Come se dice...

Working in the South Valley and growing up in the South Valley one of the things I've see the most is Spanish speaking children struggling to read and write in English when they are just starting off in an all English speaking classroom/school. Though its great for these students to learn both languages (it will only benefit
them in their future) Wolf expresses the idea that this is only an advantage "if" "the child learns each language well" (105). I have often heard it said that the best time to learn a language is between the ages of birth and 7 years old. So why is it bad for students to come into school with one language in hopes to learn and develop in another language?

The focus that Wolf has, when it comes to bilingual student is the "complex and sometime contentious issues involved in learning two languages, including children's self-esteem, their membership in a cultural community, their sense of perceived competence, and the cumulative effects of all this on reading." Growing up I never thought Spanish speaking students struggled with English, I was actually jealous of them for being able to speak in their native tongue as well as English, which I never had the opportunity of doing. It wasn't until I worked in a school highly dominated with ESL students that I show how difficult was for some of these students who were still not proficient in English and were following behind in their reading and writing scores.

One way to help bilingual students out, according to Wolf, is to have these students listen to English story books. Helps them connect familiar words and concepts.

Like I said, though I come from a Spanish speaking family, I was first thought English by my family, so I wouldn't struggle, or be "punished" for speaking my native tongue. So I am not aware of how hard it is growing up, trying to learn two languages. Is there any one out there that did go through this? And if so I would you mind sharing your experience because I very interested here anything you would like to share. Cause though this was a very interesting topic for me in Wolf's book, it was a very short section, and I felt it could had expanded more. 

To Read or Not To Read... That is the Question

So Maryanne Wolf brings up a very good question in Part 2 Chapter 4, and that is the question that every parent asks, "When do I teach my child to read?" In my family alone, my new cousins are getting older, and its coming close to that point when they start asking, is it two soon to teach my child to start to read? And my answer to them is..."is it?" I have no idea. I guess I never really considered it there was a "right" or "wrong" age to teach your child to read. I simply figured that was school was for, so maybe they should start reading when they are in kindergarten. Wolf bring up this common theme "as soon as children begin to name the letters of the alphabet, the question arises whether they should learn to read "early." Because most parents believe that if their child starts learning to read early, they will have an advantage later on in school.

But really what it all comes down to is the brain. "Reading depends on the brain's ability to connect and integrate various sources of information." (94) And typcially the "principal regions of the brain that  underlie our ability to ingrate visual, verbal, and auditory information rapidly-like the angular gyrus-are not fully myelinated in humans until five years of age and after." (95)

myelinated= myelination = myelin (definition from wikipedia.com ) Myelin is a dielectric (electrically insulating) material that forms a layer, the myelin sheath, usually around only the axon of a neuron. It is essential for the proper functioning of the nervous system. Myelin is an outgrowth of a glial cell. The production of the myelin sheath is called myelination. The production of myelin occurs in the fourteenth week of fetal development, while very little amounts of myelin exist in the brain at the time of birth. During infancy myelination occurs quickly and does not stop until the adolescent stages of life.

Studies in Europe have shown that children who are asked to begin reading at the age of five, did not do as good at the children who were asked to start reading at the age of seven.  So in my opinion, as parents, we should not rush our child to do something before the developmental time it should be done. But this doesn't mean you can't teach your child other things their alphabet and numbers. But for the rest, "there are excellent biological reasons why reading comes in its own good time, "(96) and their is no need to rush is too early in a child's life.

I leave you with this last quote from ms Scout, from Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird...."Reading was something that just came to me...I could not remember when the lines about Atticus's moving finger separated into words, but I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory--anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing. "

Helpful or simply asking more questions...

So I know this is a little off topic, but stick with me and I swear that it will roll back into talking about Wolf. So after reading some other peoples blogs, which I think are great, I'm getting so much out of what everyone is reading, I was curious if my blogs are as informative as some of the peoples I have read. Some people tell ya a lot of what is going on in the chapter, Well I kind of go everywhere with my rants about the book. I'm I just thinking, should I go into more detail, or should I just stick to the way I'm writing my blogs? are they helpful at all? I hope so. Well until I get a response I going to continue on the path I have already created!!

