Chapters 5,6,&7

After reading chapters 5, 6, & 7, I am overwhelmed with all of the theories! There are just so many and each seems to have merit.

Chapter 5:

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development are exteremly helpful for understanding children's cognitive development, but (I am going to be really honest) in every other class I am bombarded with Piaget and I would rather talk about some of the other theories!

I found the Maturation Theory to be very interesting. While I do not believe that children should not be taught reading until they are 6yrs. 6 months, I do feel that children are being pushed to read at a much earlier age. I still feel that reading is a natural process and will unfold in a child when they are ready. There are things that need to be done to aid this process but it should not be pushed. I know twin girls who live in a very nice area. After they completed First grade Katie was reading at an A level and Emily was reading at a B level. Their teacher suggested a tutor for Emily because students should all be at an A level before Second grade. Their mother was shocked because she knew that Emily was a really good reader and could not understand why she would need a tutor. She got a tutor for Emily anyway because the teacher made her feel that Emily would be at a disadvanage going into Second grade. I just feel like all of this pressure for Emily to read at an A level was an unneeded burden. It turns reading from a fun, enjoyable event into a burden and a struggle.

I also wanted to comment on the teacher's anecdote about spelling. I might be the world's worst speller and I believe that this is because of my early education, (First or Second grade?). We were encouraged to spell words however we wanted and then at a later time we were going to go back and correct them. All I remember is spelling things phonetically, never correcting and to this day I still spell things phonetically. It is the same for many children who were in my grade.

In the rest of the theories there is a focus on a strong literacy environment at home and in school. Most of the stories were about people who enjoyed reading because their parents read to them and encourgaed them to read. I agree with this. My parents are avid readers and growing up in that environment, I too am an avid reader. I also learned at a later date that my dad rarely read when my parents first got married but because my mom always read, he picked up her habit. I also feel that it is important to create a rich literacy in a classroom because many children do not have this at home. I appreciated the blurb about selecting a good book for a shared reading activity.

Overall this chapter delt with theories and experiences that were most closely associated with my own. As a result, they were easy for me to relate to.

Chapter 6:

I think that the Social Learning Perspectives are very important to understand, especially for language development. Every aspect of language is social. They reason we develop language is to communitcate with others. In the Sociolinguistic Theory cultural and environmental effects on language are addressed. The way and the level at which children speak, read, and write is effected by their environment. The statistics that were shown with regard to how many words children were exposed to was astounding. For children in professional homes it was 11.2 million and for children in welfare homes it was only 3.2 million.

The Socio-Cultural Theory has some great ideas with regard to children's funds of knowledge. In the classroom in is important to find out what children know and are interested in. Every child can bring different life and cultural experiences to discussions if they are valued and encouraged. I enjoyed learning why Au felt that reading alone was a social experience. I think that many people ignore this idea. When I am reading an original copy of a really old book I always wonder about the people who read the book before me. In a way I do feel a connection to the past and the people who shared the book. (I'm a nerd! lol!).
The use of literature circles in the classroom seem like a wonderful way to bring children together through reading. It was great that every child has a specific task and that things such as art were included.


I love Bandura and the Social Cognitive Theory. Last semester I did a huge paper on the effects of media violence on aggressive behavior in children. It is really scary how bad television is for children and how much they watch anyway (adults too). If everyone read books instead of watching TV the world would be a better place! In addition, I would take advantage of observational learning all day teaching preschool children. If the children were supposed to be sitting on the carpet I would single out the children who were sitting for praise and then the rest of the children would sit. It is so much better than negatively addressing the children who are not sitting.

The Critical Literacy Theory was very good at reminding me about the inequalites of education. every child does not recieve the same education in our country and this is very disturbing.

Chapter 7:
Information and cognitive processes are important for helping to understand what is going on mentally with regard to reading and learning.

To begin I am going to comment on Carver's "Rauding Theory". I have to admit that I stronly dislike the word "rauding"! There is no good basis to support my dislike, it just bothers me. Why couldn't he just use the word "reading"? Anyway, I did like his point about general reading and how it differs from reading to memorize or study. I read completely different when I am studying. I can read something very quickly and accuratly comprehend it. When I study I want to make sure I take in every word and as a result I read when studying much slower.

Finally I wanted to talk about the Automatic Information Processing Model. We all know that the more one practices something the easier and more automatic it becomes (like driving a car). I agree that when the automaticity of word recognition increases so does comprehension. I was finally talked into taking AP literature course my senior year of High School. There were five of us and everyone (except the teacher) assumed that I would be the stupid one of the class because I did not get straight A's in all my classes and I had never taken an AP class before. What I quickly learned was that due to my high ability in comprehension, I was actually at the head of the class. Many of the books, poems, and plays that we read were extremely ancient or very dense and because I had been an avid reader my whole life I was good at recognizing words and comprehending the readings. That is why it is so important for children to read often.