Week One Overview

Where have we traveled this week? From introductions to the TORP to BRI, to the Pearson article.

Thinking about

• what the powers that be want (testing/accountability) versus what is best for kids as they learn to read
• TORP - still don't feel like I have enough background knowledge or experience to make an informed discussion about my beliefs on reading - that's OK - what will I think after this class - will be interesting
• BRI
  
• Pearson article - what stood out...
  

  1. Reading as language rather than perception..... hmmm so is that the idea behind the Master's Program being called Language Education versus Reading?? Really interesting. So far this article has been incredibly helpful with helping me understand things

  Also I see the connections between ESL language acquisition and these ideas - so it is giving me something to hang the new ideas onto... good, helpful

  2. Throwing the baby out with the bath water??? This is a question I often have throughout my educational career. It seems that the psycholinguists are throwing out the skills in favor of natural language processes - My question is this - do they have to be mutually exclusive - aren't there times when skills really are helpful? Or not?
  

• 3. One of the most revelatory questions for me came on page 27...

  What would the teaching of reading and writing look like, if we assumed that children can learn to read and write in much the same way as they learn to talk?
  Holy cow!!! First, I had never considered this at all - In ESL, we talk a LOT about the Universal Grammar(UG) in the brain - a theoretical location that is "turned on" for young children that gives them a heightened ability to learn (implicitly) all the structures, rules, etc. about language that they need to be able to acquire spoken language - The theory then says that at some point this UG turns off - so they observe that's why younger children can more easily acquire language and why it gets more difficult as people get older because they no longer have the same access to the UG in their brains....
  If the UG theory holds true, then wouldn't it be doubly important to get kids into text-rich settings as early as possible, so they have access to the UG for a longer period of time.. That seems to jibe with other things I've read and the emphasis and money spent on early reading programs

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  Does the problem become for those kids who didn't have rich exposure early on - like trying to teach senior citizens a second language - possible - takes a lot longer, is not as easy for the older learner....

• This was one other idea that jumped off the page at me - page 80....

  Meaning is something that resides not in the head of the reader, nor on the printed page....instead.. meaning is created in the transaction between reader and document...

  Meaning as "poem" relaly struck me - the way a poem can sometimes say it just right or capture just what you are thinking - I found this really interesting!!