Phonology

Phonology (Greek phonē = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). Whereas phonetics is about the physical production and perception of the sounds of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language or across languages.

An important part of phonology is studying which sounds are distinctive units within a language. In English, for example, /p/ and /b/ are distinctive units of sound, (i.e., they are phonemes / the difference is phonemic, or phonematic). This can be seen from minimal pairs such as "pin" and "bin", which mean different things, but differ only in one sound. On the other hand, /p/ is often pronounced differently depending on its position relative to other sounds, yet these different pronunciations are still considered by native speakers to be the same "sound". For example, the /p/ in "pin" is aspirated while the same phoneme in "spin" is not. In some other languages, for example Thai and Quechua, this same difference of aspiration or non-aspiration does differentiate phonemes.

In addition to the minimal meaningful sounds (the phonemes), phonology studies how sounds alternate, such as the /p/ in English described above, and topics such as syllable structure, stress, accent, and intonation.

The principles of phonological theory have also been applied to the analysis of sign languages, in which it is argued that the same or a similar phonological system underlies both signed and spoken languages. (Signs are distinguished from gestures in that the latter are non-linguistic or supply extra meaning alongside the linguistic message.)

Using Phonemic Awareness with ESL Students

Spoken language is noise which the experienced listener sorts into meaningful chunks. A child spends many years perfecting this sorting. In a similar way, a learner of a new language must sort out the unfamiliar sounds into pieces that make sense: phrases or sentences, words, syllables and even phonemes (the smallest sound segments). Reading experts have known for years that difficulty with the sorting process, or phonological skills, is directly connected to the reading and spelling problems of many students. More recently, researchers studying native English-speaking students who were having trouble learning a foreign language found that these students have problems similar to those of poor readers and spellers in that they do not perceive and manipulate the sound system and its corresponding written code effectively. In other words, the at-risk foreign language learners also have weak phonological skills. Moreover, the researchers found that when the struggling foreign language students were explicitly taught the phonology of the foreign language, they were able to learn the target language fairly successfully, and also improve their phonological skills.

This was good news for me as I was searching for a way to help at-risk students in the college-level intensive English program where I teach. Every semester, several of our students, who are certainly capable in many respects, are unable to make progress in their English classes. Typically, they display poor spelling and grammar skills, despite having what I term “lots of language.” In other words, they are not lacking in vocabulary or a general idea of how to express themselves; they cannot, however, control their grammar or get beyond that plateau of “fair” communication, a fatal flaw in writing classes. Usually, their reading skills are adequate for intermediate English as a Second Language (ESL) work, but not for more demanding reading.

When I first decided to find a way to help these students, I began searching the ESL literature for ideas. Because some of our students who had these problems were known to have learning disabilities (LD), having been diagnosed elsewhere before coming to our school, I combed the LD literature. Not much turned up in either field to give me any idea of why the students were having a hard time learning English until I delved into the literature. I decided to try teaching my students English phonology in a much more explicit way than is usually the case in ESL. I also decided to try using some other adaptations in teaching that reportedly had been effective for LD students learning foreign languages in classes adapted to their needs.



Because the foreign language learners who were having difficulties had poor phonemic awareness as well as poor phonological skills, my first priority was clear, direct teaching of the sound system of English.

Another lesson learned from the foreign language research was that the sounds should be taught one at a time in a clear sequence. I chose to start by teaching the short vowels in alphabetical order to match some other ESL materials I had, and I selected appropriate drills or activities.

The process requires lots and lots of repetition. Students with difficulty in the language area require much more time to process information and much more review and practice than average learners.

We continued on to long vowels, and the process became faster because the students had begun to discriminate sounds more accurately and knew what to expect in the activities and practices.

At first, the students, who were of college age or older and many of whom were graduate students, were skeptical of these lessons. When they began to see the results, however, they became enthusiastic and made sure to request handouts missed when they were absent. Those who knew they had made progress, but had not yet mastered the skills, asked if there were some way to have more lessons in a lab or some other classes.

