Teaching and learning is mediated by our culture, community and our homes. Thus, children come to formal classroom with prior knowledge from home and community. How do we use the information children have about language to teach them how to read? Most students do not inhabit homes that promote reading as a whole process of phonetic awareness consciously. But as community, language is a means of connection and communicating. Chomsky says language is an innate human skill.
I am a visual learner. My formal years of learning at home were done by parents who were not literate. Hence, I was socialized in an orally rich environment where my primary access to language was audio visual. I used this to my advantage. I leveraged my love for stories to acquire literacy.
For instance, in learning to spell the word chair, I accessed prior knowledge from home and community.
From my home and community I understood:
Syllable =1 (chair)
Phonetically /chEUR/
Transferring that information in formal classroom: I am able to now SEE the letters and match the letters to the sounds correctly. The word in sound and meaning was not new. But the phonetic awareness of sound word relationship was.
Spelling in class (Chair)
Therefore we are capable of teaching children to read using prior knowledge from home and community.
