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 Académica: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
Info Literaria: http://web.me.com/ddpreiss/Site_2/
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