Although there is not much research on teaching phonology to ESL students who are at risk, my students’ experiences clearly demonstrated the benefits of this instruction. Of course, their spelling improved dramatically, and few needed more sustained review and practice to maintain their gains. A more pervasive benefit was that they could perceive individual words in spoken sentences far more accurately than before. This resulted in significantly more accurate dictations and, so the students reported, a noticeably improved ability to follow conversations and proceedings in other classes. In addition to my observations of the students’ increased confidence in many domains, their other teachers reported similar improvements.

Another important benefit of the phonology instruction, though less directly documented outside of our class, was that the students’ decoding skills increased significantly. They amazed themselves by reading multisyllabic words with ease. Finally, overall, the students were able to do much better in classes than students with similar problems in our program who had not had such intervention.

It is my hope that research will bear out these benefits. In the meantime, our university is benefiting from these instruction methods by retaining students who otherwise might have dropped out of classes and by strengthening the foreign language acquisition skills of at-risk native English-speaking students.

By Robin Schwarz

Development of Reading Skills

In the mid-elementary and junior high school years, emphasis shifts from reading stories with known content to reading more difficult materials that teach the child new ideas and opinions. At this stage, silent reading for comprehension and study skills are emphasized. This shift from learning to read to reading to learn is especially important because the student must now begin to use reading skills to learn facts and concepts in social studies, science, and other subjects. Making this shift is difficult for some students, and their reading scores may increase at a slower pace than in the primary grades.



Some educators see reading comprehension as a series of subskills, such as understanding word meanings in context, finding the main idea, making inferences about information implied but not stated, and distinguishing between fact and opinion. Published programs based on this view purport to divide reading into as many as 350 different subskills to be mastered during the elementary grades. Managing such a program, including the administration and scoring of tests for each subskill, and providing sufficient practice for each subskill can be difficult for a classroom teacher.

Some have suggested that an excessive emphasis on subskills leads to worksheets crowding out children's opportunity to experience literature. These theorists tend to treat reading comprehension as a general ability not made up of specific skills. Programs based on such theories stress broad, extensive reading; understanding of word meanings; and development of reasoning abilities.

In high school and college, reading materials become more abstract and contain a larger, more technical vocabulary. At this stage, the student not only must acquire new information but also must critically analyze the text and achieve an optimal reading rate based on the difficulty of the material and the purpose of the reading.

Preschool

Preschool and kindergarten teachers set the stage for your child to learn to read with some critical early skills. First, second, and third grade teachers then take up the task of building the skills that children will use every day for the rest of their lives. As a parent, you can help by understanding what teachers are teaching and by asking questions about your child's progress and the classroom reading program.



You can also help your children become readers. Learning to read takes practice, more practice than children get during the school day. This brochure describes what a quality reading program should look like at school and how you can support that program through activities with your children.

Teaching Your Child To Read

Learning to read is hard work for children. Fortunately, research is now available that suggests how to give each child a good start in reading.



Becoming a reader involves the development of important skills, including learning to:

• use language in conversation
• listen and respond to stories read aloud
• recognize and name the letters of the alphabet
• listen to the sounds of spoken language
• connect sounds to letters to figure out the "code" of reading
• read often so that recognizing words becomes easy and automatic
• learn and use new words
• understand what is read

Practical application

In practice, the most successful is learning the alphabet phonetically first then reinforced with "look-see" methods coupled with reading programs that combine both elements. For example, the extremely popular book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, by Siegfried Engelman, et al.



Teaches pronunciation and simple phonetics, then supplements it with progressive texts and practice in directed reading. The end result of a mixed method is a casually phonetic student, a much better first-time pronouncer and speller, who still also has look-say acquisition, quick fluency and comprehension. Using an eclectic method, students can select their preferred learning style. This lets all students make progress, yet permits a motivated student to use and recognize the best traits of each method.

Speed reading continues where basic education stops, and teaches the student to read multiple words at once, even whole pages at once. Usually after some practice reading speed can be increased fivefold. At this speed, it is necessary to stop any "talk to myself" action in your brain, because this would slow you down. There are various speed-reading techniques. Hopify is a GPL tool to practice speed-reading.

Readability indicates the ease of understanding or comprehension due to the style of writing. Reading recovery is a method for helping students learn to read.

Print exposure

Print exposure is simply the amount of time a child or person spends being visually aware of the written word (reading)--whether that be through newspapers, magazines, books, journals, scientific papers, or more. Research has shown that the amount of print material that a child acesses has deep cognitive consequences. In addition, the act of reading itself, for the most part irrespective of what is being read, increases the achievement difference among children.



