Group Differences Forum Reflection

I really wish we'd had this forum for more than two class periods. These articles all sounded incredibly interesting, and I would have liked the opportunity to discuss them more indepth. They brought up a lot of issues I don't feel I'd previously given much thought to. For example, the article I read "Killing Santa" illustrated the ongoing oppression presented by an institution still largely based in Christian practice. It discussed how limiting that is for children of different religions. I also thought the articles on gender and race outlined an interesting point about ignoring gender roles and being "color-blind". I'd be interested to hear more about people's experiences with these issues.

Like I said, I really wish we'd spent more time on this in class. I found these discussions very helpful as far as identifying issues I'd like to know more about and giving suggestions on how to address them. Specifically, I'd like to hear more about gender in the class room, as well as multicultural issues. I also thought the suggestion that all teachers be required to take at least one class in ELL was great. Ist's something I hadn't considered, but with the increasing diversity of language in our classrooms, I'm not sure why we DON'T take these classes. The only article I found confusing to hear about was the article on learning disabilities. The graphs sound hard to translate. Other than that, the only suggestion I have is that you give your next class a lot more time to cover these topics. I personally would have been happy to spend two weeks on these topics, and just do outside reading for the other material we covered in class.

This was an extememly intersting and informative class, thanks for your time and enthusiasm!

Language

I just finished reading an EXTREMELY interesting book by Elaine Garan (link to book)on politics, education reform, and reading. 
A lot of reading programs used in schools now have a heavy emphasis on phonics, i.e. breaking each word down into individual phonemes.  
One of the sections spent a lot of time looking at phonics instruction. She mentions a study on how we read that found our eyes track large chunks of text, we don't read letter by letter (as suggested by a lot of previous research). That being said, while phonics instruction is an important skill for reading, the heavy emphasis on drilling students on words letter by letter separates the vocabulary we are teaching from any context and meaning.

Another interesting point presented by Garan, one we've actually discussed in my reading education class, is that a lot of the spelling rules we go over with children have not one, but multiple exceptions (One two vowels go walking, the first does the talking.....except when you're using read (pronounced reed or red?) or tears (as in crying or rips?) There are a lot of confusing words for many of the rules we're asking students to remember. 

With those points in mind, a useful approach to developing students (k-5) vocabulary is to present them with a word wall. You start off giving your students a set of letters, and present them with a starter letter. Students work with the teacher to build as many words as they can with their letters. The teacher then asks students to help her organize the words into categories, based on spelling, tense, definition etc. The teacher can then focus on the spelling "rule" she wants to examine and hosts an open discussion with her students. This method is engaging (we practiced it in my reading education class, I thought it was fun) and gives students a lot of opportunities to adjust and explore their understanding of written language. It also actively shows them how words are built and written, an important skill for many younger students.