Final Exam Essay

Teaching is one of the most honorable occupations that one can achieve. Imagine how rewarding it is to teach a child to read effectively, it is a skill that he or she will possess for a lifetime. Helping a young adult to become a critical thinker is an attribute that will enhance learning forever. Furthermore, educating adult learners is not only challenging, but also reciprocating, because adults bring a lot of experience into the classroom. Although educators share the common goal of teaching students to become more educated, they oftentimes have very different sometimes even contradicting educational perspectives and teaching styles. I found this to be interesting as I explored the theories of E.D. Hirsch, Rudolph Flesch, and Shirley Brice Heath.
In Cultural Literacy, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. proposes that all citizens of the United States of America obtain a “Universal Literacy” in order to be knowledgeable of significant people, events and milestones of their country. He argues that when individuals are proactive in literacy it has a powerful effect on our society and country as a whole. “Ultimately our aim should be to attain universal literacy at a very high level, to achieve not only greater economic prosperity but also greater social justice and more effective.” However, although I can understand Hirsch’s point of view in regard to raising the standard of education, he seems to have a nostalgic view of what education should look like and does not consider cultural diversity.
Hirsch believes that when students acquire a culturally based foundation of the United States history combined with current mainstream culture, these students will become more proficient readers, critical thinkers and great communicators. “The function of national literacy is to foster effective nationwide communications. Our chief instrument of communication over time and space is the standard national language, which is sustained by national literacy (2).” Hirsch further argues that in order to achieve the goal of becoming a culturally literate nation, the entire educational system would have to be reformed so that all school curricula would become unified.
In the reading, Hirsch reasons that Americans should have a general knowledge of important people and events that take place in our country. He is referring to specifics such as what the “Constitution of the United States” is, or, who are “Susan B. Anthony or Ulysses S. Grant?” It is important that people know when the “Civil Rights War” took place and the results of it. In addition, people of the U.S. would benefit from reading specific literature such as “Shakesphere” etc. because it is historical reading and Americans are assumed to be familiar it. Geography is also something that Hirsch feels that all students must know. For example, specific names and locations of oceans, seas, mountains and regions are important. He adds, “Because literate people mention such names in passing, usually without explanation, children should acquire them as part of their intellectual equipment (30).” My question is, who determines who is literate and who is not.
In my opinion, it is disturbing and also unfortunate that many United States citizens are oblivious to facts that surround American culture. However, America consists of a multitude of cultures. Perhaps, Hirsch makes a reasonable argument that by implementing cultural literacy, in a more structured fashion into curricula, will likely raise the educational standards and literacy levels in our country. On the other hand, because the United States is such a multicultural nation, I wonder how it would be possible to include and equally value multiple cultures in education. In order for educators to teach effectively in multicultural populations, we must recognize that literacy is always very close to identity and that people learn best in an environment where they are respected.
Hirsch’s idea of education reminds me of what education was like many decades ago. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century’s privileged people basically read the same literature, learned the same math and studied the same languages, Greek and Latin. However, that was long ago before the U.S. became so multicultural. Although the U.S. has always been open to immigrants, there have never been as many different cultures in our country as there are today. For this reason people have distinct backgrounds and come to the classroom with various learning experiences and styles.
Many theorists would argue that because students are from different backgrounds they will have inherited particular literate strengths and value some practices over others. “Repeatedly, Goody and Watt (1963), Ong (1967), Goody (1968), and Havelock (1963) are cited as having suggested a dichotomous view of oral and literate societies and as having asserted certain cognitive, social, and linguistic effects of literacy on both the society and the individual. Survey research tracing the invention and diffusion of writing systems across numerous societies (Kroeber, 1948) and positing the effects of the spread of literacy on social and individual memory is cited as supporting a contrastive view of oral and literate social groups.” Therefore, community, culture and social practices are major factors to consider in education. Although every citizen of the United States shares a common culture, not every student has the necessary resources to be included in the mainstream culture.
What constitutes good education, personally, is what I think educators should be questioning. Would this traditional style of education be effective in teaching a modern multicultural society? Obviously, every citizen of their country is expected to know the history of the country, the background of the government, geographical locations, common literacy practices, etc. However, multiculturalism does not seem to be worthy of consideration in E.D. Hirsch’s theory because he only mentions teaching towards a mainstream culture and there is not much diversity there. Furthermore, as I learned this semester, people are literate on different levels according to their needs of literacy. Is it not possible for a literate person on any level to be unfamiliar to certain information just because he or she has not been exposed to it? Many of the details that Hirsch suggests that students should know are not always revealed in a classroom. Oftentimes, facts are learned on family vacations or during discussions with family members or friends within a community. Realistically, not all cultures are exposed to travel or even decent books to read about travel or other subjects for that matter. Therefore, there is a huge disadvantage for students who are underprivileged or unexposed to mainstream culture. E.D. Hirsch’s theory of education is not conducive to all students and he sees the country not as a tapestry but as a melting pot.