Studies have shown that the most critical factor in a child's development of vocabulary is not through oral language, but through reading. Research has shown repeated times that children who are exposed to large amounts of print have more success in reading and have a much larger vocabulary to draw from than children who see less print. The average conversations among college graduates, spouses or adult friends contain less rare (advanced) words than the average preschool reading book. Other print sources have increasingly higher amounts of rare words, from children's books, to adult books, to popular magazines, newspapers, and scientific articles (listed in increasing level of difficulty). Television, even adult news shows, do not have the same level of rare words that children's books do. The issue is that oral language is very repetitive. To learn to read effectively a child needs to have a large vocabulary. Without this, when the child does read they stumble over words that they do not know, and have trouble following the idea of the sentence. This leads to frustration and a dislike of reading. When a child is faced with this difficulty he or she is less likely to read, thus further inhibiting the growth of their vocabulary. This cycle leads to the "rich get richer, poor get poorer" phenomena known as the Matthew Effect. Children who enjoy reading do it more frequently and improve their vocabulary. A study of out-of-school reading of fifth graders, found that a student in the 50th percentile read books about 5 minutes a day, while a student in the 20th percentile read books for less than a minute a day. This same study found that the amount of time a child in the 90th percentile spent reading in two days, was the amount of time a child in the 10th percentile spent reading all year.
Print exposure can also be a big factor in learning English as a second language. Book flood experiments are an example of this. The book flood program brought books in English to the classroom. Through focusing their English language learning on reading books instead of endless worksheets the teachers were able to improve the rate at which their students learned English.

by Anne Cunningham and Keith Stanovich

About Phonetic

Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning 'sound, voice') is the study of sounds and the human voice. It is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones) as well as those of non-speech sounds, and their production, audition and perception, as opposed to phonology, which is the study of sound systems and abstract sound units (such as phonemes and distinctive features). Phonetics deals with the sounds themselves rather than the contexts in which they are used in languages. Discussions of meaning (semantics) do not enter at this level of linguistic analysis.



While writing systems and alphabets often attempt to represent the sounds of speech, phoneticians are more concerned with the sounds themselves than the symbols used to represent them. So close is the relationship between them, however, that many dictionaries list the study of the symbols (more accurately semiotics) as a part of phonetic studies [citation needed]. Logographic writing systems typically give much less phonetic information, although it is not necessarily non-existent. For instance, in Chinese characters, a phonetic is a portion of the character that hints at its pronunciation, while the radical gives semantic information. Characters featuring the same phonetic typically have similar pronunciations, but by no means are the pronunciations predictably determined by the phonetic; this is because pronunciations diverged over many centuries while the characters remained the same. Not all Chinese characters are radical-phonetic compounds, but a good majority of them are.

Phonetics has three main branches:

• articulatory phonetics, concerned with the positions and movements of the lips, tongue, vocal tract and folds and other speech organs in producing speech;
• acoustic phonetics, concerned with the properties of the sound waves and how they are received by the inner ear; and
• auditory phonetics, concerned with speech perception, principally how the brain forms perceptual representations of the input it receives.

There are over a hundred different phones recognized as distinctive by the International Phonetic Association (IPA) and transcribed in their International Phonetic Alphabet.

Phonetics was studied as early as 2,500 years ago in ancient India, with Pānini's account of the place and manner of articulation of consonants in his 5th century BCE treatise on Sanskrit. The major Indic alphabets today, except Tamil script, order their consonants according to Pānini's classification.

Phonetic

A "phonetic" method teaches sounds to be associated with letters and combinations of letters. Students memorize these associations. They learn to sound out and then blend sound combinations to produce words. This method requires direct teaching of "sounding out" methods, and memorization of pronunciation rules. One method that teachers use to develop students' ability to sound out words and blend sounds is Elkonin boxes. The most perfect phonetic system is Orton phonography, originally developed to teach brain-damaged adults to read. Orton described 73 "phonograms", or letter combinations, and 23 rules for spelling and pronunciation. By following these rules one can correctly pronounce and spell all but 123 of the 13,000 most common English words.

