We know that becoming literate is easier and language competence is deepened when learning involves meaningful social interaction with the real world. It is also enhanced when the activities and learning experiences in the classroom take into account the wide variety of ways in which students learn. When what we expect students to do in school invites them to engage in tasks that help them reach for the next level of proficiency, confident about what they already know and can do, we, as teachers, are thinking constructively about our students’ learning.

Outward Bound instructors talk about creating the conditions that make students’ active exploration of the real world “likely, challenging, and fruitful.” When it comes to helping students become more successful readers and writers, there is no doubt that linking students’ current learning challenges to personal experiences and successes can be the key to capturing students’ attention and ensuring their continued interest and enthusiasm. So, it seems very clear that we should connect students’ “out of school literacy” with the efforts we are making to help them make sense of the texts they meet in school. Often, the students whom teachers and the system have categorized as in trouble and not profiting from instruction are really creative and responsive learners when their personal stories and experiences are aligned to the classroom activities in which they are expected to participate. As teacher Elite Ben-Josef puts it, what sets struggling learners “apart from other children is not an inability to learn but the fact that they have background literacies that are different from those taught and accepted in our classrooms. It is the system that is often unable to address the differences between students’ out of school literacies and classroom discourse.”

I am reminded of my own experience as a parent when my eldest daughter was in Grade One. I was driving her to a music lesson after school and asked the question most frequently posed by parents to their offspring: “How was school today?”
Her answer almost made me drive off the road. She said, “ My teacher told me I talk too much to other kids. I tried to tell her I was just explaining why I was fascinated because the girl in the story was like me but she said I should be quiet and do my work.” That was bad enough but what my daughter said next made me sick at heart and then angry. In a rush to make sure she wasn’t worrying me about her progress in school, she said quickly “But don’t you worry Mom…I’m working on not being fascinated!”

Her teacher, perhaps with good intentions, was doing the worst thing possible. She was building barriers instead of bridges between my daughter’s experiences and her ongoing learning. She was, probably unwittingly, introducing the sting of defeat into Erin’s early days of formal schooling. Fortunately, this negative climate was not a steady diet for her and her experience in school was positive and reinforcing for the most part. Recognizing learners’ intentions and prior knowledge is a non-negotiable for the educator who is a catalyst for students’ learning. One teacher put it this way: “I find that much of what we claim we want to teach kids they already know in some form. I want to know what they know so we can make some natural and relevant connections to their lives.”