Rudolph Flesch’s, Why Johnny Can’t Read and what you can do about it is what he considers to be a “fool-proof method of teaching” based on phonics and the alphabetic code. In the book, Flesch advocates for using direct phonetic instruction for beginning readers as opposed to the “look say” or “whole word” method of teaching. He insists that with this method, “once a child has learned this code, he can read. As a mother of two children, who I actively play a part in their learning to read, I can attest that reading is highly based on phonics. However, while Flesch’s theory is a great concept, it deserves a reasonable degree of flexibility.
Why Johnny Can’t Read, was published in 1955. Rudolph Flesch wrote this book primarily for parents to help their children to read. He later revised the book in 1983 to advocate for direct phonics instruction, a subject he feels strongly about. In the book, he also opposes the “look-say” or “whole word” method of teaching children to read, stating that “It theoretically requires the students to memorize every word as a whole.”
Direct phonics instruction is described as the act of teaching students the twenty six letters of the alphabet along with the forty four sounds of speech that are associated with them. The concept is that letters represent the sounds of speech and that there are relationships between the letters, the sounds and the words.
Through research, I have learned that there are several forms of phonics. The first is embedded phonics, “It is an instructional approach where letter sounds are taught opportunistically, as the need arises.” This form of phonics is likely to be used with the whole language method of teaching reading. Synthetic phonics, the second form of phonics, is a popular method of teaching phonics. It involves focusing on the close relationship between the letters and sounds and blending them together to form words. The third variant is analytic phonics, it too is a popular method and it is where students learn phonograms (usually the ending part of a word that rhymes). Students are taught multiple words by changing the first letter in front of a phonogram. For example, (m)ake, (b)ake, (t)ake, (r)ake, etc. This is also considered an instructional method of teaching.
According to Flesch, the “look-say” method is not reading but merely word guessing. It entails memorization of the appearance of words or recognizing words by looking at the first and last letters in words such as “The Cat in the Hat.” The “look-say” or “whole word” method of teaching is usually taught by using pictures to demonstrate the word. Children are taught to associate the picture and the whole word with its meaning. This is considered to be a memorization method of teaching reading.
Rudolph Flesch believes that before children are introduced to any other type of reading they should be taught letters and the sounds that are associated to them. He suggests that parents/teachers spend several weeks teaching children to identify letters, write them and then make the corresponding sounds of the letters. He admits that there is a lot of repetition involved in this method, but feels that it will pay off in the end because “once a child has learned this code, he can read.” Flesch also recommends that not until the sounds of letters are mastered, should children be allowed to move on to other reading exercises.
In 1830, the “look-say” method, also known as the “whole word” method was created by Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, the director of the American Asylum. It was designed for the education of the Deaf by teaching them to read by placing a word and a picture side by side. Flesch criticizes this technique of reading to non-deaf children because, “It works on the principle that children learn to read by reading. It starts with little stories containing the most-often-used words in English and gradually builds up a sight vocabulary.” This means that it is easy for children to read words when they see and say them repeatedly. However, it is nearly impossible for a reader to read a larger complex word that they have never seen before.
When my son was learning to read, twelve or thirteen years ago, I was an inexperienced mother and educator. I had no clue of how to teach him to read, but I knew that reading to him regularly is important. So I read to him almost every night, while he was taught phonics instruction at school during the day. I realized that when we read together that he was becoming a good reader because of the way that he sounded out the words. Now that he is a teenager, he is still a good reader but he does not like to read.
I have a never a nephew who is one year older than my son. He apparently learned to read differently. We all have a close relationship and would often read together. I noticed over the years that although my son is younger than my nephew, my nephew’s reading skills were lower than my son’s. Although, I was not an educator at that time, I figured that my nephew’s reading problem was related to his inability to relate the sounds of the letters to the letters. At eighteen years of age, my nephew loves to read, however, he still does not sound out words that are difficult for him to pronounce.
Currently, as a more experienced parent and a graduate student in the Language and Literacy Program, I have a more clear view of various reading strategies. Now, I am aware of exactly what type of teaching methods takes place at my five year old daughter’s school. At home, I am sure to study phonics with her several times per week as re-enforcement of what she is learning in class. Also, during our reading time, I encourage her to phonetically pronounce words. In addition, we use picture cards to study words, however we still sound the words out together. Genesis is only in kindergarten and cannot read quite yet, but she is able to sound letters out and also point out words from stories.
At the adult literacy program where I work, the “look-say,” “whole word,” and “whole language” are the methods of teaching reading that is preferred. When I spoke with my director about why we use this method rather than the direct phonics method she stated, “Phonics is not reading. Reading is a meaning making process. The problem with phonics is that it does not have to be taught directly. However, indirectly students will develop phonemic awareness.” She recognizes the importance of understanding phonics but feels that while teaching reading towards meaning making that people will acquire phonemic awareness.
