SGRE3113 : Childrens Literature for Primary School

1
RELFECTION

I do love to read. Ive read a lot of book especially on science fiction genre such as
books from Micheal Crichtons Jurassic Park, The Great Train Robbery, Eaters Of
The Dead, Congo and many more but I did not know that all these books that Ive
read are also categorise as literature.

Ive gone through a few writings on literature and found this quote,

Literature is the reflection of human experience.

For me, this quote is true indeed. The human experience or a memory is
different through everyone elses eyes. Every person in the world takes something
different from what the author wrote. It could be what the reader liked, it could be the
personal opinion of the reader that the reader takes from what the author wrote. Many
people believe that literature comes from the writers imagination and that literature is
just words that form sentences on a piece of paper. People think that words do not
mean anything to anybody; but, literature is a reflection of the human experience
because it allows people to look back on their memories. Through literature, writers
are able to express their ideas about different aspects like politics or religion. In the
same way, it influences the views or opinions of other people who read them.

From what I understand, In literature, people can share one
experience. Literature allows writers or readers to look back on their memories
because they can relive the memory or experience through words. Like in a novel, To
Kill A Mockingbird, the author, Harper Lee, is going back to when she was a child
and writing down the memories that stuck with her, the most important memories to
her. Literature opens the mind to old memories and allows people to relive their
experiences, good or bad.. Literature also represents a language or a people: culture
and tradition.

For me, as an educator, literature is also important to children. One of the most
important skills students learn through literature is how to react to different
situations. Literature offers students the opportunity to discover, think, evaluate, and

SGRE3113 : Childrens Literature for Primary School

2
analyze the world around them in broader, more universal terms. Literature will help
them in understanding others life or experiences, helps to build up their life in term of
problem solvings method that they can find in certain literature writings, and it helps
them to gain knowledge in English language too. Through the study of literature, they
can develop critical thinking skills, learning how to make predictions, weigh pros and
cons, and come to conclusions based on logically thinking on the facts and
information they are presented. Literature also teaches the children how to read
between the lines and detect universal themes. Yes, our children may not fight evil
monsters and wizards, but they could face challenges where they will need friends
help, as what Harry Potter did.

Good literature exposes children to correct sentence patterns, standard story
structures, and varied word usage. Children for whom English is a second language
can improve their English with the interesting context, and all children benefit from
new vocabulary that is woven into the stories.

Whether its a novel, text, play, or short story, a good piece of literature can be
implemented in the classroom to train our students to be higher level thinkers. I found
these useful in the development of children in school and also in my teaching because
I can relate the students everyday problems with solutions from these literature
writings. Not only do they build their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills,
students can build their metacognitive skills while annotating literature.

In conclusion, literature will surely help me and the children can benefit a lot
from it by taking the experiences found from the literature reading and put them in
their daily life and in their education. Children's literature is surely more interesting to
read than textbook reading, standard textbook reading programs' such as workbooks,
worksheets, and board work (or "bored work"?). Children learn to read by reading,
and what better thing is there for children to read than the literature created just for
them?