In the article, Vocabulary Lessons, the statement claiming, "5th grade students who engage in just 10 minutes of independent reading a day reads 662,000 more words each year than students who do no independent reading. Increase that reading to 20 minutes a day, and the gap widens to almost tow million more words read each year" (p.67), was shocking! I had read the Hart and Risley study in a previous class so I was aware of the gap between children from different income levels. However, I didn't realize the impact on the children reading for just 10 minutes a day! This fact is settling because it really is as simple as giving children only 10 minutes out of the day to read; but it's also disturbing to me that all children aren't reading 10 minutes a day. I wish I could broadcast this fact to every teacher and parent! Another tip from the article I wish all parents and educators knew is that to help struggling readers, not only to read to them but also play word games with them. Playing with words teaches children to understand how words work which will go a long way in their education. I think this article did a good job explaining why increasing children's vocabulary is important while providing helpful lessons to do so.
In the article, The Vocabulary Rich Classroom, something that seemed to obvious to me but never occurred to me was "the more words the reader knows, the easier it will be to read and understand what is read" (p.364). It seems so obvious that vocabulary correlates with reading comprehension but without this article, I may have not made that connection.I also never thought about how teachers sometimes find many examples of unnecessarily simplistic language. Instead of using subtract, they will use take away. I never would have thought of this as a bad thing until I read this article. I think discoveries like these reiterate the importance of teachers constantly reading the latest findings and articles and books like these. Another important idea brought up in this article is the research supporting "knowing fewer words well is more important than knowing many words superficially" (p.365). Just because a child can write a definition on their paper doesn't mean they fully comprehend the fully meaning.Lastly, I really enjoyed the explanation of the three-tier model. I feel a little overwhelmed with what words are important for children in my classroom to learn and this model provides a little insight into that.
As I stated before, I previously studied the Hart and Risley findings. However, the article, The Early Catastrophe, provided more insight as to how they collected their data. One thing I found interesting was, "the 42 children grow more like their parents in stature and activity levels, in vocabulary resources, and in language and interaction styles" (p.7). I've always felt very lucky to have grown up in the family that I did. Both of my parents are educated and made my sisters and my education as a top priority. However, I know that this is not the case for all of the students that will be in my classroom. I find it so frightening how much impact some parents, who don't have their children's education as a priority, have on their children the first few years of their lives. This fact just reiterates the importance of the role, we as teachers must play in children's life.
In Chapter 6 of the book, I enjoyed reading about taking advantage of media and technology. The media that is available in classrooms now is nothing like when I was in elementary school, which was only nine years ago! Therefore, using art and media in the classroom seems like a foreign subject to me, that I try to stay away from. The book brought up a good point, "you and your children can take virtual field trips all over the world and back in time" (p.102). This chapter has opened my eyes to media, as long as it is used in moderation. Another part of this chapter I enjoyed was how to effectively use dictionaries. This reminded me of my mom. She is a first grade teacher and a terrible speller, so anytime she would write a new word on the board she would have her children look up the word in the dictionary. I always thought this would be kind of boring as a first grader. After reading this it reminds me that because of the technology that is now available, children will not have very much experience with dictionaries (I know I don't). What better way to incorporate dictionaries into the classroom but to take them on a dictionary scavenger hunt?
I felt the same way about the Early Catastrophe article. The numbers were amazing to me although not overly surprising. I agree with you about the importance of our role as teachers and having our work cut out for us with children whose parents do not value literacy as much as others.
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