Entry #11: This Is The End *cues Adele's "Skyfall"*

Reflections on Content

We dove deeper into a variety of topics within literacy development this semester, and these are just a few that stood out. 

Phonics

Something I didn't mention earlier: going into this class, I hated phonics. Or rather, I hated phonetics, and most everything it touched.

As I've mentioned, I was a linguistics major in undergrad. In my foundational linguistics course, we had a unit on phonetics and phonology, which makes sense because it's a foundational part of linguistics. 

I struggled so much with that unit. 

I had such a hard time hearing the differences between the phonemes and figuring out which ones were being used in words. I had to go in for extra help with my professor, and still, I didn't feel like I understood what was happening. I was flying by the seat of my pants, and it was terrible. 

I don't know how to say this without sounding annoying, but I think it left such a bad impression in my mind because it was the first time in school that something didn't come easily. I've worked hard in school my whole life, of course, but most of the time, nothing was particularly difficult. If I struggled, it was never for a long time. Phonetics was different. I just couldn't get it. And so I hated it. (I know: that's not a great growth mindset...)

Now, by a series of events that had to do with a professor I adored and lack of judgment by me, I ended up in a class about pronunciation (which dealt with phonetics and phonics) and a semester long research elective about pronunciation (like I said, lack of judgment by me). While I actually really enjoyed the pronunciation class and actually felt semi-smart by the time I finished my research project, I still had my knee-jerk hatred of phonetics and by extension, phonics. I understood what I was talking about (mostly), but it just felt hard.

So when I saw that phonics was going to be one of the deeper dives, I tried to wrangle my enthusiasm.  

It didn't really work.

I just had this sense of dread that phonics was so essential to the reading process - that it was the reading process (even though I knew objectively this wasn't true) - and I wasn't going to be able to understand how to do anything with it. 

But phonics turned out to have a lot of things that intrigued me. Phonics isn't the be all, end all of reading, and it doesn't have to be this complex thing to teach students. You aren't trying to isolate sounds like I was doing in undergrad, and you don't need to remember all the IPA vowel symbols, which I still can't. Through the article we read on phonics, "Everything you wanted to know about phonics (but were afraid to ask)" (Stahl et al., 1998), I was able to see the principles you need for phonics instruction. And they weren't scary. And as the article said, "Although phonics instruction is an extremely important part of beginning reading, it is only one part" (Stahl et al., 1998, p. 344). There are other important aspect; everything isn't just phonics all the time. 

Spelling

As we've established, I can't spell. (Tangent (I know, I do a lot of these; my brain is a mess): I literally had a dream the other night where I was trying to convince someone that spelling wouldn't matter in the future, and I'm convinced it was prompted by that blog post I wrote. *clears throat* Anyway.) 

I thought spelling was spelling tests and spelling bees. That's it. That's how you dealt with spelling. I had spelling tests all through elementary school (lot of good it did me), and we all had to try for the spelling bee in middle school (none of us got very far), and that's what I thought spelling was in school.

But through Tompkins (2017) and Stahl et al. (1998), I learned about inventive spelling (now: phonetic spelling). And I love it. It is great way way to literally see students' understanding of phonics. Their graphophonemic awareness is on display for the teacher in a way that most concepts can't be displayed. 

So spelling isn't just spelling tests and bees. It is phonics and word patterns and affixes and root words and more than anything, trial and error. 

Fluency

I knew about fluency in the context of speaking. I knew how to build students' second language speaking fluency through activities such as 4/3/2 (I even wrote a paper about it!). I knew fluency was important.

But I had no idea what it consisted of in reading and especially not in writing. 

Tompkins' (2017) chapter and Rasinski's (2014) article, "Fluency matters," were eye-opening. There were components of fluency! There were things you could do to improve fluency in reading and writing! I even recognized tests that I had taken as a kid that were measures of fluency! 

It made sense. You needed automaticity in reading and writing. You needed speed, to a certain extent, in reading and writing. You needed prosody in reading or voice in writing. These were clear, easy to understand things to look for in students. I even used this knowledge in another class in making a reading intervention plan: fluency instruction seemed like the thing that would make the most impact on the student's reading. 

Reflections on the Blog

I think we've established that I don't have the best track record of slowing down and connecting to readings (as noted here and here). Having to write a blog post after reading, though, made me connect and actually consider what I thought about what I read. And unlike other formats, where I am hyper-concerned with citations and formatting and perfect language, I could just write what I thought in the blog. It allowed for deeper connections - because a lot of times I don't write about certain things for classes because I don't consider it "academic-y" enough. I don't think like "an academic"; I think like a snarky 21 year old because that's what I am. It was a nice change to be authentic in what I wrote because I'm often ... not ... in writing for school. But I could be in this, and my experiences that I normally wouldn't write about were just as valuable in considering literacy development, if not more so. I could consider what I've gone through and then honestly talk about what I would do in the classroom. 

