Jamie: A Literacy Story the

Jamie: A Literacy Story The story entitled Jamie: A Literacy Story is a touching story about teaching others to enjoy reading and to live life through literacy. The story is about three years in the life of an elementary school teacher who, by chance, has a physically handicapped girl in her kindergarten class that was previously labeled a "special education" and disabled student, named Jamie.

The teacher takes on the challenge of having Jamie in her classroom not knowing what to expect, but realizes very early on that Jamie is only physically handicapped, not mentally. At the beginning of the story Jamie has an aide in the classroom that helps her do everything, from taking her to the bathroom to playing with her during recess. The teacher learns from observation that Jamie needed independence from the aide to grow socially and be able to do things for herself.

One of the turning points in the story occurs when Jamie's aide is only there to assist with things like bathroom breaks. At this point, Jamie grows socially as well as academically. The teacher implements many different methods of learning in the classroom, which the students love and as a result become enthusiastic about reading and writing. In turn, Jamie helps them and inspires them to love to read and write as a result of her true love of reading and her charisma.

One of the teaching methods for reading that the teacher instills in Jamie's classroom is the reader-response theory, which suggests that meaning is not inherent to the printed word but is only derived through the reader's construction of understanding. This construction can be enhanced when readers discuss books together, exploring meanings and sharing viewpoints.

The teacher implements this in the classroom, because she had read that when students are given regular opportunities to respond to literature in this way, they would increase their oral competence and cognitive development, learn more about how stories work and explore them more deeply, and develop a more personal connection with books. The teacher does this by sharing books with the students, and reading out loud to them.

She also has the students keep journals where they write their feelings and thoughts about the book or story that they just read. The teacher does this in a manner that is fun for the children. For example, in Jamie's journal, Jamie separates things by columns; one column for what she thought was funny, and another column for wondering something about the story. The teacher implemented this idea of "written response" as a method to encourage the students to think about and write about what they had just read.

The story also unfolds how Jamie worked so well with the other children, and encouraged many to write as well. The teacher researched different methods of group discussion on books to implement on her classrooms. She came up with an idea of a reading discussion group where the purpose of the group would be to communicate and exchange meaning, not focus on someone else's questions.

The teacher let the students choose what books to discuss, and encouraged them to respond to pictures as well as words, and to return to the story as often as possible to simplify and clarify their ideas. Through these discussion groups the children shared their interpretations and connections. Instead of "directing" the discussions, the teacher facilitated them, and let the children talk more. These groups were a success in the classroom, and the groups met and discussed books on the regular basis throughout the story.

Another turning point in the story is when Jamie becomes too sick to attend school for extended periods of time, because her body becomes very weakened. At the end of the story she dies, peacefully, surrounded by her friends and family, and most importantly, her books and writing. The story reflects on how many other students, parents and the teacher herself were touched by Jamie and her writing. This book will have several impacts on my teaching career.

First, it provided numerous real-life examples of teaching activities that can be implemented in the classroom, to instill a true love of reading in the classroom. I also like the journal idea, where the children immediately recorded their thoughts on paper after reading a book or story. This is something that I plan to implement in my teaching career as well. This is an excellent concept because it can be implemented into classrooms of older children also. I think that keeping a journal encourages the.