Flesch’s theory is one based on analysis, principle and instruction but in my opinion it is too one sided. While it is important for students to know the fundamentals of reading by sounding out word, I think a combination of the two approaches of phonics and whole word would make students superb readers.
In Ways with Words, Shirley Brice Heath proves that education is highly based on social practice as opposed to being a body of knowledge. She does this by conducting research on oral and literate practices in three Piedmont, North Carolina towns. Her research is heavily influenced by Dell Hymes’ theory of “Communicative Competence.” Heath is certainly a visionary who challenged prior theories on language during a time when schools in the south had recently been desegregated. Her ethnographic perspective reveals a variety of values attached to language and also how literacy is deeply rooted in social practice.
Communicative competence is Heath’s main argument in Ways with Words. The term can be described as, “A persons combined knowledge of a language in terms of its syntax, phonology, morphology, discourse structures, and strategies of language use appropriate to particular situations.” Dell Hymes is the anthropologist who created the term in 1966. He further developed the concept five years later to challenge Noam Chomsky’s theory on “Language Performance” and “Language Competence.” Chomsky’s theory is based on the idea that we all possess an underlying competency, however, we are not aware or do not use the talents that we have for various reasons which lead to lack of performance.
Heath began her research during the late 1960’s when she was an instructor, teaching courses to teachers on language, culture and education. She taught these classes in North Carolina, where the public schools were deemed as low-performing and segregation had recently ended. Heath worked with both African-American and Caucasian teachers who taught in diverse communities. She became inspired to do extensive research on language socialization because the teachers that she worked with questioned existing research on language differences between people of distinct cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Language socialization is the idea that language is constructed through socialization and that socialization is demonstrated through language. “In other words, part of the meaning of grammatical and conversational structures is sociocultural. These structures are socially organized and hence carry information corning social order… Language is then a major if not the major tool for conveying sociocultural knowledge and a powerful medium of socializations (Ochs 2-3).” For this reason, Heath chose to investigate communities of different cultural and socioeconomic lifestyles to further explore this concept.
For ten years Heath conducted an ethnographic study of language on three towns in Piedmont, North Carolina. She compares the values of oral and literate traditions on the people who live in Trackton, Roadville and Maintown. In Trackton, the residents are mostly African-American and communicate more orally than with written materials. The residents of Roadville are also mainly oral communicators, however predominantly white people live in this town. In Maintown, both black and white people reside here, they are considered to be more middle class than the residents of Trackton and/or Roadville and they value reading and written communication.
Heath examined the language habits and interactions of the people in these communities, with the help of the townspeople in her courses. She studied the way they ate, slept, worked and worshipped in an attempt to better understand their process of language and how it applies to their learning. Her main goal was to determine how the language structures of the different community’s effects the learning in the classroom and at the workplace. “They came to recognize that in schools, commercial establishments, and mills, mainstream language values and skills were the expected norm, and the individuals from communities such as Roadville and Trackton brought different language and values and skills to these situations.” The research resulted in Heath and the assisting teachers becoming more aware of the distinctive ways in which the people of this region communicate and bringing that awareness into the classroom to accommodate their learning styles.
In my view, education is absolutely a social practice. As educators, we must realize that people bring practices and values from their cultures to the classroom. We must also learn to identify their learning styles, strengths, etc. and introduce relative and appropriate concepts for them to explore. I consider Shirley Brice Heath to be a visionary and a pioneer. She saw the significance of investigating this concept and delves into it whole heartedly. In addition, she conducted this research during a fairly unfavorable time. She went into communities where people spoke differently and cared enough to fully examine language socialization. Heath’s research on these communities is profound and has changed the way people think about education.
In conclusion, education comes in many forms. However, it is important for educators to remember that balance and flexibility are key in teaching. Because people have different learning styles and come from different backgrounds, it is imperative to consider students individuality and uniqueness. While E.D. Hirsch and Rudolph Flesch are logical in their arguments, they both seem to ignore that learning involves more than skills, it also depends on attitude, desire and access to learning. In my opinion, Shirley Brice Heath’s ethnographic perspective is the most effective way to approach teaching. Culture, socioeconomics and linguistics all are major factors when assessing a student’s performance. Heath makes this clear when she states, “The information to be gained from any prolonged look at oral and written uses of language through literacy events may enable us to accept the protean shapes of oral and literate traditions and language, and move us away from current tendencies to classify communities as being at one or another point along a hypothetical continuum which has no societal reality (370).” This validates the idea that literacy is deeply rooted in social practice and very close to people’s identity.

