Mem Fox is my hero in the teaching of Language Arts world. She writes books for parents and their children to read together. She writes books that are full of rhythm, rhyme and beautiful words; books that you and your child will want to read over and over again. When you do read to your child everyday from books full of beautiful words, rhythm and rhyme, books that are real, your child will become readers on their own.
Please peruse her website. It is full of too many ideas to mention. She reads her books aloud online. She writes about how to read aloud and why. She is amazing.
Many parents that come to me for evaluations worry about how to make their home into a classroom; how to teach the right way. I found it interesting in one of Mem’s essays that she cries out to her teachers to make their classrooms more like home.
A quote from her -Like Mud, Not Fireworks!
Finally I am asking teachers to be as human as parents. Parents, as we have seen in Helen and Luke, are such naturally good teachers that we need to copy what they do and how they behave. We need to emulate the affectionate attitudes and relationships of happy families since clearly kids learn to read in such situations more quickly than we can teach them to read at school.
We need to be real, in the way parents are real, not pretend that because we are teachers we never cry, howl with laughter, get furious, squeal with excitement or feel really depressed. Parents and children know about each other and share many different experiences. We should really know our students, not superficially know them. Similarly, our students should know us, I believe, and know about us, which includes knowing our first names even if they aren’t used. Loosening our passions to become more relaxed, to be more truly who we really are, can only enhance the environment in which we teach and in which our family of students learns.
Have faith in yourself. Curl up next to your child with a good book, have fun and read for all its worth. Find those good books that are your child’s favorites.
Read them again, and again, and again!