Hope ya don't mind....... ;0p

"When you learn to read you will be born again... and you will never be quite so alone again." - Rumer Godden (109)

 There is a point in Wolfs novel where she remanences about school when she was younger. And a period in time when she witnesses her best friend Jim, having to stay late after school to get extra reading time with Sister Salesia. Jim was a "cocky, audacious," kid who was always the leader of the pack. But that day that she say Jim, she describes him as a boy who was a "pale version of himself, haltingly coming up with the letter sounds Sister Salesia asked for. It turned [her] work topsy-turvy to see this indomitable boy so unsure of himself." She goes on then to talk about Jim's mom and Sister Salesia determination to help Jim succeed, even when Jim himself wanted to give up. Wolf explains it was then that she knew "that Sister Salesia and his mother were doing something miraculous."

How true that is. I have always thought of teachers and undercover heros. They do something amazing, they teach kids how to read write, math, science, history, art, and so many other things. Teachers give students a gift that can never be taken away, the gift of knowledge. And individuals like Sister Salesia are the really remarkable individuals. They are the people that will never give up on you, the ones that believe, even when you don't, that you can achieve anything in life. They are the ones pushing you, the ones you hate at that moment, but never forget and can never thank enough later in life. Its individuals like these that inspired me to become a teacher.

When I was growing up, like Jim, I was a horrible reader. I didn't like to read in public because I didn't know the words, and always took forever to sound them out. When I was in the fifth grade my reading level was tested and I was marked at a 1st grade reading level. I was mortified! My teachers pushed me, my father took me every day to the library. And there was some many times during that year that I wanted to give up. But my teachers pushed me, and continued to work with me patiently. By the end of the year these individuals brought my reading level to grade level. And know you can always find me with a book. I might still struggle with words, and have to take my time sounding things out. But because of them I continue to push myself, because if they could believe in me, then I could believe in myself as well.

Did you ever consider....

So I would like to take a minute to talk about Dyslexia. After reading Maryanne Wolf book, and looking at part three of her novel, "When the Brain Can't Learn to Read." In this section she talks about children with Dyslexia, and the struggle this children have when it comes to reading, and theories and reasons how the brain is effected and different theories on why dyslexia happens....(just in case)....


Dyslexia (according to dictionary.com) Dyslexia is -any of various reading disorders associated with impairment ofthe ability to interpret spatial relationships or to integrate auditoryand visual information.


Dyslexia (according to wikipedia.com) a broad term defining a learning disability that impairs a person's fluency or comprehension accuracy in being able to read, and spell,^[1] and which can manifest itself as a difficulty with phonological awareness, phonological decoding, orthographic coding, auditory short-term memory, and/or rapid naming.It is believed that dyslexia can affect between 5 to 10 percent of a given population although there have been no studies to indicate an accurate percentage.


Now I have always had an idea of what dyslexia is. I know of it, but honestly never to the time to look farther in to the cause, or effects of dyslexia. To tell the truth, I felt like it didn't effect me so why should I care. Never even thought about how it could be a part of my classroom, or how I might need to help students who might have it. So when I was reading this section of Wolfs novel I has overwhelmed with all the information that was presented to me. I think however, the hardest thing for me to digest was the the struggle individuals have when they are diagnosed with dyslexia. Jackie Stewart quotes, 


"You will never understand what it feels like to be dyslexic. No matter how long you have worked in this area, no matter if your own children are dyslexic, you will never understand what it feels like to be humiliated your entire childhood and taught every day to believe that you will never succeed at anything." 


And its so true!! How can you relate to this person? How do you help them? I can't start to comprehend the struggle a student in a classroom might growing up, feeling unequal to his peers, as if he wont succeed. I am going to become an art teacher, so reading really is not a major requirement in my classroom. So how do teachers, that deal with reading, help students with dyslexia? How do you help them succeed without them feeling different from everyone else?? Any ideas? 

