EDRG 3321 BE. #1 Values

Brief Summary of Chapter 1 notes:

Literature is written for many reasons. It can be used to entice, motivate, or instruct. The written word has the ability to open doors to discovery providing hours of adventure and enjoyment. A person’s love for literature should be established early in life. Children who become literate often view reading and writing as activities from which they receive information and enjoyment. They find writing is also a way to communicate with others.

Literature can be used as a way to promote child development. As each child progresses through the stages of development appropriate literature can be found for each. Understanding the types and stages of child development is useful for anyone who works with children.

The stages of development are Language, Cognitive, Personality, and Social development. All children develop at different rates, but must pass through each stage as they mature. Language Development begins during the child’s first few years. It develops quickly with the first words coming at around age one. By 18 months the child begins to put words together. Speech becomes more complex by three and by four or five years old they can produce grammatically correct sentences. Oral development leads to reading and then writing for the child. Cognitive Development involves factors that help children remember, anticipate, integrate perceptions, and develop concepts. Personality Development is how children learn behavior, values, attitudes, and reactions to other people. Social Development involves the child acquiring beliefs, values, and behavior of the society. As they mature they learn what’s acceptable and unacceptable amongst their peers and amongst adults.

Part 2: Values. What is a value? What is the most important value to you and why? Where did you learn this value? Can you teach this value? How do you?

Values make up personal beliefs that are important to us as individuals. There are an infinite number of values that people find important. The importance an individual places in a particular value depends on that individual’s upbringing and life experiences. Many values that are important to someone at one stage of their life may change or be replaced as the person gets older and gathers more life experience.

I consider respect the most important value. Without respect for yourself it’s impossible to live up to your potential as a human being. Respect for others is just as important. When demonstrating respect for others you treat them as you would like to be treated. It involves treating others fairly, with courtesy, and dignity. You strive to look past personal differences and prejudices to solve problems in an adult manner without insults or violence. It allows us to never purposely ridicule, embarrass, or cause harm to others.

I learned respect from my family and it was reinforced at the Elementary School level in the Department of Defense School system. I believe you can teach respect through day to day interactions with students and other adults. The subject of personal values in general can be taught by action and/or addressed as a lesson in the classroom. Initial values will be learned from a child’s immediate family, but can be molded and added to during Social Development, through interaction and classroom instruction.

Blog Entry #1 for EDRG 3344

Part 1: How do students learn?

There are many different theories on how people learn. The textbook uses Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s constructivist framework. His theory tells us that children acquire knowledge as they experience new things. As a child experiences new information the information is stored and organized in the brain. This organization is referred to as the cognitive structure. Category systems are called schemata. As the child learns something new the existing schemata grow or new ones are created.

The process of learning itself occurs through the process of Equilibration. If the child encounters something he or she doesn’t understand disequilibrium or cognitive conflict occurs. The child will be confused or agitated and will try to make sense of it. Either assimilation (new information is integrated into an existing schemata) or accommodation (existing schemata are modified or new schemata are created) will occur allowing Equilibrium to be obtained at a higher development level.

One important aspect of Piaget’s theory is that learning doesn’t always occur just because new information is presented. The information must be challenging, but not too difficult for the student to understand. Information that is too familiar will be quickly assimilated and information that is too unfamiliar cannot be accommodated.

As children age they develop a number of learning strategies that are problem solving mechanisms. Elementary level students develop a number of strategies for remembering material such as Rehearsal, Predicating, Organizing, Elaborating, and Monitoring. As a child acquires more effective means of remembering information they become more aware of their own cognitive processes allowing them better control.

Part 2: What are the six components of Language Arts? How does teaching Language Arts connect to how children learn?

The six components of language arts are listening, talking, reading, writing, viewing, and visually representing. The first two are sometimes neglected by elementary teachers because they feel the students should already understand them. Visually Representing combines aspects of the other language arts to create visual texts to share information learned.

Listening is a multi part process of which hearing is only one part. Children listen differently according to their purpose. When a child listens to a story they may only listen to obtain basic information about the story. Much like learning, children develop strategies and monitor their comprehension so they can listen more effectively.

Talking, like listening is a sometimes neglected Language Art. Talking is perhaps the most essential of the language arts. Students participate in response to literature, provide feedback to others, give oral presentations, and to communicate with the teacher and each other.

Reading is a process where children use strategies and skills to understand what the words they are reading. Students read to comprehend the material, but read differently when reading for pleasure then when reading to learn information. Students participate in five types of reading: independent reading, shared reading, guided reading, buddy reading, and reading aloud.

Writing is a strategic process just like reading. Students write stories, reports, and poems. They write in logs and create clusters. Informal writing is used to develop fluency. Writing can be used to improve handwriting and spelling.

Viewing includes visual media like films, videos, commercials, pictures and anything that can be viewed. There is a wide variety of visual media available to today’s student through the internet and in print. Viewing is much like reading and comprehension strategies are used to fully understand what they are seeing.

As I mentioned above, Visually Representing is process where student can combine several of the other language arts using video productions, computer programs, charts, or posters to create visual texts. The intended audience and purpose should be considered when doing so. These can be created to share information the student has learned with others.

Teaching Language Arts connects to how children learn because its components are the basics of what it takes to learn. When a child first starts learning it’s by listening and watching. Later, as the child learns to speak and then read the learning a process is greatly accelerated. As a child’s language arts skills improve the capacity for learning increases.