As for Emilia Ferreiro's work, I am not familiar with it, so regrettably =
cannot
comment. I am not sure from what you wrote what she did with her field =
work that
you thought was successful. Perhaps you could comment on that aspect?
Ilda
Ricardo Ottoni wrote:
> Ilda,
>
> Everything you had been saying makes me remember Emilia Ferreiro
> proposal of literacy.
>
> Although she had refered exaustively to Piaget - that was her advisor i=
n
> Genebre in the seventies - many people here in Brazil accuse her of
> copying "her" pr=E9-history of written language of Lurias's work.
>
> Nevertheless, her proposal had been applied with some relative success
> on worker's and poor people's childreen literacy, in Rio Grande do Sul
> (a state of Brazil very close to Argentina and Paraguai), specially
> during labor party government of Porto Alegre, its capital.
>
> She made her defense publiclly, in a book, edited by Marta Kohl de
> Oliveira ( who has recently - 1988 - edited Literacy in human
> development with Jaan Valsiner in USA, though Ablex Publishing
> Corporation, Stanford, Connecticut, London, England).
>
> Would you please comment her ideas. If it is not too much for you, of
> course.
>
> By the way, I tried sent you new private e-mails in portuguese but all
> them came back to me without reaching your mail box... The translation
> of Peter's article is done and now is beeing reviwed. Anyway, thank you
> very much for trying helpping us.
>
> , Ilda Carreiro King wrote:
> >
> > Ken,
> > I find this interchange somewhat ironic. I would think you would be
> > sensitive to superficial representations of methodologies given what
> > happened to whole language. Here in Massachusetts, teachers were als=
o
> > mandated to use whole language but at the city or town level since we=
do not
> > have centralized state control of education in Massachusetts. They w=
ere
> > sometimes given a book to read or a one day to one week summer worksh=
op to
> > attend.
> >
> > Primarily what I experienced as a consultant was the same horror you =
are
> > envisioning with phonics mandates. School boards were thrilled becau=
se they
> > could stop buying expensive basals with supporting workbooks and save=
d a lot
> > of money by buying the teachers 5 Big Books for the year- no exaggera=
tion-
> > and they could share them among all first grade teachers since the ki=
ds
> > didn't need them! And I remember lots of circles of 20 children chora=
l
> > reading after the teacher holding the Big Book. And I got lots of t=
eachers
> > telling parents that one day, their child would read- don't worry- it=
would
> > just happen. Just like one day they talked. I think you would be as
> > appalled as I was at viewing this as what whole language was all abou=
t.
> >
> > What teachers told me and I observed was that no training or understa=
nding
> > went with this mandate. Their books and materials needed to be put a=
way or
> > taken away and they were supposed to improvise on creativity. Most w=
ere
> > embarrassed to take out a basal, even if it contained a good story, o=
r a
> > phonics worksheet, even if the child expressed a request to learn abo=
ut a
> > phonogram. It was the same disaster I have seen whenever any one sys=
tem of
> > reading instruction is mandated.
> >
> > What I learned was that teachers need in-classroom, ongoing support t=
o adopt
> > new practices and that mandating a teacher to use one thing doesn't w=
ork for
> > kids or teachers.
> >
> > I have taught kids reading successfully for over 25 years. I have be=
en
> > fortunate to have supervised experiences with flexible instructors wh=
o
> > taught me to put the learner first and learn many techniques.
> >
> > I share your outrage at mandating anything but agree to disagree abou=
t
> > phonics.
> >
> > Ilda