Hi David,
Probably other people can fill in, but there are some early reading
people in my department so I can offer you this from presentations
and discussions. Early literacy it seems to me is an umbrella term,
and it can involve everything from the amount of reading material
around the home to the amount of words a child knows. Some early
literacy stuff I think is good (when its explorative) and some not
so great but I can understand. The trouble with the approach to
early literacy being discussed in the bill I think is its
combination with testing. If you are testing you are going to have
teachers who are trying to achieve the highest possible scores of
their students on their tests rather than really trying to make the
students life long learners (a very improtant critique of programs
like teach for America). Early literacy testing is very much geared
towards issues dealing with phonetics (recognition of words, size of
vocabulary, ability to sound out word in reading). This means that
the early testing will push teachers towards both phonetics and
direct instruction of vocabulary no matter what the circumstance of
their classroom. Because students from lower SES often times have
fewer (middle class) oriented words in their vocabulary this will
push teachers in those schools even harder towards phonetics and
direct language instruction to the detriment of other very important
aspects of early curriculum such as play (as a matter of fact in the
early grades play has started to disappear in many schools). This
has already happened in the early grades where teachers are being
judged more and more on how students are doing in comprehensive
tests. Now from what I can tell teaching phonetics does work at
this level (say grades k-4), but as the curriculum switches from
phonetics to comprehension it does not help and may even be a
hindrance. In the meantime important capabilities such as
imagination and exploration have been sacrificed. And school
becomes a place of drudgery for the students, which I believe (no
proof for this I think) will lead to higher drop out rates.
They now want to assess younger children, babies through preschool.
They claim they only want to do it to determine intervention. If
this just meant children who scored lower will be placed in much
richer environments with lower teacher student ratios and an
emphasis on nutritioin this might be okay. But there is nothing in
the history of our society or the current field to suggest this.
Instead I believe these children will be labeled as behind from
their earliest years and thrown into pre school classrooms that
focus on teaching these basic abilities through phonetics and direct
instruction. Again, the teachers will be trained specifically in
raising these abilities (as a matter of fact somebody I know just
got a grant for this type of teacher training), and the teachers
will also be judged on how these children improve on these
assessments. So not only with these children be labeled based on
their inabilities to perform to middle class standards, but they
will lose important and critical components of their early
education. And early longitudinal research suggests that this is
all for nothing.
Okay, probably went on too long.
Michael
________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of David Preiss
Sent: Mon 12/14/2009 1:20 PM
To: lchcmike@gmail.com; eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Obama's Learn Act
Hi all,
For those of us who are not American, could somebody explain what is
the main issue that is at stake concerning reading instruction? I need
more information to understand the debate, and I am particularly
interested in learning more about pros and cons of early reading
instruction. Is there anything new in that debate? The concerns about
measurement are clear to me, but those related to instruction are less
clear.
Information will be appreciated.
David Preiss
On Dec 14, 2009, at 2:07 PM, mike cole wrote:
Gordon--
What does your current understanding of that work lead you to
conclude vis a
vis the push to start reading instruction so early that appears part
of the
package of propositions being criticized?
mike
On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Gordon Wells <gwells@ucsc.edu>
wrote:
I am somewhat afraid that this post may be seen as "purveying
academic drivel for self advancement", as Mike puts it." But here
goes.
The second edition of *The Meaning Makers - t*he study of children
learning to talk and talking to learn at home and school, based on
the
Bristol Study that I carried out a quarter of a century ago, has
recently
been published. As well as the original text, updated where
appropriate, it
contains three additional chapters that survey and comment on what
has
happened since the original publication. I do believe the evidence
of that
study is relevant to the ongoing discussion of the Learn Act.
For those who are interested, here are the publication details:
[image: Jacket Image For] *The Meaning Makers*<http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?K=9781847691989&search_text_01=Gordon+Wells&search_field_01=author&search_field_02=editor&search_field_03=ctitle&search_field_04=identifier&search_field_06=keyword&sort=sort_title&m=1&dc=2
* Series:* New Perspectives on Language and Education
*Author: * Gordon Wells<http://www.multilingual-matters.com/results.asp?aub=Gordon+Wells&TAG=&CID=
*Binding: *Paperback
*ISBN: * 1847691986
*ISBN-13: * 9781847691989
*Pub Date: *01 Aug 2009
*List price: *£19.95 *Discount:* 20% *Our Price:* £15.96
*US List price: *$29.95 *Discount:* 20% *US Price:* $23.96
------------------------------
Gordon Wells <gwells@ucsc.edu> http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/<http://people.ucsc.edu/%7Egwells/
Department of Education
University of California, Santa Cruz.
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Info Literaria: http://web.me.com/ddpreiss/Site_2/
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