Phonics vs Whole Language

           This semester, my edu class at SCSU debated which is the better way to teach reading:  the whole language approach or the phonics approach.  As often is the case, I don’t think there was a clear-cut winner in this battle.  Before I weigh in with my own personal take on this comparison, let me first define both approaches.  The whole language approach to reading instruction emphasizes learning whole words by encountering those words in meaningful contexts.  In this approach, learners are expected to infer what they need to know while being immersed in literature.  The whole language approach still allows for "teachable moments," where educators react to children's needs/ requests for specific guidance.  Whole language is sometimes referred to as a “top down” approach. 

Phonics, on the other hand, focuses on the sounds that the individual letters or letter combinations make.  Once learned, the child can sound out words by putting together the sounds.  This approach is sometimes referred to as a “bottom up” approach.   Detractors of this approach believe that the English language has many words that do not follow the sounds that their individual letters make, and as a result, it could be frustrating to the student.  
            In terms of which is a better method for teaching reading, I believe it depends on the grade level.  I think that the upper elementary grades (3 thru 6 / even late 2 thru 6) can benefit more from a whole language approach.  Above grade three, immersion is extremely important.  Incorporating vast amounts of literature into a classroom fosters more of a constructivist experience, where students are inferring, comparing, predicting, etc.  And if they see a new word...there ARE context clues.  Detractors of whole language will say there is too much guesswork and too many situations where students are making "wild guesses"...but I see these as educated guesses by the late elementary grades.  Whole language encourages students to look at the big picture rather than zeroing in on patterns, sounds, and rules like phonics does.

All this being said, the early elementary school student does need to "unlock the alphabet" and learn the rules of reading from the bottom up.  So I agree with the assertion that phonics instruction is critically important in the early elementary grades. 

Cutting Back on the Arts and P.E. is a Bad Idea

School budget cuts to the arts and physical education have been a nationwide phenomenon over the last two decades.  As someone who grew up with a huge appreciation for the arts, as well as for team sports/physical education, I find this trend both saddening and perplexing.  It confuses me when school systems make these cuts, because it flies in the face of all the research on the importance of both the arts (music, visual arts, theater, etc.) and P.E.  Most academic research supports the value of the arts, finding students who participate do better in the academic areas and are more likely to stay in school than those who don't. Similar findings have been found for students who are physically active.  Exposure to the arts helps broaden students' knowledge bases, which helps their reading skills. I’ve even heard of successful scenarios where elective (specials) teachers have worked alongside academic teachers to help strengthen a lesson. For example, students might do a report on Beethoven in their language arts class and then learn about a symphony in their music class.  Unfortunately, many schools are cutting art/ p.e. in favor of math / reading simply because music and the arts aren't government-tested like reading, writing, and math are.  As a result, school districts are pressured to cut them first.  But this is a knee jerk reaction that doesn't take into account the big picture.  The facts continue to say that cutting the arts/ p.e. will only result in lower test scores in those aforementioned, core, “government tested” subjects. So I guess this blog post is more of a rant than any of my previous posts.  It’s actually more of a shout…STOP CUTTING BACK ON THE ARTS AND P.E. IN OUR NATION’S SCHOOLS! 

A Creative Classroom Seating Strategy

Here’s an interesting seating plan that will help to deter the cliques that can plague students in the upper elementary grades, specifically grades four through six.  When the summer letter goes home welcoming students to your classroom, ask them to bring in a large pencil box/container that can hold all their small items, including pencils, rulers, crayons, pens, colored pencils, etc.  Arrange the desks in clusters of four and name each cluster according to the letters of the alphabet:  cluster A, cluster B, etc.  Fill each desk with all the necessary textbooks.  Designate a small storage area for each student where he/she can put all the materials that belong to them, including their notebooks, assignment booklets, consumable workbooks (the ones they write in and keep), and the pencil box with all their small items in it.

Every morning, as the students arrive, they should come to you (as the classroom teacher), and choose a cluster card from a small basket.  The cluster cards can be easily made from three by five cards with the letter of a cluster on each one (four of each, relating to the desks in each).  They should be folded and paper-clipped, so the students don’t know which cluster they’re choosing.  When they have chosen a card, the teacher should record the student’s name/cluster assignment.  The students then “move in” to any seat that is available within that cluster, by moving all their own materials from their storage area into the chosen desk.

The only down side to this approach is the time it takes to move in each morning and move out at dismissal time.  The up sides are numerous.  First, the classroom teacher will greet each student individually every morning.  It’s a good time to have a short chat, collect any homework or any notes from home, or to respond if the student seems concerned about anything.  Second, if there are any group activities that begin on that day, the group they will work in is the group they’re sitting with.  Third, the anguish that surrounds who sits where is suddenly gone.  Everyone sits everywhere and with everyone as each week progresses.  So every student gets the benefit of the smartest kid in the class and has to deal with the class clown or the difficult student one day or the next.  Also, students would get to know someone they might never have had the chance to know if a seat were assigned and would be theirs for weeks (or even months) on end.  Finally, as they move out, they have an opportunity to organize any loose papers, etc. as they move their own things into their storage area. 

A friend of mine actually tried this system in a grade five classroom, and told me emphatically that she would never go back to the traditional seating she had used in the past.  Her students were more tolerant and understanding of their classmates, and the specialists who worked with her classes year after year could really see the difference.

