Sticky kids and words

This is the breakdown of education funding in the stimulus package:

Any thoughts?  comments?

I ran across this article called Infants learn earlier than thought in the Seattle Times.  I usually prefer to get my research from research journals, because by the time the media is reporting the results of a study the complexity of the study has been watered down and the reader doesn’t have the chance to critique it herself.  But from time to time I like to read research reports in the media because this is where the general public gets their information about education; and this is the (mis)information that is frequently informing the conversations we have at cocktail parties and around the Thanksgiving dinner table, and informing the conversations that local policymakers are having.

Basically the article says that neuroscientiests put monitors on babies’ brains and found evidence of interesting learning earlier than they anticipated.  They used a magnetoencephalography machine.  I don’t know what it does, but I certainly think it’s a fun word to know.

Then there’s a section about “The Role of Parents” which, I think should have been called “We’re going to talk here about poverty for a minute” where they identify the language differences that we know happen in households of various economic makeups.  That low-income parents (which they call “impoverished” and is not accurate according to the research) use more directives with children, and in middle- to upper-income families (which they call “more educated”, which is generally accurate, but it seems unfair to juxtapose impoverished with more educated), the conversations are about “what you dream about, what you can imagine, what other people think — more complex thoughts”.  Also, I think, an unfair juxtaposition:  I might have said “directives” vs. “choices & opinions”.  At any rate…

The article ends like this:

Read to your child

 

The bottom line, scientists say, is that no amount of teacher training, brain scans or curriculum research can trump the parent-child connection.

 

They say that parents should start reading to their child in utero. And when the child is born, keep reading aloud, as it introduces the baby to the cadence of written language.

 

“You can read an 8-month-old racing results, stock prices or Dostoyevsky,” Wolf writes in “Proust and the Squid,” “although an illustrated version would be even better.”

 

Wolf says that connection between being read to and feeling loved is the best prescription for developing a vocabulary, learning concepts and, ultimately, learning how to read.

 

I don’t disagree.  Reading to babies & small children & medium sized children & even big children works (of course, depending on what you mean by “works”).  There is research to back that up for days.  

But let’s be very very clear:  a child who struggles learning to read is still loved very much by her parent/s.  

And a parent can love their child very much and still not read to her.

I think it’s a dangerous message to send out into the public conversation that equate “reading to your child” with “loving your child”.  

This post is kind of exciting for me because I am hoping to involve some of the super smart people in my class in this project.

I got an email from my first principal the other day.  He was a wonderful principal.  He challenged me and supported me and answered any question I ever asked with these five words:  ”Is it good for kids?”  If I said, yes, then his answer was yes.

He is now the Executive Director of the Children’s Museum in a southeastern North Carolina city.  (I’m going to link to the museum here instead of naming it because I don’t really want strangers googling this museum to find my blog if I can help it!)

This is some of what he said:

I “dream” that there may be a possibility of somehow making  interactive hands on literacy concepts into a play center or centers for children.  To me this is  where we could assist early age preschool children and their caretakers, develop a prescription on how  they may “play”  or  do  children’s work   to improve their literacy readiness for school.   If play is a child’s work,  there must be a way to structure a play center in  our interactive museum to assist them in literacy and have fun in the process!…

Because I know you and how determined you are, I know you will begin immediately to explore new interventions with your students, or collaborate  with researchers or educators  to improve literacy in our young people.   Maybe you would be interested in exploring the idea of developing interactive centers to improve literacy in the name of play and or use the Children’s Museum as a research site?   

 

As a 501c nonprofit we would want to write or be a part of any  grant you might write; but , certainly a place for you to send your future educators to practice…

I would very much like to explore new ideas with my students or collaborate with some of you to improve literacy in young people.  Would anybody in this class be interested in exploring the idea of developing interactive centers to improve literacy in the name of play using that museum as a site?

I can imagine this being a class project… Perhaps it can be the Inquiry Project for a group (or two groups)? Maybe one group might write a grant and another might design the centers?  Would the PhD students in the class like to get involved with this is some way?

I am open to ideas… Any thoughts?

I just read this article in the Boston Globe about penmenship.  The article discussed both sides of the issue that basically goes like this:  nobody writes anymore because everyone types, so teaching penmenship is an archaic use of our educational time vs. penmenship is an ancient art and people need to be able to write and read cursive as a complete, literate person.

I thought this was persuasive and a little sad – the idea that our handwriting was a distinct element of our personality.  I know that I have friends whose handwriting I don’t know or recognize.  Just the other day I was with a friend who wrote something down with me.  I looked at the piece of paper and was shocked that I didn’t know her handwriting.  When I was growing up, I knew my friends’ handwrititing as well as I knew their face or their voice.  My friend whose handwriting I don’t know:  she IMs me and texts me several times a day…

However much you studied your Palmer, though, your “hand” was distinctive – as personal as your voice or laugh. But as typewriters proliferated after World War II, handwriting gradually became less important. Authors typed their manuscripts and students typed their school papers. As telephones became universal, letter-writing virtually disappeared. In the e-mail age, most people seldom need to write more than a grocery list or a short note, or sign a check. It’s not only kids; many who formerly wrote fluently and neatly have forgotten how.

but…  I found this to be just sort of scare rhetoric… I’m not sure how valid this argument is…

“It’s a very disturbing problem,” said Kate Gladstone of Albany, N.Y., who has a website specializing in handwriting improvement. “I see people in their 20s and 30s who cannot read cursive. If you cannot read all types of handwriting, you might find your grandma’s diary or something from 100 years ago, and not be able to read it.” There are practical concerns as well. Sometimes we don’t have a computer, or the professor won’t let us bring it to class to take notes. Or sometimes, as happened in New Orleans hospitals during Hurricane Katrina, computers lose power and medical orders and records have to be written out by hand.

I feel like most people who have a variety of literacy skills and who are generally well prepared for a 21st century literacies are still able to read handwriting and handwrite themselves.  Perhaps it’s not as beautiful, or distinctive, or careful, or practiced as years ago, but they can still communicate when they need to?  I’ve been to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans after Katrina, and the writing is still on many of the houses and all over the community.  I think those people, whether trained in cursive and penmenship, were able to communicated their messages in writing just fine.  

What do you think?  Is cursive and penmenship something that we should be holding on to or letting go?

When our tiny, sticky little students are learning to read and write, how much should we concern ourselves with the quality of the letters they draw?