Austin Landrethsmith

ENC 1101

26 August 2023

Reading Response 1

After reading the articles “Heritage Literacy '' by Suzanne Kesler Rumsey and “Sponsors

of Literacy '' by Deborah Brandt, it is evident that there are different viewpoints that would

explain how an individual actually gains literacy skills. By looking at the similarities and

differences between the articles, we can have a good understanding of what allows us as

humans to acquire and engage in literacy skills. In Brandt’s article she explains that accessibility

to “sponsors” greatly affects the literacy skills that are learned and retained by people. Sponsors

can be anything that can teach the ability to read and write. For most people this would be their

early school teachers, parents and anything that displays words like books, newspapers and

television. In her article she interviewed two people from very different socio-economic

upbringings. One of the participants came from a wealthier family who had much more access

to sponsors like computers in his classroom, home and local stores. As a result of this he had a

fairly easy path to obtaining literacy. The second participant came from a Mexican family that

did not have the same contacts to as many sponsors as the first participant’s family did. In

Rumsey’s article she explains that it is our cultural upbringings that mainly determines our

degree of literacy. She expresses that we must look back on our heritage and decide what we

should keep, change or disregard in terms of reading and language. She interviewed an Amish

woman and her daughter and found out that the daughter and her siblings were allowed to go to

a regular public school up to the eighth grade with non-Amish people. This is not typical for most

Amish families since most go to the Amish parochial school. This expresses the idea of Heritage

Literacy in which the mother considered her own traditions and decided that she wanted to

adapt them in order for her kids to have more opportunities for literacy. In my own experience I
felt that I had my own sponsors of literacy like my elementary teachers, parents and television .

As a child my mother would read me books before going to bed, I would learn grammar in

school and I would hear a lot of new language in movies and shows.