacher to

comprehend. A passion to teach literacy is also a plus. To look at literacy as a gift that can give
so many things to a student is view that many teachers should take. Taking literacy for granted
and thinking it is an automatic is a trap that many teachers fall into. There is always a chance to
teach literacy in all subjects and all ages. My teenage son still struggles with literacy and that is
a concern that we are working on together. This literacy journey just like all my pregnancies has
brought much happiness, joy, struggle and self-awareness that will be invaluable in my pursuit to
be an effective teacher of exceptional students. The great thing about my literacy path is that it
never ends. Just like the love I have for my children and the love they have for me, there will
always be new experiences and new reasons to be thankful. I am excited about bringing a love
of literacy to my future students as well as them teaching me a thing or two along the way.