Advocates of "look say" teaching argue that it is the method used by literate adults to read all familiar words. Also the method is said to be easy to teach, and pleasant for students. Critics charge that a "look say" student can only speak and spell words that they have been taught, therefore, the critic says, they are permanently crippled when compared to phonetically-taught students. Also, it is established that this method requires an expensive set of textbooks for each student. It is therefore very popular with textbook companies. Critics have charged that for this reason, book companies may have found methods to bias experts and institutions to favor this method.



Advocates of phonetics cite the large reading and spelling vocabulary that phonetic students can theoretically obtain. However, critics of phonetic methods talk of students that fail at each one of the method's many mandatory skills. Almost all students learn letter-sounds. Many students find it difficult to "blend" the letter sounds to produce sensible speech. Some students also fail to apply rules to select letter sounds. Also, critics charge that in phonetic programs, students can learn to pronounce a sentence without ever learning to understand it. The same, of course, holds true for "look say".

Reading education

There were basically two different common methods of teaching reading. One usually refers to whole word approach ("look say"), the other usually refers to phonetics approach. More recently, a new approach called Whole language has been advocated

Look-say

The "look say" method also known as the whole word, sight method, or configurational reading is a 'spatial-holistic' method to learn a language. It is the same method used to acquire literacy in languages such as Chinese, based on ideograms. Its application to learning a primarily phonetic language like English has questionable value and has been associated with artificially inducing dyslexia.

Students when learning English using this method memorize the appearance of words, or learn to recognize words by looking at the first and last letter from rigidly selected vocabularies in progressive texts (such as The Cat in the Hat). Often this method is taught by slides or cards with a picture next to a word, teaching children to associate the whole word with its meaning. Often preliminary results show children taught with this method have higher reading levels than children learning a phonetic method, because they learn to automatically recognise a small selection of words. However later tests demonstrate that literacy development becomes stunted when hit with longer and more complex words later in school life. It is known that "look say" students do not naturally learn to spell or write unless explicitly taught because they have not learnt to pronounce words phonetically; they are encouraged to guess them instead. However, they can learn the 5,000 most common words in roughly three years which is sufficient for basic literacy. The classic implementation of this approach was the McGill reading curriculum used to teach most baby boomers to read in the U.S.

Instruction of Gifted Students

The gifted usually have reading and related language abilities one or more years beyond their grade placement. Students who are precocious in reading should be challenged by the use of materials as close as possible to their level of development. In or outside class, teachers can provide supplemental reading or assign special projects.



Importance of Reading Ability
Besides its intrinsic value, the ability to read has economic consequences. Adults who are better-than-average readers are also higher-than-average earners or are more likely to have high-paying jobs. The growing technicalization of society has brought increasing demands for literacy, which the schools are hard pressed to meet. A higher level of literacy is needed in business and industry, in the armed forces, and even in everyday life. The reading ability needed to comprehend materials important to daily living, such as income tax forms and newspapers, has been estimated to be as high as the 12th-grade level. Some efforts have been made to simplify forms and manuals, but the lack of sufficient reading ability definitely impairs a person's capacity to function in modern Western society.

Adult literacy programs can be distinguished by the stages of literacy they address. Programs to counter below-functional literacy stress the development of decoding and word recognition, similar to the goals of early elementary schools, but they use materials more appropriate to an adult age. Programs that deal with development at the functional literacy level stress the use of reading to learn new information and to perform job-related tasks. Advanced literacy programs stress the development of higher-level skills needed for high school equivalency diplomas.

The great importance of reading ability is underscored by the growth of literacy programs in some Third World nations, as, for example, in Cuba. These programs, which generally send young people to rural areas to serve as teachers for illiterates in a national effort, often combine the teaching of reading with political instruction.

Reading and Learning Disabilities

From 10 to 15 percent of all children have a reading disability—that is, they read significantly below their mental ability. A smaller number of these children may be found to have a learning disability. Most professionals tend to use the term reading disability to refer to a significant discrepancy in reading, irrespective of the cause. The term learning disability is used to refer to a discrepancy that is not caused by vision, hearing, or motor handicaps; mental retardation; emotional disturbance; or environmental disadvantage, but rather by a presumed underlying neurological difficulty.



