Spelling and Writing

I was unaware that there were so many stages of spelling. I obviously don't remember going through the first few stages because I was so young. I have had experience with children who are in the emergent stage. I think it is very interesting how a child can know exactly what they mean with a scribble and they go on and on "reading" it to you. The creativity they show is great and I think it is one of the reasons I love working with children so much.

I have always enjoyed writing. As a little girl, I used to try to write novels. I would get a few pages in and decide that it wasn't interesting enough. I kept a journal for a while. I got it as a present for Christmas when I was in fourth grade. I remember writing really short entries and just listing what I did during the day. Then my Dad told my sister and I that journals were for us to write down how we feel. I remember writing in my journal that day, I listed everything I did, and then at the bottom wrote "I felt happy today." haha! I eventually learned to put my feelings down in the journal and I liked having somewhere secret to share my stories.

My opinion toward writing has not changed much over the semester. As I said, I have always liked writing and thought it was important. I have learned that writing can provide an avenue for people who have no way to talk or otherwise express their feelings. Writing is a tool that everyone needs and will use through their entire life. It is one of the most important skills we learn.

I'll have to admit, I wasn't too excited about having a blog. However, it has been a lot easier and more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be. I like the idea of incorporating class material into my personal experiences because I think it will help me remember and grasp the concepts.

I am excited about the Published Book project we are completing. Like I said earlier, when I was younger I always wanted to write a novel. This will be a good opportunity for me to complete my dream. My story will be partly true and some fictional. I want to follow my journey through college and address my fear that I will not be a successful teacher. The story will end with my future. I will write about my journey into the teaching profession and all that comes with it. I think the book will be a great way for me to get out my feelings and fears about being a teacher.

Social Skills and Language Arts

Sahara is the main character in the book Sahara Special. She hopes to be a writer one day and spends a lot of time writing. Sahara has many difficulties in her social life. She does not understand social cues and isn't comfortable with simple conversations. She is introverted and only has a few people that she considers friends. She doesn't share her writings with anyone. I think her lack of social skills is the reason she is so against sharing her writing.

Similarly, I believe poor reading or writing skills can have an effect on social skills. Students who lack skills in reading or writing often feel left behind and slow. They feel like their classmates are miles ahead of them and that there is no hope. This mindset can carry over to the social aspect of their lives. Feeling "stupid" and slow can cause a child to become less confident in herself and cause her to turn inward. Students who feel like they might get ridiculed because of their delay are more apt to stay to themselves and ignore their classmates.

I have seen situations like this before. Last year I tutored ESL students. Some of these students struggled with reading, writing, or both. The students were all very shy and kept to themselves. They didn't really interact with many of the other students in their classes. This could have been a language barrier problem, but I believe it can also be attributed to the fact that the students felt behind and as a result, felt like they would be ridiculed and thought it was better to stay to themselves.

As a teacher, I think this is a very important issue that is overlooked too much. Its not only our job to teach students core subjects like math, reading, and writing, but is also our job to help students be able to be functioning, confident, citizens. We are responsible for helping students develop a sense of self and an appreciation for their abilities. Students who are having trouble reading and writing need to be encouraged. Instead of setting huge goals for the delayed students and waiting for them to reach the goal before being rewarded, I think it would be beneficial to set small goals and reward the students for ANY step forward they make or try to make. Students who feel like they are accomplishing something will gain confidence and hopefully see improvement in many other aspects like social skills. This is my plan for when I become a teacher and I hope to use it to help every student in my class feel a sense of accomplishment and worth.

The Reading Wars

The Reading War is an argument between people who support phonetic learning of words and people who support whole language learning. Phonetic learning focuses on the sounds of speech and the spelling patterns of written words. Letters sound different according to where they are placed and the letters adjacent to them. The whole language approach focuses more on the meaning of what is read. Students are encouraged to learn a number of site words. Sometimes phonetic material is presented to the students, but most of the emphasis is put on whole words instead of the letters that make up the word.

I learned how to read/spell/write with the phonetic approach. I remember going over every letter and making the sounds at the beginning of every school day from K-1. I thought it was fun! I would go home and my dad would always joke around with my sister and I. We would tell him the silly sounds we learned and we would put them together to make our own words.

Sight words are words that the reader knows automatically without decoding the word's spelling. I believe that we create our own sight words as we develop as readers. As a child, my Grandma read me and my twin the same book every night for a week. At the end of the week, she said we were reading the book to her. If she would have put another book in front of us, we wouldn't have been able to read it. However, since we saw and heard those particular words over and over, we were able to memorize them and read them back to her.

I think symbols play a very important role in literacy learning. One of the first things we learn how to do is to match a name with a picture. For example, many children have some sort of toy that requires them to match the word 'Cat' with a picture of a cat, the word 'dog' with a picture of a dog, and so on. Children learn what the words are by visualizing the meaning. Picture books are very effective for struggling readers because they illustrate the story that the reader is reading about. If the boy kicks a ball, there will be a picture of a boy kicking a ball, and the learner will be able to better understand what the word kick means. I think we are seeing people come around to this idea more. There are a rising number of graphic novels being published that allow more mature readers to still get the joy of seeing the story illustrated. I believe this is a good direction and I hope more people get on board.

Writing

Writing is something fairly new to our world. A long time ago, most people passed information by word of mouth. History was told through stories and information was distributed by people's voices. Nowadays we write. Written words have more permanence than spoken words do. Writing is a way to record what we think, know, and feel.

Reading what people write is a way to gain knowledge about any and everything. Reading can open doors in our minds that we could not find before. Writing becomes worth reading when it offers an idea that can change the way a person views or thinks about something. It is worth while when reading it will give you knowledge or perspective that you didn't have before. Writing is also worth while if reading it can cause you to feel emotion. Its amazing how reading a story about something happy or sad can make you feel those same emotions. I think anything that has been written with time, devotion, and thought, is worth reading because someone thought it was important to spend a lot of time and put a lot of effort in it.