Book Review 1

I really enjoyed reading I Can Write What's on My Mind:  Theresa Finds Her Voice.  Sherry Seale Swain, the author of the book, does a very nice job of illustrating her first grade reading and writing program.  Her book, published by the National Writing Project in l994, is extremely easy and interesting to read.

In the course of the book, Ms. Swain takes us through a half year program, within her first grade class.  She gives clear and detailed descriptions of what was happening in the classroom, from the teacher's standpoint, to the student's reactions.  We see very specific results to the teaching strategies that she utilized.

I found reading the book to be especially interesting, because I use such an entirely different approach to reading and language arts instruction.  In Ms. Swain's classroom, she used a strong whole language approach, based on developmental theory.  I am very happy using a direct instruction approach. 

Upon reading, it is quite evident that the program used by Ms. Swain was very successful.  I believe a great deal of her success was a direct result of her skilled method of delivery, and her confident manner in dealing with assessment of the abilities of her students.  She was confident, not only of her own abilities as instructor, but also the abilities of the children she was teaching.  She writes that"Yes.  I congratulated myself silently for trusting the collaborative writing processes to lead to demands for independent writing opportunities." We sense that she was never fearful that the end result would be anything but positive.  I think that such faith and confidence in positive outcomes, as displayed by Ms. Swain, must naturally spill over into all those student relationships that she developed that year.  Those kids could do nothing other than succeed.  I would hope the same to be true in my classroom.

Although I do use a totally different kind of program, I feel I gained a lot by reading this book.  I really appreciated Ms. Swain's statement that "engagement will happen for all" and those reassuring words "it takes time and faith" I was so impressed by Ms. Swain's very positive attitude and her genuine sensitivity for each of these little ones.  She shows a very caring heart for each of her students and they trusted her, as she in turn, trusted in their abilities.

Specific ideas that I will borrow from the book include:  writing with yellow highlighter for children to trace over, and the lead up and how to of a "conversation party." I also hope that I can implement some of the self evaluation strategies the Ms. Swain shows are so very important to learning.

In conclusion, although our teaching styles vary considerably, I found Ms. Swain's book to be very valuable.  I appreciated her very positive approach to learning, and her sincere belief in the ability of each child to learn and grow.