In schools, students who are not mastering reading skills may be referred to either a remedial-reading or a learning-disabilities specialist, both of whom employ a similar procedure. Referred students are given a series of diagnostic tests to determine how their strengths can be enhanced and their weaknesses overcome. A program based on the evaluation is developed for the student and followed by both the specialist and the classroom teacher. At the end of the term, the student will be retested to assess any progress and to update the program. Research has shown that with early and direct attention given to the reading program, greater improvement will occur. Many studies have indicated that remedial-reading instruction can lead to significant gains that are retained after many years.

Improving Reading Skills

Word study is one way for the older student to improve reading ability. This involves using a dictionary and thesaurus, studying word parts, and learning how to find the meaning of a word from the context. Students can also improve their vocabularies by paying conscious attention to any new words they may encounter.

Because a mature reader must have several different reading rates available for different materials and purposes, practice in skimming a passage for general meaning and scanning for specific information is useful.

The development of efficient study strategies is important in learning various kinds of subject matter. One useful study technique is outlining, which helps to develop an awareness of the main points and details of a selection.

Various studies have shown the importance of good teaching and of effective school leadership in promoting reading achievement. Students seem to learn to read better, for example, if the school principal is a strong leader with high expectations about reading achievement. The amount of direct instruction in reading and the amount of time students spend in reading-related activities also affect reading development.

Testing
Reading tests are of two main types: survey and diagnostic. Survey tests, used with groups, measure one or more aspects of reading. Diagnostic tests usually are given individually as part of a battery of tests measuring many different components of reading skill.



Most standardized reading-achievement tests are survey tests; they may be either norm referenced or criterion referenced. Norm-referenced tests compare an individual child's performance to that of other children taking the same test and yield a grade level or a percentile score. Criterion-referenced tests measure individual reading subskills and indicate the skills mastered, those needing review, and those in which the student needs extra help.

A special type of criterion-referenced test is the minimum competency test. Most states administer these tests to gauge students' reading ability during certain grades in elementary school and at the end of their high school careers. Some minimum competency tests include reading tasks resembling those in the everyday world, such as following directions on a form or reading signs and labels, job applications, and portions of a newspaper.

Diagnostic tests can also be either norm or criterion referenced. These tests are given by specialists in reading or learning disabilities, as well as by classroom teachers, to define a student's specific areas of reading strengths and weaknesses that can be used in planning an effective teaching program.

Beginning Reading

In the first grade, children begin to learn the printed equivalents for the spoken words they know. Some schools and reading textbooks teach the child to recognize whole words and stress the meaning of the text. Others first emphasize the study of phonics—that is, the sounds represented by individual letters—and the development of independent word-recognition skills. Nearly all current programs combine both techniques; they try to teach a child to recognize words and to learn phonics. For more than 60 years, research has shown that early, systematic phonics instruction produces high reading achievement, at least until the third grade. The most common means of instruction is the basal reading program, consisting of a reader, workbook, and other associated materials. These readers have been criticized as not containing sufficiently high-quality literature and as not meeting the child's needs for meaningful content. Defenders have suggested that a limited vocabulary is necessary in the beginning so that children can concentrate on learning to recognize and sound words.

In the early elementary grades, children read stories and selections containing common words already familiar from speech. With practice, most children read with increasing fluency and understanding. The different reading levels in a classroom may lead to the grouping of readers or even to an individualized approach that adapts instruction to each reader's abilities.

Reading Readiness

The earliest stage, readiness, encompasses the skills that young children usually acquire before they can profit from formal reading instruction. Children acquire knowledge of the language and of letter names; they learn that spoken words are composed of separate sounds and that letters can represent these sounds. Parents can aid in the process by reading to children, thus acquainting them with the more formal language of books, pointing out words and letters, and making them aware that words in a book can tell a story or give information. Other readiness skills are acquired through word and rhyme games. Play with language apparently helps young children focus their attention on the sounds of words as well as on their meanings.

Children also learn about other aspects of written language. At younger ages they can distinguish their script from that of other languages, recognize commercial logos, engage in “pseudoreading” with familiar books, and so on. It has been suggested that these early “reading” behaviors contribute to later reading success.