Classrooms, like life, aren't nice, neat theoreticals. They are messy, and this writing format helped work through that.

References

Rasinksi, T. (2014). Fluency matters. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 7(1), 3-12. 

Stahl, S.A., Duffy-Hester, A.M., & Stahl, K.A.D. (1998). Everything you wanted to know about phonics (but were afraid to ask). Reading Research Quarterly, 33(3), 338-355. https://doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.33.3.5

Tompkins, G.E. (2017).  Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

(If this is a little ramble-y at times, I just want to say my new (or relatively new) meds are messing with my head just a *little* bit... I tried waiting until my head was a little more clear, but it doesn't seem to be clearing up. Just to be completely upfront here.)

Entry #10: I Got Nostalgic For My Elementary School, So This Is Longer Than Normal...

The notion of not liking ELA, and reading especially, was completely foreign to me when I was in elementary school. Reading was fun, and everyone did it. At home, my mom and oldest sister Megan were always reading books for fun, and Emily, my other sister, would often read magazines or stuff on the internet. Friday nights were reading nights (when we got to read during dinnertime) at our house, as well as any night when my dad didn't make it home for dinner (yes, we ate dinner together every night - we were that type of family). We did word puzzles (I remember having rebus puzzle books and doing the Jumble in the newspaper) and got pretty competitive with them. Even our presents at Christmastime involved us having to solve puzzles and riddles to get to them (still do, in fact). At school, we had independent reading time all the time (called DEAR time when we were in the lower grades for "drop everything and read"), and we always got to pick whatever books we wanted to read. ELA classes were enjoyable because we did things like have readers' theaters, hold themed events related to the books we read (like a pioneer day when reading "Sarah, Plain and Tall"), write stories where we had lots of creative freedom, and play word games. 

(This weird tangent has a point, I swear.)

Like I said, not liking reading just wasn't a thing when I was in elementary school. Nobody I knew (as far as I could tell) didn't like to read. 

And then came middle school. And I got it then, why someone could dislike ELA. 

Particularly, learning vocabulary.

Like all my fellow high-achieving nerd friends in middle school, I took an SAT prep vocabulary class during homeroom. I liked vocabulary. I remember doing vocabulary flashcards at dinner as a kid with my older sisters. I used to make my own flashcards with unfamiliar words from books I read. Learning words was fun. 

That vocabulary class sucked the fun out of everything. Have you ever read a "novel" that force-feeds you vocabulary? Because that's what we did. I have managed to block out most of my experience with "The Marino Mission: One Girl, One Mission, One Thousand Words: 1,000 Need-To-Know SAT Vocabulary Words," but clearly, it still lingers in my consciousness. 

All of this came back to me when I read Meaghan's post, "Vocabulary Development Can Be Fun?". Meaghan made a lot of important points in her post, and I'm going to be spending my time blessing them and sharing my own thoughts.

First, Meaghan writes, 

"The idea that students can be learning, while also having fun, is such an important lesson for even myself to acknowledge. I think a lot of elementary and even middle school curriculums have this as a missing piece. The enthusiasm for learning is so crucial in order to reach kids, and keep them engaged, wanting to learn more" (Jackson, 2022). 

Fun truly is too often missing from learning. I was blessed to have an elementary school that made learning enjoyable (I won't say I want to go back to those days, but I definitely want to go back to those days...). I think too many schools and teachers think you can do one or the other; you can have fun, or you can learn - you can't do both. I know that's not true because I had so much fun, and I learned so much in elementary school. My school definitely made us all believe reading was fun. Our teachers read aloud books all through elementary school. (I do really mean all the way through elementary school. My 5th grade teacher read aloud "The Hunger Games" to us. We didn't have to do any assignments with it. It was just for pleasure because our teacher knew it was about to be made into a movie that most of us wanted to see.) We looked forward to DEAR time because we could read whatever, no judgments or policing our books. If you wanted to read a picture book about something science-y, great. If you wanted to read that year's Golden Sowers, awesome. As long as you were reading and enjoying it, it didn't matter. The weekly trips to the library were looked forward to by all of us. It was an environment that fostered joy. 

When I compare that to that vocabulary class, where reading was a chore, I feel so much luckier about what I had. I know my experience was an exception. But it shouldn't be. We were open to learning because we knew it was fun. So many students who struggle in the school environment, and I can't help but think that they wouldn't struggle as much if joy was considered an essential part of the curriculum. Gholdy Muhammad (2020) puts it beautifully:

"We should want to move beyond mere grades and test scores and make it our mission that when students leave our teachers and our schools, they not only earn strong grades and test scores, but they also embody a love and joy for reading and literacy - that they leave us and ascend to remote regions of the world while also discovering the power of their minds" (p. 169). 

