4= Family

I think the most fundamental and meaningful influence of literacy comes from one's connection with their family. My parents were the first people to ever speak with me, teach me words, how to form sentences, to read me stories at bedtime, and look over my first homework assignments. My mom and dad have been the most influential sources of literacy in my life, and still continue to be. In some of the discussions we've had in class, we've talked about learning literacy in order to fit into the larger picture of society that surrounds us. And in a way, that's exactly what I'm doing when I'm learning literacy with in my family. I want to be considered equally as literate as my other family members, because I want to be able to participant and partake in all the same things that they do in their daily lives. I know that I still have a strong desire to please my parents and to do things that validate the ways they are proud of me. In this sense, I'm still both living up to societal expectations of what a literate individual means, but also doubling that expectation up with ones that my family provides for me, which in many cases is more important. It's quite sad to think of families where children are not properly cared for and loved when they were younger, whether that means they were read to or taught one-on-one, or neglected by a certain parent because of other circumstances. In these cases, it becomes imperative that a teacher can spend extra time with these children, because these are the important few that are more likely to struggle with literacy. Most of this is rambling on about the importance of family in literacy education, but in the same sense, it inadvertently addresses the flip-side where children grow up in homes that lack any educational help or assistance. In congruence with my research on prison literacy, I have to wonder if there is a connection between children who are taught minimal literacy at a young age and the number criminals in prison, struggling to become literate. One would have to assume there would be some sort of link between the two, although not causal, just relational.