Mid-term Essay - Functional Literacy

Functional Literacy

A functional literate person can be described as someone who has the reading and writing ability and knowledge that enables him or her to utilize the print of his or her world. Individuals are proficient in literacy on various levels. Literacy proficiency levels are determined by educational background and attainment. People with low levels of literacy are able to function mostly by using environmental print. If the majority of those who are responsible for children’s education, such as parents and teachers, were serious and collaborative, perhaps the levels of low functional literacy would be at a minimum.
Linguist, anthropologist, and teaching professionals from kindergarten through college level, have a common interest in the word literacy. Interestingly, not many people agree on one definition of the term. “We have scholarly articles and public debates on functional literacy, on full literacy, on semi-literacy, on pre-literacy…” (Pattison 4). One thing that is agreed upon universally in regard to literacy is that it involves some form of reading and writing.
According to Mike Rose, “Functional literacy in the 1930’s meant having three or more years of schooling. During World War II it meant completion of the fourth grade, in 1960, completion of the eighth grade. In the late 1970’s, some defined functional literacy as completion of high school. In later years, this definition proved too simplistic.” Functional literacy is now defined by statisticians on various skill levels. These include the literacy proficiency levels as defined in “Digest of Education Statistics.” 1992:

Level 1: Able to follow brief written directions and select phrases to describe pictures.Example: Locate time or place of a meeting on a form.

Level 2: Able to understand combined ideas and make references based on short uncomplicated passages about specific or sequentially related information.Example: Enter background information on an employment form.

Level 3: Able to search for specific information, interrelate ideas, and make generalizations about literature, science and social studies materials.Example: Integrate information from long, dense texts or documents.

Level 4: Able to find, understand, summarize, and explain relatively complicated literary and informational material.Example: Research and write a college-level term paper with footnote references.

Level 5: Able to understand the links between ideas even when those links are not explicitly stated and to make appropriate generalizations even when the texts lack clear instructions or explanations.

Example: Read and comprehend the themes in a classical play or novel such as Hamlet or War and Peace.

Previously, the definition has changed numerously overtime and also increased in expectation. However, Rose’s theory on literacy offers more elasticity and is less standardized.