Back looking...

Making up titles for these blogs has to be the funniest part. Just an FYI if you were looking for a long blog, you might as well turn back know because this is just a quick input I wanted to added about the book I'm reading for class. Don't know what book that is... well you best go read my previous blog then lol ;0) Oh so back on track, so in part two Wolf talks about "well-read-to" children and the "no-well-read-to" children, and how the well read to kids normally have a larger vocabulary, are able to use "more sophisticated syntactic forms, longer phrases, and relative clauses." So of course after reading this I started thinking --------->
(I love Stitch!!) Was I read to a lot as a child?? Could like be the result of my struggle with talking in public as a child. I had always felt inferior to my fellow peers growing up. As if they were able to express themselves in a more unique and sophisticated way then I could. It bothered me so much that public speaking in front of the class was my least favorite thing to do. And thinking back I know my mom read to us once in a while but it was never a nightly thing, maybe once a week. This idea of "language of the books" is intriguing to think over. Is anyone out there who is an opposite of my childhood. Someone who got read to every night? Do you feel that because of reading so much, that your "book language" was superior to mines? Were you able to expresses yourself more intelligently then I could?? Well that's all I have for now, I will get back to ya all soon!!

Proust said what??

Lol, I like that title. Anyway, wow if feels like need to blog more compared to some of my other classmates, I feel like such a slacker, *sad face.* So the book I decided to read for my literacy class is a book called Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf. I will inform anyone who is crazy enough to read this blog that I did not choose this book because the summery of it looked interesting (though it is) I picked it because of the cover.....
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Cool huh lol. Anyway, lets begin shall we. Maryanne Wolf breaks her book up into three parts. To start, in this blog I will go over the first part before getting into the other two. Her book is designed to "celebrate the beauty, variety, and transformative capacities of the origins of writing; proceeds to dramatic new landscapes of the development of the reading brain and its various pathways to acquisition; and ends with difficult questions about the virtues and dangers in what lies ahead" (xi). I find it quite unique how she starts off talking about this remarkable thing we humans due, read. I never really looked at reading in such a in depth way. One of the major points she makes is the fact that, human being were never born to read. Over centuries our species has evolved and created a system to allows us to read. By using pictures, or markings, our ancestors have developed this remarkable way to keep records of things, in a way that we could share with our fellow man kind. And over time our brains have developed to better process these scripts. One thing I would like to quote from Wolf is about the brain, and how "the brain doesn't find just one simple meaning for a word; instead it stimulates a veritable trove of knowledge about that word and the many worlds related to it" (9). Have you ever thought about reading in this way? I know we all know that words can have many meaning other then just one, but have you ever stopped and thought about how remarkable that is? Or how a brain can hold all this information, sometimes in more then just one language??!!


She then goes into a history session about the different writings that were first created, which ones died and which ones were successful, which all of them were successful at the time they were created, well you know what I mean, or a least I hope you do?? :) One last thing I would like to talk about in this blog however is the section where Wolf talks about Socrates. Did you know that good old Soc, didn't believe in written communication?? He did not believe it to be pure.. that you could never really communicate what you wanted to say on paper, you needed to oral. "Oral language as the truest vehicle for intellectual and spiritual growth" (78). Do you think he had a point? Wolf does, for me.... I kind of have mixed feelings. On the one hand I don't think that you could ever truly communicate on paper what you want to say, because well your writing you might forget it, or write it differently then how you meant to say. Or take for example if I wrote a friend an email, and I was trying to be sarcastic, but she/he thought I was being serious, they might not get my sarcasm in an email, but if I was in front of them and communicate with them orally, they would have (hopefully hehehe).  But I would never totally disregard the written language. Because of it we are able to record our history, keep stories by famous authors, email/ write someone half way across the world, etc. Those are my thoughts anyway. Wells I best be going, the fireworks are going off and I need to make sure no one catches my house on fire. Ciao for now!!