Everything you had been saying makes me remember Emilia Ferreiro=20
proposal of literacy.
Although she had refered exaustively to Piaget - that was her advisor in=20
Genebre in the seventies - many people here in Brazil accuse her of=20
copying "her" pr=E9-history of written language of Lurias's work.
Nevertheless, her proposal had been applied with some relative success=20
on worker's and poor people's childreen literacy, in Rio Grande do Sul=20
(a state of Brazil very close to Argentina and Paraguai), specially=20
during labor party government of Porto Alegre, its capital.
She made her defense publiclly, in a book, edited by Marta Kohl de=20
Oliveira ( who has recently - 1988 - edited Literacy in human=20
development with Jaan Valsiner in USA, though Ablex Publishing=20
Corporation, Stanford, Connecticut, London, England).
Would you please comment her ideas. If it is not too much for you, of=20
course.
By the way, I tried sent you new private e-mails in portuguese but all=20
them came back to me without reaching your mail box... The translation=20
of Peter's article is done and now is beeing reviwed. Anyway, thank you=20
very much for trying helpping us.=20
, Ilda Carreiro King wrote:
>=20
> 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 also
> mandated to use whole language but at the city or town level since we d=
o not
> have centralized state control of education in Massachusetts. They wer=
e
> sometimes given a book to read or a one day to one week summer workshop=
to
> attend.
>=20
> Primarily what I experienced as a consultant was the same horror you ar=
e
> envisioning with phonics mandates. School boards were thrilled because=
they
> could stop buying expensive basals with supporting workbooks and saved =
a lot
> of money by buying the teachers 5 Big Books for the year- no exaggerati=
on-
> and they could share them among all first grade teachers since the kids
> didn't need them! And I remember lots of circles of 20 children choral
> reading after the teacher holding the Big Book. And I got lots of tea=
chers
> telling parents that one day, their child would read- don't worry- it w=
ould
> 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 about.
>=20
> What teachers told me and I observed was that no training or understand=
ing
> went with this mandate. Their books and materials needed to be put awa=
y or
> taken away and they were supposed to improvise on creativity. Most wer=
e
> embarrassed to take out a basal, even if it contained a good story, or =
a
> phonics worksheet, even if the child expressed a request to learn about=
a
> phonogram. It was the same disaster I have seen whenever any one syste=
m of
> reading instruction is mandated.
>=20
> What I learned was that teachers need in-classroom, ongoing support to =
adopt
> new practices and that mandating a teacher to use one thing doesn't wor=
k for
> kids or teachers.
>=20
> I have taught kids reading successfully for over 25 years. I have been
> fortunate to have supervised experiences with flexible instructors who
> taught me to put the learner first and learn many techniques.
>=20
> I share your outrage at mandating anything but agree to disagree about
> phonics.
>=20
> Ilda