Literacy Autobiography 1:

My mother was a speech language pathologist and teacher (now retired). My father was a PhD chemist (also now retired). My sister was a book editor for many years.

So any chance I might have had of escaping a fervent interest in books (and science) was pretty much squashed at birth.

One of my earliest memories of family literacy instillation was being taught to read at age 4. My mother subscribed to a gentle, indulgent approach of reading instruction; my father, not so much. But time spent with my father was precious at age 4 and so I was an avid student. He would hold the book for me while I laboriously sounded out the words, but that was as far as he humored me. One night, I came to a real poser of a word for my limited lexicon: "quick." I exhausted all the q words I knew, trying to force them into the awkward sentence that ensued. Even then I had a rudimentary understanding of word context: words that were square pegs could not simply be hammered into the available round holes in the sentence. "Queen?"..."quiet?"..."quite?" None of these could be satisfactorily integrated into a sentence about running rabbits.

My dad, true to form, did not relent and feed me the elusive q word. Instead, he saw my increasing frustration and mildly suggested I go to bed. I did, although reluctant to give up, I had to resign myself that this particular q word might forever be a mystery.

Of all the things that have come to me in dreams, "QUICK!" was singularly gratifying. I woke up the next morning and jubilantly announced that I knew the word! My faith in words and the world was restored.

Teaching literacy is a way for me to provide students with their own legacy of self-discovery: an evolving, challenging, and ultimately empowering personal quest.