Parents and teachers play a very important role in children’s education and ultimately in the lack or sufficiency of literacy. A reading and writing teacher is responsible for ensuring that their students are taught the concepts of reading and writing. “As primary students learn to decode words through phonemic and phonological awareness activities, they must also be exposed to authentic literature and taught explicitly concepts of print such as directionality, return sweep, use of punctuation, and the differentiation between letters, words and sentences” (Watson 46). In addition, in order for these concepts to become cohesive, there should be ongoing practice on the part of the young learner.
Although parents are not in the class room while their children are learning to read and write, their role is vital in encouraging good learning and studying habits. Parents who are actively involved with their children’s learning can and will enhance their literacy skills by re-inforcing what is being taught at school. In addition, their support also sends a message to their child, as well as the teacher, that education and their child is important to them and participating actively usually encourages diligence on the student’s part.
As one might imagine, functional literacy levels increase when educational attainment increases. An analysis conducted by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy examined how, “literacy scores rose with successive levels of educational attainment; they were lowest across the three scales for adults who did not complete high school and highest for adults with graduate study or a graduate degree.” Table 3-2 shown below illustrates the average prose, document, and quantitative literacy scores of adults by highest educational attainment between the years of 1992 and 2003.

Table 3-2. Average prose, document, and quantitative literacy scores of adults, by highest educational attainment: 1992 and 2003

Educational Attainment Prose Document Quantitative
1992 2003 1992 2003 1992 2003
Still in High School 268 262 270 265 263 261
Some High School 216 207 * 211 208 209 211
GED/H.S Equivalency 265 260 259 257 265 265
High School Graduate 268 262* 261 258 267 269
Some College 292 287* 288 280* 295 294
Associate’s Degree 306 298* 301 291* 305 305
Bachelor’s Degree 325 314* 317 303* 324 323
Graduate Degree 340 327* 328 311* 336 332

*Significantly different from 1992

Note: Adults are defined as people 16 years of age and older living in households or prisons. Adults who could not be interviewed because of language spoken or cognitive or mental disabilities (3 percent in 2003 and 4 percent in 1992) are excluded from this table.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Educational Statistics, 1992 National Adult Literacy survey and 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy.


Other statistics from the ‘National Adult Literacy Survey in 1992’ shows that:

Those with less than a high school diploma performed 35% of the literacy tasks correctly; those with a college degree performed 65% of the tasks correctly. Ninety-five percent of those with less than a high school diploma functioned at the two lowest levels. This group had less than 1% functioning at the highest levels. Those with a college degree had the highest percentage functioning at the highest two levels (53%). However, 14% of those with a college degree function at the two lowest levels of proficiency. Surprising! Adults who are proficient at levels one and two are considered, by some, to be functionally illiterate. In 1992, this included 90 million adults (48% of the adult population).

People who have low literacy proficiency levels are able to function by using things in their environment to help them better understand the world around them. Objects such as posters, street/traffic signs, pictures and big words on a menu or a cereal box are some examples of environmental print. When people are able to interpret this type of print, it affords an opportunity of basic reading and discovery for learners. More importantly, the reading of environmental print enables individuals to become functionally literate to some extent. Also, according to Rose’s theory, people are able to increase their literacy proficiency levels according to the amount of time spent on educating themselves.
In conclusion, there is no one definition for the term functional literacy or even literacy for that matter. Even professionals are ambiguous on the matter. Through my research, one thing that is clear in regard to functional literacy is that it involves an unidentified amount of reading and writing. Rose’s theory seems to be the most appropriate, that literacy proficiency can be found on different levels and not at one standard. If literacy is the ability to read and write, and all people perform this act on various levels, then does it make sense to have a standard that determines if a person is functionally literate?
The proficiency levels included in this essay are a realistic and considerate approach to how people function with literacy. It does not demand that all people meet the same standard. Oftentimes, this is not possible due to disabilities, socioeconomic reasons, etc. In addition, acknowledging various proficiency levels sends a message that learning is not a threshold but a continuum.





Bibliography


Courts, Patricia. Literacy and Empowerment. Bergin and Garvey: New York, Westport, Connecticut and London, 1991. Print.

Dodd, Wescott Anne and Konzel, Jean L. Making Our High Schools Better. St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1999. Print.

National Center for Education Statistics. Literacy in Everyday Life: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Washington, DC, 2007.

Pattison, Robert. On Literacy: The Politics of the Word from Homer to the Age of Rock. Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York, Toronto, Melbourne, 1982.

Rose, Mike. Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America's Underprepared. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1999. Print.

