The Tale of Samuel Whiskers: Developing literacy at home

When I read Gee's "Language and Identity At Home," I couldn't help but focus on his examples of children's explicit speech outside academics. His first example, "Jennie," reminded me implicitly of stories I heard about myself as a child.

Even before I could read, my mom would read me Peter Rabbit books and my favorite story was The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. Let me remind you, I couldn't read, but when my mom read, if she made one mistake, I corrected her with verbatim quotes from the book. I wasn't using my own words to describe what she was missing, but instead using storybook language to say what I wanted; which was for her to get the book right. (I was a teensy bit spoiled).

This is reminscent of Gee's theory that language in the home prompts children to learn to describe what is around them and how to interact with others. "What is happening here is that a little girl, who cannot yet 'really' read, is learning and practicing non-vernacular forms of language associated with school..." (Gee 23). Gee suggests that children begin non-vernacular speech acquistion extremely early, so that by the time they get to school, all the necessary varieties of language are present in the brain an personality (Gee 24).

My question is how this applies to first year composition? Gee says that it is no matter if a child can read at high levels. What does matter is that the student can adapt those beginning skills to different academic literacies/ varieties of language in later grades. He elaborates by stating that if these languages aren't fostered and supported at home, the students will feel as if they don't belong at school (Gee 37).

If my mom hadn't allowed me to correct her in my "Beatrix Potter literacy," (as stupid as that sounds) would I be able to adapt my skills to the levels I've acheived to date? Maybe not, but what about the way Gee concludes his article? With the idea that maybe it's not the way the languages are learned, but instead which are more exciting? How does that play into how we adapt in our early language development?

I'm sorry about the inquisitive conclusion to this blog, but this article left me with a few questions.