In kindergarten or first grade, children are often given readiness tests that measure abilities in language, knowledge of letter names, and skill in matching words and letters. High scorers on these tests usually become good beginning readers, but children with low scores may or may not do well in reading. Experienced kindergarten teachers can often predict first-grade reading abilities as well as or better than readiness tests.

Reading

Reading, activity characterized by the translation of symbols, or letters, into words and sentences that have meaning to the individual. The ultimate goal of reading is to be able to understand written material, to evaluate it, and to use it for one's needs.

In order to read, one must follow a sequence of characters arranged in a particular spatial order. For example, English flows from left to right, Hebrew from right to left, and Chinese from top to bottom. The reader must know the pattern and use it consistently. Ordinarily, the reader sees the symbols on a page, transmitting the image from the eye to the brain, but reading also can be accomplished by touch, as in the Braille system, a printing method designed for the blind that involves raised or punched dots.

Reading refers to activities as varied as a first grader's struggling with simple sentences in a storybook, a cook's following directions from a cookbook, or a scholar's attempting to understand the meanings of a poem. Reading exposes people to the accumulated wisdom of human civilization. Mature readers bring to the text their experiences, abilities, and interests; the text, in turn, allows them to expand those experiences and abilities and to find new interests. To reach maturity in reading, an individual goes through a series of stages, from readiness to adult reading ability.

from : Encarta Encyclopedia

Memory and Attention in Children

What is the relationship between Memory and Attention in the classroom? As a teacher, it is important to maintain the child’s attention, but does memory have a co-existence in this field? Attention is seen as being important because, “we do not pay close attention to much of the information to which we are exposed, typically only scant mental processing takes place, and we forget new material almost immediately”. If attention is important in retaining our memory, it is important to understand what our memory does and how teachers should understand these patterns and processing levels which determine a child’s thought. One might suggest, “The best way to remember new information is to consider it thoroughly when you are first exposed to it-reflecting on how it relates to information that you currently know” (Feldman, 2000). A teacher needs to learn how to keep the child’s attention in the daily lesson plans and focus on maintaining the child’s long-term memory.

Memory is defined as, “the process why which we encode, store, and retrieve information” (Fogel, 1991). This means that our students have to process 3 steps in order to remember the information taught in class. The teacher is in need of understanding these steps in order to incorporate memory into their lesson plans. The three main concepts of memory, also referred to as the memory storage systems, are Sensory Memory, first thoughts lasting an instant, Short-Term Memory, information held between fifteen to twenty seconds, and Long-Term Memory, permanent memory (Feldman, 2003). Understanding these three different systems can help a student move the information taught in class from their sensory memory to there long term memory. In order for this to happen a teacher must move the information provided through all three different systems before a students can retain the information to the fullest.

Typically in a classroom, material is presented and the information is remembered or not remembered. Most teachers have not found out the “secret” to placing information in their students minds without having them forget it before lunch time. If looked back upon personal classroom experience, one can easily remember a few specific lessons their teachers provided. For example, in 5th grade Ms. Ferrell had the class learn about the world by putting the students in news groups. Each student was to report on a specific topic and they were then video taped. How is this remembered? This project kept the students attention long enough to place this memory in the long-term system. This is how teachers need to incorporate the lessons that are most important to the learning system. “Therefore, it enters memory at a deeper level- and is less pat to be forgotten than information processed at shallower levels” (Feldman, 2000).The lessons need to be interesting and captivate the child’s attention long enough to provide a specific memory of that lesson plan. “At the deepest level of processing, information is analyzed in terms of its meaning” (Feldman, 2000). This is every teacher’s dream, the key of processesing and remembering in our students.

A fascinating aspect of child development is memory and how young memory starts to observably work. One way for children, and adults, to strengthen their memory would seemingly be to challenge their memory continuously. An example of memory development would be that of the Rovee-Collier’s mobile experiment. In this experiment Rovee- Collier hangs a mobile in a crib and watches to see if the baby responds to this mobile by either kicking his legs or other attention responses. After three minutes of observing the baby with the static mobile, she then attaches a string to the baby’s leg and to the mobile. The purpose being that when the baby kicks, the mobile will move. Days later, if the baby kicks upon sight of the mobile, we know that the baby has remembered that kicking produces the desired effect. The infant has already learned the behavior; now he has just proven his memory of this behavior. The study goes on to say that a two month old can remember this for a day; a three month old, over a week; a six month old can remember the desired behavior without having done it for over two weeks. The child’s memory is tested at a young age and is able to remember what she has learned. Teachers will need to understand that repetition and challenges are so important and is proven at such a young age in this experiment. This information is hooked into the child’s memory and is utilized by the child, his desired behavior. In order for the child to adapt he must rely on his knowledge and memory of how he has dealt with situations in order to achieve the desired outcome (Bee, 2000).