Watson, Dwight. Reading the World: Supporting the Functional Literacy Abilities of Urban Learners.
www.education.wisc.edu/.../dwightWatson-Readingtheworld.pdf

Discussion Flyer - The Heath Basic Writer, Blanche Skurnick and Problem Solving Strategies for Writing, Linda Flower

Discussion topics from excerpts of two readings:

The Heath Basic Writer Problem-Solving Strategies for Writing
Blanche Skurnick Linda Flower

Summary and Discussion Questions:

The Heath Basic Writer

This excerpt is made up of three parts:

To the Instructor:

-It’s an introduction and description of the book for the instructor.
-It explains that it is a student friendly manuscript (see ix).
-The book is basically a proof-reading course based on Mina Shaughnessy’s theory of basic writing. (Mina Shaugnessy is the person who established the basic writing precedence at CCNY and she is responsible for starting the Language and Literacy Program). Shaughnessy’s theory is formulated around the idea that students “were learning grammar formally but were not learning how to control error in their writing.”


To the Student:

-It is an explanation of how grammar instruction will improve their writing.
-It describes what manipulating language is and how it can make one’s writing distinctive.
-It assures students that when they have completed the course, they will be more confident writers.

Table of Contents:

-There are thirteen chapters in “The Heath Basic Writer.” These include subjects on, “From Topic to Specific Idea,” “Basic Sentence Facts,” “The Verb and the Subject,” “Subordination,” “Coordination, Parallelism, and Comparison,” “The Comma and Other Forms of Punctuation,” “Subject-Verb Agreement,” “Verb Tense and Voice,” “Verb Form and Mood,” “Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement,” “Proofreading - Accounting and Summary,” “The Right Word/Too Many Words/Too Few Words,” and “Idea to paragraph.”
-There are also three appendixes that cover “The Essay Question – Mid-terms and Finals,” “Spelling and the Dictionary,” and “Usage.”

Problem-Solving Strategies for Writing

-This excerpt is a preface to the book.
-It describes the book as a “process-based rhetoric” that encourages writers to concentrate more on the process of writing than on the end result of the writing.
- In order to get a thorough understanding of how to translate the concept of writing into a descriptive process, Flower’s collaborated with John R. Hayes, a cognitive psychologist, of Carnegie-Mellon University. His interest is in creativity and problem-solving and he also was curious to know, “What do writers actually do?” and “How can they learn to do it better?” Their objective is to help writers to become more conscious of their cognitive processes, and therefore more competent and confident during the writing process.
-Flower’s book is a combination of traditional and current research on rhetoric, in an effort to display the writing process for effective writing.
-The first two chapters of the book describe various types of writing such as academic, professional and personal writing. They also illustrate the basic process of analyzing a topic and finding a thesis.
- The remaining chapters offer in-depth strategies for the writing process. Flowers point out that chapter three begins on the concept of inspiration, which helps the writer develop their own methods for writing.
- Chapters four through twelve are a lay-out of steps that prove to be effective during the writing process. These include, “Planning, generating ideas…”
- Flower’s goal for this book is to emphasize the idea of writing as a system and that there are “distinctive parts of the writing process” (vii).

Discussion Questions:

1. What relationship do you see if any, between the theories of these two excerpts?

2. As a writing instructor, do you agree with Flower’s theory and strategies in her preface of “Problem-Solving Strategies for Writers?” If no, why not? If so, how would you use some of these strategies in your classroom?

Children's literacy / Genesis learning to write

This is Genesis, my five year old daughter who has just started kindergarten and is learning to write. I thought it as relevant to share this with the class because of our conversation on September 9th in regard to the format in which children learn to write.

Professor Gleason explained that children generally do not space their words and will write all of the letters in a sentence close together. Coincidentally, when I checked Genesis' homework later in the week, I noticed that she is writing in the same way that we discussed.

Below are some samples of Genesis' writing:

They both have her name written on the top. On the first page she wrote "We pray for all the families of 9-11" and on the second one she wrote a few sentences. They read, "I see a cat", "I see a bat", and "I see a mat". Notice how the writing in all of the sentences, especially the last one on page two, are written close together. This supports what we learned in class in regard to the way children write initially.