Meaghan ties this love of reading into vocabulary learning in particular. She writes,

"If children are engaged in what they are reading, find joy in it, and excited to learn about new vocabulary words they may come across because of that joy, I think that is success. Reading is essential in vocabulary growth, especially in the younger grades, [sic] therefore, the more time children spend reading (and enjoying what they are reading), the more successful they will be in reading comprehension and beyond" (Jackson, 2022).

This notion is backed by Tompkins (2017) at multiple points throughout the text. First, she backs the importance of reading in vocabulary growth, sharing that "reading is the single largest source of vocabulary growth in students, especially after third grade" (p. 243). That is huge. More than explicit instruction, reading is how students learn vocabulary. Clearly, then, you want to students to want to read. And as Meaghan wrote and Tompkins (2017) confirms, 

"Vocabulary knowledge and reading achievement are closely related: Students with larger vocabularies are more capable readers, and they know more strategies for figuring out the meanings of unfamiliar words than less capable readers do ... Capable readers get better because they read more, and the books they read are more challenging with academic vocabulary words" (p. 220).

It is all connected. Joy, reading, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension.

The goal then? Making the idea of disliking reading foreign to everyone.

References

Jackson, M. (2022). Entry #9: Vocabulary development could be fun? Jackson LTED601 Literacy Blog. https://jacksonlted601literacy.blogspot.com/2022/04/entry-9-vocabulary-development-can-be.html. 

Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Tompkins, G.E. (2017).  Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson. 

 

Entry #9: My Nerdiness Has An Application!

Not surprisingly since I helped pick it, this week's article was one that really interested me. I have a fascination with ambiguous language. It's a bit funny, actually, because I haven't always been the best at recognizing or understanding it (still not great at it...). I'm not exaggerating (though I wish I were) when I say it took me until high school before I understood the "seven ate nine" joke because I couldn't see the other meaning of "eight." I could have told you "eight" and "ate" were homophones but could not make the connection in that context at all.

I think, though, my fascination with ambiguous language started in my undergraduate when I learned about garden path sentences in the context of understanding syntax. Garden path sentences are those that start in a way that lets you to believe it will be one thing, but if you read it that way, it is ungrammatical. One of the ones I remember learning was, "The old man the boat." When you initially read it, you think the noun phrase is "the old man," but if it was read like that, it wouldn't be a grammatical sentences. Instead, the subject is "the old" and the predicate is "man the boat." I took an entire course on syntax (and loved it), and my favorite sentences to diagram were garden path sentences and sentences that had more than one meaning. (Though I did like doing grammatically complex sentences too... Tree diagrams are just fun.) 

Grammatically incorrect first guess

Grammatically correct garden path sentence

However, even as I loved these sentences in syntax class, I couldn't see how they were relevant to the real world. When would you intentionally use these types of sentences? When are the old going to man the boat? Which brings me to now. In the article, Zipke (2008) helped me see how humor uses ambiguous language all the time, and in the textbook, Tompkins (2017) showed how common ambiguous words actually were. (My jaw almost dropped when I saw the list of common words that had five or more meanings. No wonder it is so hard to learn languages!)

For people who don't think humor is worthwhile, I think about an interview I did with an ENL teacher during my undergraduate when she said that the best moment in teaching was when an EL made their first joke in English. Being about to manipulate language and form an identity in English are powerful things. When you can make a joke in a new language, you are able to show who you are, to be yourself. By teaching ambiguous language, I'd be helping my students build their identity. That is something we are constantly talking about in our group discussions; students should be able to know and be who they are in my classroom. 

Plus, it's just fun. Sometimes, language skills are quite boring. It's hard to make grammar rules or parts of speech exciting. Homonyms and ambiguity, however, are fun. I spent this past weekend with my aunt and uncle, and my uncle kept regaling us with dad jokes. Every single one of them manipulated language using lexical and structural ambiguity. 

I ended up using Zipke's (2008) article to create a unit plan in another class. I thought it would be difficult to come up with four lessons using riddles as the focus, but I had no difficulties coming up with content. From looking at homophones and homonyms to dissecting riddles using the 3W chart to looking at books that use ambiguous language to writing and performing riddles, the unit plan probably could have been longer. It just really made me see how prevalent - and powerful - ambiguity is. 

References

Tompkins, G.E. (2017).  Literacy for the 21st century: A balanced approach (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Zipke, M. (2008). Teaching metalinguistic awareness and reading comprehension with riddles. The Reading Teacher, 62(2), 128–137. https://doi.org/10.1598/rt.62.2.4