The Importance of Emotional Competence in the Classroom

What is emotional education and why is it important?  Social / emotional competence is the ability to comprehend, manage, and express the social and emotional aspects of one’s life in ways that enable successful management of life tasks, such as learning, forming relationships with others, daily problem solving, and adapting to the complicated demands of development and growth.  Social /emotional competence also includes self-awareness, impulse control (self-regulation), and the ability to work cooperatively with others. Social and emotional learning is the process through which children develop the skills, mind-sets, and values necessary to acquire social and emotional competence.  But how can schools help develop and encourage the emotional competency of the children attending? 

I found one program online that attempts to accomplish this.   It’s called the CARE for kids program and like most SEL (social and emotional learning) programs, it strives to create a safe, supportive environment where kids feel cared about, not only by the adults within the school, but by other students in the school as well.   This program gets children up out of their seats each day, gets them moving, and teaches them (through various games and activities) how to get along with each other.  Taking time to teach children strong social skills and the importance of treating each other with respect pays off not only in better time management for teachers (less time stopping class due to behavioral problems), but also in better academic results for the students.  Schools and teachers need to make academic goals a priority, but they would be wise to devote significant energies to programs such as CARE for kids, which are designed to develop their emotional and social skills as well.

Do Learning Styles Matter?

“Do learning styles matter?”  My EDU professor posed this question to the class this semester, and in doing so, he initiated a heated debate. The consensus seemed to be that learning styles do indeed matter, and that teachers should try their best to cater their lessons to the different learning styles contained within their classrooms (visual, kinesthetic, auditory, etc.) But in looking at this issue more closely, I think that what is most important in terms of learning styles and lesson planning is that educators should adjust and fit the modality to the content, rather than the different learning styles of the students.  If teachers ignore this strategy and design their lessons with their students’ preferred modalities in mind (instead of with the lesson content in mind/ best fit strategy) I think they will be selling their students short.  For example, if I were teaching a lesson on Beethoven, I would try to incorporate a strong auditory component, which would ideally make the lesson more powerful and memorable.  The more meaning the students assign to the lesson, the better chance they will have to retain the information that was presented.  If I were putting together a lesson plan on the Pyramids of Egypt, I would incorporate a strong visual component to the lesson.  In each of these examples, choosing the modality that best fits the content trumps the different preferred learning styles of the students in my opinion.  All this being said, I think it’s critically important to mention the role of learning styles when it comes to student responses to instruction.  It's this area where I believe that the students' modalities should be taken into account.  I think students should be able to demonstrate their competency in the modality of their choice, if possible.  For example, if students were studying the Civil War, visual learners might choose to summarize their learning through pictures/illustrations, kinesthetic by constructing a three-dimensional battlefield, etc.

Ability Grouping

           When I learned reading back in elementary school, we were always divided into reading groups.  Sometimes the groups were numbered, and sometimes they were named (the bluebirds, the robins, etc.)  But every student in the classroom knew just which group was which:  high, middle, low, remedial, etc.  I never gave it much thought at the time, because reading was a strength of mine.  Looking back on it though, it must have been hard on those who struggled and were always in that lowest group, irrespective of the name assigned to it.

           Today, there is a much stronger focus on whole-group instruction.  Here, no one is identified as high, middle, or low.  Instead, everyone reads the same story and participates in the same mini-lesson.  Once that lesson is over and the students begin independent work, now their stories can vary according to their reading abilities, challenging them enough so that they can learn something new, but keeping the material at their level, so they are not frustrated.  

            My personal classroom plan will be to assess each student often to best understand exactly what each one knows and what he/she needs to learn.  I will be sure that independent work is designed to meet the individual needs of each student, but that new skills are introduced and modeled to the whole class.  Then I can create small, flexible groups to address weaknesses that certain students might have in common.  In this way, no student has to be labeled as high, middle, or low. No student has to be left wishing that everyone wasn't so aware of who is and who is not in that coveted “high/advanced group.”

Classroom Management

It is sometimes thought that classroom management is synonymous with classroom discipline, but in truth, classroom management covers a wide range of factors.  First, and possibly the most important for any teacher, is to really know your students.  Today, classrooms are diverse social structures.  When teachers know their students, including their backgrounds (cultures), family structures, neighborhoods, etc., they have a better chance of reaching and connecting with them.  Once the students are in the classroom, they need to feel like they are an integral part of that group.  One way teachers can help make that happen is by establishing classroom rules and consequences with the students.  In this way, the students can be a part of the process and will have more investment in the smooth running of the class.  The rules should be posted in the classroom, visible for everyone.  The physical classroom environment should also be carefully considered, because it can be a factor when it comes to classroom management.  Educators should be well organized, making sure that all necessary materials are accessible to themselves and their students.  Everything should have a place, and when materials for a particular lesson are needed, they should be readily available.  An organized environment is extremely important to an efficient classroom.  If the teacher needs to stop or pause a lesson so he or she can look for something, this is when a classroom full of students can disengage and lose focus.  Speaking of engagement, lessons should be carefully developed to not only cover the standards that apply to the grade level, but also to be interesting and engaging to the learners.  The teacher’s enthusiasm for the material being taught is critical.  Lessons should be sequential, so that they build on the students’ prior knowledge as well as prior lessons.  Students should be active learners, interacting with the curriculum and engaging with one another in a learning community.  Finally, student work and successes should be celebrated.  The classroom should be filled with completed work as well as work in progress.  These works can be displayed conventionally on bulletin boards and counter-tops as well as creatively in mobiles or other thematic groupings.  In this way, students can celebrate their own successes and the successes of others.  The integration of all of these factors adds up to a classroom that is a well-managed environment.