They Weren't kidding, There Really is no 'i' in Team- Collaborative Learning

I fully believe that there is no better way to learn than when it is done with other people. Whether those people be your parents or your peers or even your teachers, any way that scaffolds your learning experience gives you the confidence and comprehension you need to meet and maybe even exceed your learning objectives. Reading and writing can be two of the most difficult subject areas for students everywhere. It took me years to get to the more fluent and eloquent level that I believe I have reached today and yet, there is still room for improvement. However, I certainly didn't do it alone. I sought the aid of extra help teachers and my parents as well as my peers for years in order to better my understanding and abilities in each subject. Chances are I probably would not even know how to read if I didn't receive the proper scaffolding growing up. So my big question is why? Why do we tend to excel when we work collaboratively with the people who are closest to us in proximity and relation? I personally believe its because of a few different things; trust, encouragement, confidence and support. As you have probably already noticed, they all go hand and hand. We put a lot of trust in our peers, parents and teachers, so when we get stuck, its natural and comfortable for us to go to them for help. Collaborating with people we trust solidifies our confidence in the validity of what they are saying and therefore makes up confident to proceed in out learning process. They also give us a lot of support. When we feel that others care about our success and encourage us to do our best and that we are doing great as it is, we are more likely to believe in ourselves as learners too. It's as simple as that. So in regards to how it supports literacy, I believe it gives us the ingredients we need for success and pushes us to work through even the tougher subjects. It makes us believe that even our weakest academic areas can be overcome. Ultimately, it pushes us to be better readers and writers by providing us with a role model that we can look up to, learn from, and excel with.