1. Direct Instruction was designed by Bereiter and
Engelmann (later Becker) based on behaviorism (stimulus and response). It was
based on the belief that you can teach anyone anything if you break learning
into discrete pieces and provide extrinsic rewards. Why is DI problematic for
immigrant and ELL children and for in-depth learning?
DI is direct instruction
that is used to make it easier for teachers to teach children about phonics.
But the thing that makes it so different for them to grasp and understand is
because a lot of the times they can relate to what we are learning. If there
were three immigrant children in a class of those who live in the country and
have experienced the language and understand the context of the word. Another
thing is that English is a hard language to grasp because it’s a growing
language that continuously changes. The word “literally” went from the meaning
of a literal stance to an exaggeration of a word. Or the language of “slang” takes confusion to those who
don’t really understand the context.
Using phonics is a basic
skill for children to follow which of course will be easy for the children to
follow while they are younger but as they get older the depending on phonics
can only go so far to where it gets harder to understand no matter how the
teacher tries to explain it. Most of the time teachers wont take the time
needed to help the children who need refine and sharpen the skills to be able
to get past just a “phonic stage”. If the immigrant children’s who are learning
phonics can make relations to the words that they are learning then they are
able to grasp an understanding of the word and match it towards their
environment.
In some ways its
confusing for outsiders to understand the language of English but even those
who have learned it all their life has difficulty because this language caters
to many types of cultures. So this language is a rich and growing language.
1. Phonics has been promoted as the means for training
young children to succeed in Kindergarten and to read by 3rd Grade.
Why is this position so supported by parents and legislators, but less so by
ECE teachers?
The reason to think that the educational
system and for parents to believe that the support of phonics for their
children are good because in some ways phonics has improved reading and writing
for children through the work of worksheets, flashcards, videos, and numerous
other ways of teaching the program. If you see an improvement in a program
wouldn’t you want to support it? Which is why legislators help support it
because they see that it is doing something. As for parents education is key
and being able to let your child have the best is knowing that if there is a
program that is being backed up by politics then its something that is good for
your child.
According to the article that we read NCLB
was created to improve the reading for children to help increase the test
scores that America was struggling in. Allowing children to be introduced to
phonics help sort out those who was falling behind and those who was
achievement and to separate the groups by allowing those children to catch up
by giving those types of programs to those who were falling behind to increase
their reading ability.
The reason for why ECE educators don’t
support it as much is because phonics is a method for reading. Knowing that
children can’t grasp the concept if its put through worksheets wont help the children
learn. If the child is learning reading through numerous amounts of activities
and still learning the same thing from a worksheet the child is having hands-on
experiences and gaining more then just the phonic learning of sounding the word
out, placement wording, and allowing the child to create a meaning to the word
to have a better understanding of the word. There are so much more that ECE
educators do to help the child through literacy and literature that phonics has
to offer the children.
For me I was put through those phonic classes
in elementary and I honestly didn’t learn a thing. It was basically being
separated to go to a room where there was no one but you and the teacher and go
through mounds of books of one-word pages with a picture relating to it then
having to copy a word down on a worksheet. That’s how it was being in one of
those “low-achieving” phonic placement. They made it sound like such an amazing
thing to my parents where her reading will be improved and that she will be
able to succeed with everyone else. But it wasn’t that class was terrible and degrading
because I was always forced to leave the class and go they’re when it came to English
class. I also didn’t learn much being in there. So after the 2nd grade
of being in there the whole year and forced to do work books that summer I
worked myself instead to get out of that class and improve me own reading. It
might be different for others but I really didn’t enjoy being in it at all.
Hi Jasmine,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you sharing your personal story about phonics. I think that provided me with more insight and I think it goes back to how we as teachers need to make learning meaningful and interesting. I am sorry that you had a bad experience but it was great that you were able to persevere through your experience with phonics and read. I also think your examples about the English language and slangs are an important aspect to look at. I did not have the experience that you had but thinking about how hard it is to learn another language, puts things into perspective for me and I think being able to have curriculum that relates to the children we teach and their interests will help motivate them to want to learn. Providing an enriched environment that is filled with many opportunities to grasp and understand what words look like and mean, will help build their vocabulary and also give them confidence. Do you think your bad experience with phonics helped you in anyway? In what ways are you going to use your experience to help children in your classroom develop literacy skills?
In similarity to your experience with phonic, I had my experience too with workbooks my parents made me do. In elementary, I lacked interest in reading. I was quite difficult reading chapters from a book then doing reading response after in the 2nd grade. My parents bought me a workbook hoping it'll improve my reading and writing, but it never helped. They then sent me to Kumon which didn't help at all either. Point is, these set workbooks and reading programs to make you better in reading and writing will only help so much. I can only feel bad for the children, like myself, having a hard time reading comfortably. From my experience, it showed me that they way I was forced to read is not an effective way to teach children to enjoy. So what ways can we as teacher encourage reading in the classroom so children will enjoy it and not hate it?
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing about your experiences. I experienced a reading program at my daughter's preschool called Break Through to Literacy also known as BTL. Each day of the week they participated in different activities pertaining to the book of the week. I recall one of them being called Roy G. Biv and it thought the children about the different colors of the rainbow and it spelt out to be Roy G. Biv. At the end of the week my daughter would bring home the book and she had "homework" to do according to the story. When my daughter was in kindergarten and first grade, she was referred by her teachers to take part in an after school program called Kumon. I think the pressure of standardized test and scores are compelling people in the legislature and congress to create laws to force certain types and learning upon our children.
ReplyDeleteHi Jasmine,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your story about your phonics classes. Some of your peers offer some really great questions about how you will use that experience to help the children you work with. Also, how could you use that experience to help your fellow teachers and peers? Sometimes I think it's easy to forget the feelings of children in these situations when we are focused on scores and meeting certain benchmarks within certain time frames. Since you had that experience, I hope you continue to let other educators know how to keep the feelings of children in mind when planning certain curriculum activities.
The reading touched on using "whole language" as a way to teach phonetics. The reading also mentioned there are just some words that can't be sounded out phonetically, like "to," "two," and "too," or words such as "whole" which don't seem to follow any rules. How would you recommend teaching these kinds of words to children? Is it possible that in some cases direct instruction is necessary? As you mentioned, so much of the English language is fluid - some words change their meaning over time and slang is often introduced into the vocabulary. Also, there are different dialects within English, such as African American Language or, like here in Hawaii, pidgin. How can we make sure that we honor each child's home language while still helping them receive the requisite supports they need while at school without alienating them? Thanks again for sharing your experience with us this week!