As children get a little older there are many other memory strategies that they are able to use. Some of these strategies are: rehearsal, clustering, elaboration and systematic searching. Some of these strategies are utilized as early as the second year of life. The number of strategies that a child has in his repertoire would seemingly correlate to the amount of information he is able to learn and process. As the child grows he increases the proficiency of these strategies, thereby maximizing the efficiency of his learning. There are a few ways that we can help children to maximize their memories in order to aid in learning. Research shows that when teaching children reading, developing good phonological skills will help students to accurately store and recall words (Dixon, 2002). Most theories about reading acquisition suggest that children must develop an internal dictionary and store all the words they have seen in order to read fluently (Dixon, 2002). Further research reveals that this type of memorization actually makes it more difficult for children to recall words as their vocabularies increase (Dixon, 2002). The idea is that phonics help children to associate words with something else that they can relate to easily making the recollection process easier. There are other studies that show that another way to help children to expand their memories is to tap into their autobiographical memories. This means that memories can be more easily accessed by having children associate information with events that occur in their lives (Wang, 03).
In order to use some of these techniques a teacher must be able to hold the attention of the students in the classroom. The following are a few tips for maintaining attention.
1. Speak with authority and don’t be indecisive. A voice of authority is always firm.
2. Bring the class back into focus from distractions by clapping or singing instructions.
3. Turn off the lights.
4. Use a good stare. Silence can shape a noisy class back into attention.
5. Outline and enforce consequences.
(Duebber, 2000).

If the students see that you are serious, they will likely follow your lead.
In the classroom it is so important to learn and understand that memory and a child’s attention should be part of the daily lesson plan. A student is best helped if the teacher is educated in all the aspects required to the child’s development; memory and attention are an area of that requirement. A child’s memory is based on the attention that is given to the lesson plan and the section of the brain that will remember that lesson forever.

by: Debbie Cluff

Phonics: A Good Tool

Because early childhood is an exciting and stimulus pacted period of our lives, children need and even demand information, tools for making sense of their world. Children know that that is where the secrets are hidden. Children are wondering why mom is smiling while she sits with that book all by herself. Children show, very early, in their drawings that symbols are becoming very important to them. They recognize that symbols have meaning. Look closely, you'll see a cross, a sun shape, a line, a circle, a broken line. Because the child is physically able to produce these symbols, his brain is ready. This is the perfect time in a human's life to present his language. The next step is order, taking those symbols and giving them meaning, sound, and phonics.

A good tool is a satisfying possession and that is exactly what owning a word structure is, a good tool. Phonics strengthens us because the tools provide a guide to deciphering the written word. Once the child has learned the sound for each consonant and vowel he is ready to spell with the written symbol the object that he has seen. I see a dog, I can spell d-o-g. He can see the word dog and can decipher the word to read dog. A strong foundation gives the confidence to successfully tackle unfamiliar words. Spelling will become easier with an understanding of phonics. The phonics knowledge you give your child will follow him throughout his life.

by Cathy Caughman

Read Read Read

When I was growing up I remember my mother and father reading. We would go to the grocery store and my mom would always pick up a copy of Women's World at the check out counter. As for my father, I think he has every copy of the Louis L' Amour books ever written. I remember him going to small book stores in the middle of Downtown Los Angeles trying to find some of these old books. That habit, of course, boiled over into my life and I am an avid reading. I can't say that I was top in the class growing up, but it did instill the importance of education and learning in my life. When first child was three years old and was reading at a beginning first grade level. I would tell people and they would be so impressed with his reading skills, while I didn't see anything extraordinary. He had enjoyed reading books at a young age.

