Paul Thomas in this post describes the literate home environment of his early childhood days, an environment that created his advantage, his privilege in becoming literate.
He also describes the tedium of school days that had to be endured rather than enjoyed, and decries the cult of measuring and labeling texts and students that “murders literacy among our students“.
He goes on to say that “The very best and most effective literacy instruction requires no textbooks, no programs, and no punitive reading policies.
Literacy is an ever-evolving human facility; it grows from reading, being read to, and writing—all by choice, with passion, and in the presence of others more dexterous than you are.”
I couldn’t agree more.
If you enjoy this post by Paul, check out this follow-up post Everyone Learns to Read by Direct Instruction on his blog the becoming radical. You may find many other posts of interest as well.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.
My privilege is easily identified in my being white and male, but it is the story of my life that better reveals my enormous privilege established by my mother when I was a child.
I entered formal schooling with such a relatively high level of literacy and numeracy that from those first days I was labeled “smart”—a misnomer for that privilege.
From Green Eggs and Ham to Hop on Pop, from canasta to spades, from Chinese checkers to Scrabble—games with my mother and often my father were my schooling until I entered first grade. And none of that ever seemed to be a chore, and none of that involved worksheets, reading levels, or tests.
Formal schooling was always easy for me because of those roots, but formal schooling was also often tedious and so much that had to be tolerated to do the things I truly enjoyed—such as collecting, reading…
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Norah Colvin 
Enjoyed and shared… Happy Reading! 🙂
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Thank you, Bette. I appreciate your sharing.:)
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Paul’s post is very interesting and insightful, thanks for sharing. I think I can relate to the privilege he describes at the start – thank you very much!
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You are welcome. It was my pleasure. And of course I thought of both my children as I read it. We had such fun reading, writing, playing games, telling stories and exploring and making discoveries together. It was privilege for me. 🙂
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Thanks for sharing this, Norah. Quite an interesting post.
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I’m pleased you enjoyed it, Michelle.
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