Do you remember, in the movie The Lion King, when Simba saw his reflection in the water? At first, he sees his own reflection; but when Rafiki asks him to look harder, it is the face of Mufasa (his father) he sees.
Aren't most of us reflections of our parents? It's part of the wonderful circle of life.
I like to think of literacy as a great big circle as well.
The problem is, many of us are still defining literacy in a linear fashion. We draw a line. One end is labeled 'reading' and the other is marked 'writing.'
Reading_____________________________Writing
It's kind of limiting, don't you think?
In my eyes, true literacy starts way before children are able to read or write.
When a baby cries out for its parents for the first time, for example, what it longs for is a response. Whether we hold the baby in our arms, speak soft words, or gaze into his or her eyes, we are answering the call. Every word, every gesture, every look, every smile... is a form of early literacy.
You see, literacy is really all about communication. It starts with small gestures, and the use of the five senses. For babies, it involves a lot of watching, listening, touching, tasting, and even smelling. After all, without the five senses (or at least a few of them), why would we even need words in the first place?
So, for the first 4 or 5 years of a child's life, here's what the literacy circle might look like:
As we grow into adults, we tend to lose some of these components of early literacy, even as we gain the ability to read and write. Adults have much less imagination and fun than most children do! What a shame.
Those early literacy skills are still part of the circle, though, as it seems that we have the ability to turn them on and off during our lifetimes. That's why I like to think of early literacy as the sun, and literacy in general as the moon. While one fuels the growth of all living things, the other controls the tides of oceans.So, for older children and adults, the literacy circle expands and contracts to look something like this:
Of course, this diagram is a simplified version of traditional literacy, but do you notice that many of the components originate during the pre-reading literacy stage? Listening, observing, speaking, and creative thinking all begin to develop before children learn to read, and continue to be essential components of literacy throughout life.
Out of those 4 main elements of early literacy, though, there are two which provide the ground upon which all of the others stand: listening and observing. They are the first skills a baby develops, but they need to be practiced throughout life.
That's not to say that to become fully literate you must develop both of these skills. There are plenty of people who can't hear or see who soar using only one of these essential components of literacy. All I'm saying is that we all need to practice at least one of these elements on order to develop any form of advanced literacy.
Jim Trelease says it so well, on page 4 of The Read-Aloud Handbook:
"There are really only two efficient ways to get words into a person's brain: either through the eye or through the ear."
The sheer power of the read-aloud lies in that statement, but that's a topic for another day.
In a world where literacy has become anything but simple, and where people have come to rely so much on the visual, the moon is causing the tides to turn like this:
It's become a very busy world indeed, hasn't it? You can't just practice one kind of literacy anymore, so it's not enough to just get by with early or traditional literacy. On the other hand, one does not have any hope of moving on to any of the above forms of advanced literacy without first mastering what might appear (on the surface) to be primitive forms of learning.
Being around the youngest of children gives us the opportunity to experience the simple pleasures of life and early literacy all over again. They help us to listen better, laugh more, dream more, and just plain old live more. They help us to bring back those early literacy skills, which are becoming even more essential in this ever changing world of ours.
The Lion King reminds us that we are all a part of the circle of life. I think literacy is the heart and soul of that circle. It's something that evolves -and revolves - over time.
Sounds kind of like our planet, doesn't it? If our world is one large circle of life, then it orbits around a sun of early literacy. The moon may control the tides, but there would be no life in the oceans without the sun.
Let life and literacy shine on!
Please note that this post is part of the Share a Story Shape a Future Literacy Blog Tour, which is being hosted at The Book Chook blog today. The topic of the day is Literacy My Way/Literacy Your Way. I'll hope you'll stop by and check out the links to some fascinating blog posts.