#edrd 600

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The right — and surprisingly wrong — ways to get kids to sit still in class

From the article:

"They need authentic play experiences that get them moving in all different directions in order to stimulate the little hair cells found in the vestibular complex (located in the inner ear). If children do this on a regular basis and for a significant amount of time, then (and only then) will they experience the necessary changes needed to effectively develop the balance system–leading to better attention and learning in the classroom.

In other words, adjusting children’s seating and taking quick one-minute movement breaks will offer some support — but we will continue to see significant sensory and behavioral problems, as well as a decline in children’s overall health (i.e., rise in obesity, decrease strength, and poor body awareness) if we don’t start allowing for adequate time in which children can get up and out of their seats to move."

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Children learn language as they use it for various purposes; they learn about language as they consciously reflect upon its processes, skills, and concepts; and they learn through language by exploring content across disciplines via oral and written language.

Mills & O'Keefe (1999), What really matters in literacy instruction, p. 40

Mills & O'Keefe as well as Short & Kaufmann (2000) all write about learning language, learning about language, and learning through language. In what ways do literacy teachers facilitate opportunities for children to engage in literacies in such ways? Interestingly enough, the researchers who wrote the articles and chapters for this week all very much value and take up stances of inquiry in classrooms. As we move to think about how what we value becomes an integral part of our classroom pedagogy and the teaching of reading and writing, these are certainly concepts of which to be mindful and curious.

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Why kids should choose their own books to read in school

From the article:

"Acquiring the habit of turning to books for pleasure or to find out what you want to know does more for reading development than working on decoding words or trying to speed up fluency."

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At the school level, social constructivism implies a form of learning in which students are fully engaged, find the process to be meaningful, and relate ideas to the real world to a considerable context.

Beck, C. & Kosnick, C. (2006). Innovations in teacher education: A social constructivist approach. p. 2

I'm reading a bit more into social constructivism this morning as I work on a literature review, and this quote struck me as interesting in light of the video we watched in class on 9.8. I'm thinking specifically about the ways in which the teacher organized and created space for (1) engagement (through the integration of multimodalities and the social nature of the activities); (2) meaningful processes of learning (in that the literacies in which the children were engaged connected to their own lives, experiences, and identities); and (3) relatable to the real world (in that the conversations and encounters with literacy were authentic means of inquiry that explored outer space and the children's own connections to others' lives).

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Phases of strategy development in word reading (according to Ehri)

from Guthrie & Anderson, p. 33

logographic: "refers to using the visual features of words that are nonphonemic, contextual, or graphic" (e.g., reading the "Burger King" sign, reading "love", or yelling "Bud Light!" as a truck drives by the bus on a kindergarten field trip)

alphabetic: "when readers can read words by processing and understanding the letter-sound relationships...they know the names and sounds of letters and can break words into pronounceable segments or chunks" 

orthographic: readers "have word knowledge that includes prefixes and suffixes. These readers can use letter-sound *patterns* that recur across words that they have learned to read" 

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Guthrie & Anderson refer to CORI on p. 24 of Engagement in reading... Follow this link to view professional development materials and information about the study and curriculum, which seeks to "enhance intrinsic motivations, strategies, and amounts of reading."

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Motivations for Reading

From Guthrie & Anderson

involvement

curiosity

social

challenge

importance

efficacy

recognition

competition

work avoidance

How is it that motivation is fostered? *Remember, motivation is, according to Cambourne, different from engagement. What are ways that we can get kids to WANT to read? 

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Engaged readers not only have acquired reading skills, but use them for their own purposes in many contexts. They possess beliefs, desires, and interests that energize the hard work of becoming literate. From this perspective, motivations and social interactions are equal to cognitions as foundations for reading.

This is at the heart of sociocultural perspectives of learning, which value that literacy encounters are produced by social beings who have vast background knowledges and who construct knowledge for a variety of purposes across diverse contexts.