When I was reading my books, he would get a book and lay down next to me. Soon he started to question what the marks on the pages where and had a continuing interest in learning. It was around his 3rd Birthday that he was able to recognize about 50 different sight words and knew almost all the sounds of each letter. Showing children the importance of reading at a young age will set the foundation for their education the rest of their life. The First Step in Reading towards Helping Your Student Succeed is to Develop GREAT Reading Skills. This is the most important teaching tool you can give your student. Since that is the case, this will be the LONGEST chapter in the book. In order to crack the parental code, the parent needs to read to their student daily. Whether it is the parent reading a book in front of their children or the parent is actually picking up a small book and reading to their children, the parent has to place a strong emphasis on reading being fun! When speaking with a veteran father about the importance of making something fun he depicted a story about how, as a parent, you made things fun. He went on to explain that he owned a Valet Parking Service and would often bring his older children with him to help direct the cars into the parking lot. All of his children enjoyed helping their dad work, but LOVED to help him Valet Park cars when it was raining. This father explained that parking cars in the rain was not a fun thing. It was cold and you would get really wet, but his kids still loved to work with their father when it was raining. His secret was showing the children both verbally and physically that it was fun. Teaching your children that something is fun really depends on the presentation set forth by parents. I did speak with his older children about this matter, and they did indeed still love to Valet Park cars in the rain. What is the moral of this story? You, the parent, are responsible for setting your child's attitude towards reading. Reading is the first step in building forming a foundation in a child's academic career. In order to raise an extraordinary student, the parent has to read, read, and read to that child. Heidi, mother of 4, was reading to her oldest daughter when she turned and noticed that her infant daughter was carefully watching what she was doing. Heidi could see in her young daughters eyes that she liked what was being read.

Though the words probably didn't make any sense, the impact of hearing the mothers voice will place an imprint in the mind of the child. Starting at a very early age, reading to your children can have an impact on their academic success. "Language is the most utilized form of communication. Children who are introduced to books at an early age are more prone to grasp the variances in phonics, which in turn affects their language skills and cognitive abilities. Studies indicate that children's familiarity with books is taught by their mothers who tend to typically be the main care giver of a child" (Importance of Reading, 2005). It really doesn't matter who the typical caregiver is as long as parents are placing a heavy emphasis on their children being read to on a daily basis. Heidi youngest daughter is now in kindergarten reading at a second grade level.

by: Debbie Cluff

Teaching Spelling

Teaching spelling is an critical and complex job. The English language can be complicated and there are many exceptions and variations to the plant rules.

One who is teaching spelling is not only handling an assignment, he or she is influencing the vocabulary and review operandi of a future generation of politicians, doctors, lawyers, and advertising executives. Not only do educators instruct kids and young adults on the rules of spelling, they are likewise involved in teaching spelling to immigrants who read English as a second language. These spelling skills are indispensable for anyone who wants to eventually excel in the work plant.

Teachers who are teaching spelling must be able to introduce students to general rules of spelling and provide self-discernable examples on why these conventions work and make sense. They must also encourage their student to reason on these spelling patterns and articulate the principles they have learned.

Teaching spelling not only requires the educator to discern the patterns and be valuable in teaching them to others, they must also understand the exceptions to the rule and provide examples for the student's thorough cognition.

While some educators are sticklers for propriety and emphasize the conventions of the language when they teach, others bring a level of interactive fun to the classroom. Some use issue days at school and decorate the classroom according to the theme, with the characteristic being the spelling lesson.

Others employ games into the learning, from the classics like Bingo and Tic Tac Toe to modern games like "Survivor" in which students sit in a circle and take turns crying out individual letters to spell a complete word until they are each voted off the island.

Advanced classes require deeper study and so some who teach spelling use etymology in their lessons, explaining the origin of the word in its earliest language. Other techniques for those teaching spelling might include creative exercises, such as encouraging a student to write his or her own essay.

Other teachers use added common games, such as bowling or sports, as a reward for their students' good work. Some teachers prefer the traditional style of assigning homework, taking a personal interest in each student, and praising the effort pose forward.

What's most beneficial is which educators that are teaching spelling get involved and are just as motivated to teach as the students are to deliberate. Each child is different and including all the children in the spelling program by making it fun and vital for the complete class.

Teaching spelling can be a hard job but can also be rewarding, especially when a teacher sees the results of all his or her tough work: a classroom excited about learning, and progressive students earning high grades.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all.....