Instructor, Literacy Education
Office: Schindler Educ Ctr 225, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Phone: (319) 273-2167
Email: brenda.hite@uni.edu (Fall), lageb@waterlooschools.org
Education: M.A.E., Literacy Education, University of Northern Iowa
Research Interests: Literacy, Elementary Literacy
Brenda’s relationship with literacy has not always been a positive one. She started out reading like any other young learner. However, she found reading to be boring and didn’t find the joy that seemed to enchant others. It took her a long time to read a book and she was unable to pull everything together to create the sense of story and wonder. As time progressed, her personal progress diminished. She was still able to read, but it was a laborious task. It wasn’t until Brenda was in high school that her perception of what it meant to be a reader shifted. She had a teacher who engaged students in active dialogue about each book they read. Reading became more about making meaning of the story and less about decoding and remembering. This experience changed Brenda’s life’s trajectory. She was more engaged in school, more confident, and headed down the path toward her current career as a language and literacy instructor.
After studying teacher education at UNI, Brenda’s first teaching position was that of a Title I teacher with the Waverly-Shellrock Community School District. It was in this placement that she received the opportunity to be trained as a Reading Recovery teacher. That intensive training altered the lens with which she viewed literacy and literacy instruction. Literacy is about making meaning and communicating messages. The isolated skills are only a small part of the big picture. It wasn’t until a moment of reflection years later that she realized this view now closely aligns with her experience in high school.
Fully invested in her path as a literacy educator, Brenda began teaching at Irving Elementary in the Waterloo Community School District as a Literacy Strategist. Over time, she found that she was encountering challenges with her learners that she did not feel she had the skill set to address. Unable to support her learners as she felt they deserved, Brenda enrolled in the Master’s program at UNI with a focus in Literacy Education (she graduated in 2016). This program extended her knowledge in different directions, allowing her to fine-tune her instruction, as needed, by each learner. Since completing the program at UNI, Brenda has continued to teach at Irving Elementary, as well as support the Advanced Literacy Practices course at UNI. With all of her learners, regardless of age, she tries to emphasize the importance of keeping literacy a meaning-making activity. Readers and writers are strategic. They are thinkers. They are story-tellers. Establishing those ideas within each learner has the potential to help create engaged and confident readers/writers…like herself.