This week's readings was a lot of material to let sink in but I think it was all very useful knowledge when think about writing. Chapter 5 in Freeman and Freeman discussed the history of writing and how we came to the English writing system. I loved reading about other languages and the forms of orthography used. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE homonyms and palindromes! They are an interesting aspect to the English language and as a kid I read the books that Freeman and Freeman mention. When looking at the exercises suggested for teaching spelling patterns I could not help but wonder if the activities would actually be beneficial or would they frustrate the students. Suggestions included studying words in a text to find patterns. If a group of words do not follow a specific patterns students are suppose to hypothesize why that may be. History of the language is of course and indicator but would the students even bother with that information?
As I posted the same questions on the discussion board I just wonder what good it does to have students dissect a text. I can see the appropriateness it has in an Adult ESL class but what about an elementary setting?
I like the idea of word games because it seems to create actual excitement about spelling patterns and not a mundane act of looking for patterns. Maybe it is just the "hyper Stephanie" talking but even as a graduate student I would not enjoy looking at spelling patterns. As a teacher I would want my students to be excited about learning the language and I think part of that is keeping them interested in the task at hand. I am not trying to depreciate the activities suggested I am only questioning the effectiveness that it may offer.
I still have a hard time grasping the concept of complimentary distribution as talked about on page 113. Other than that I quite enjoyed Chapter 5 of Freeman and Freeman.
Chapter 6 of the same text talked about Phonics. I was interested to read about Phonics because I don't have any experience with it. When I was learning to read my teachers did not use Phonics so I was curious to know how it works. It seems that Freeman and Freeman advocate for a different, more sociopsycholinguistic view. There was evidence to support the idea that phonics is not designed for natural reading. That is to say that our eyes do not read left to right and we do not dissect each letter at a time. The act of saccades has been studied to prove just that point. Although I think that an entire approach to reading using only phonics is not something I would do, I do think there is some room to clarify certain linguistic areas if students are having trouble. I think the only way to teach reading is by reading. Students need to be immersed from an early age.
One thing I did not understand was assimilation. If I had an example of what assimilation was I think I could grasp it. I understood coarticulation that goes along assimilation as two phonemes being articulated in the same area of the mouth. I think assimilation must mean a phoneme's pronunciation can be effected by its neighboring phoneme. I think. : )
Chapter 12 talked more about the history of writing systems and the different writing systems that exist throughout the world. It appears that there are 3 different writing systems in existence, syllabic, logographic, and alphabetic.
I loved looking at the different Chinese characters and only wish I could attempt to write in such a beautiful way. The book pointed out the advantages to the Chinese writing system and one of them was many dialects can communicate through the same writing system.
There are many teaching implications when reading this chapter. It is important to know the linguistic history of each student so the teacher can fully grasp some of the challenges that may arise. For example, a student with a Turkish background will have different obstacles to overcome than a student coming from Korea. If a teacher recognizes the possible obstacles that each individual student may face then she is better equipped to help each student tackle those obstacles! The same goes with the advantages each student brings in depending on their linguistic background. Each language can present great foundations for teachers to work off of, that teacher just needs to be aware of what they are. An example my be that a student with a Spanish background can already recognize virtually the same Roman alphabet which is an advantage, however, that same student is use to pronouncing words just as they appear which could be a possible obstacle that student can overcome.
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Hi Stephanie, I enjoyed your blog and I was interested when you wrote: "As I posted the same questions on the discussion board I just wonder what good it does to have students dissect a text. I can see the appropriateness it has in an Adult ESL class but what about an elementary setting?" One of the things that has struck me as an important emphasis in the TSEL program, is the idea of 'genre recognition.' It was something I hadn't ever thought about, but it became really clear this was something my education lacked. Because I am a native speaker, I 'naturally' understood purposes of different kinds of texts, but I was never explicitly instructed on this, and not at all when I was learning another language. I am impressed that elementary teachers (as young as first grade) are now doing this. They simplify it by asking children to predict, to differentialte between fiction and non-fiction, to consider the story from all the characters points of view, etc. I think it helps them become active readers, and this would be helpful to all students, it seems. If you, like like me, just love to read, it doesn't seem necessary. But, I am working with college under grads (both ELL and NAE speakers) who just don't know how to read actively. So, I think this can be helpful and can be adapted to many ages and abilities. Thanks for making me think about this! Jillian
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