Creature Bug

Learning to Read

My parents love to tell the story of how I learned to read. They even have a home movie of me reading the flash cards, which is pretty cute if I do say so myself. After many months of my parents reading books and flash cards to me, one day I picked up a book and started reading on my own.

I was 3 years old.

I used to think it was because I was a bright kid with a propensity for language and words. No doubt, I was a certain kind of learner who was willing to sit and be read to, but it turns out that a lot of kids can learn to read young if they're constantly exposed to words. Even though Jason and I weren't early-childhood or elementary education majors, we still took classes that discussed the concept of reading and how kids learn (or have troubles learning), and definitely our background in education has played a role in our interactions with the girls.

From us reading to her, to pointing out words, to phonetic exercises sprinkled throughout the day, Sydney certainly gets a lot of exposure to the early processes of reading. For a few months now she has started identifying the letter that words begin with. "Look at that red truck! Tih...tih...ter-ruck. 'Truck' starts with T!" But I have to be careful if I try this little game too often: "Hey Syd! There's a horse. What letter does 'horse' start with?"

"No," she says, "not today."

Fair enough.

Right after Sydney was born, I saw a program that taught babies to read. I added it to my Amazon wish list--mostly for my own future reference--and thought it would be pretty cool if I ever had the opportunity to try it out on her. I remember thinking, Wouldn't that be something if I could teach Sydney to read?

Well, since Sydney won't be going to pre-school next year (because of the cost, not because I have anything against pre-school) and she's already really close to reading, I think Jason and I will probably end up being the ones who teach her to read. Pretty cool. And that program that teaches babies to read? Amazingly enough, I've been able to try it out with the girls. Parent Bloggers Network had a handful of review copies, and I asked ever so nicely (okay, begged a little bit) to try it out. I was dying to see if it worked. After months of trying it out, the verdict is...kind of.

This early language development system is called Your Baby Can Read, and it was developed by Dr. Robert Titzer. We tried out the 5-DVD Box Set, which includes sliding word cards. The program asks that you begin with the Starter DVD, and have your child watch it twice a day, for a month. Already this seemed like a difficult task because carving out time to watch a video twice a day, while easy to do with Sydney, was not easy to do with Jules. But I wanted to give the program a fair shot, and so we tried.

The very first time we watched it, Jules (at the time just over 12-months old) kinda-sorta-maybe paid attention and did, in fact, learn something. The phrase "arms up" was shown and repeated several times, along with pictures of babies putting their arms up. Jules heard the phrase, saw the picture, and started doing it. "Arms up!' the voice would read. And Jules' arms went up. Since we don't use the phrase "arms up" around here (having long ago adopted the phrase our nanny taught us: "Praise the Lord!" said in our best southern charismatic voice), I know Jules learned it from the video.

After that first day, however, Julianne had no interest in watching the video, so mostly I was watching it with Sydney and evaluating the program myself. I definitely think the program would work in the right circumstances, with a child who was interested.

We know that children first learn to read using "whole word recognition." Which is to say, most of the time kids first learn to read by recognizing whole words, not through phonics (however, beware of schools that don't teach phonics because it can be detrimental to a child's future reading abilities). Dr. Titzer's program focuses on teaching reading through whole word recognition, although he does incorporate some elements of sounding the word out, which is good. There is a lot of repetition, which is exactly what children need in order to recognize words. (It's through repetition that Sydney has learned to "read" books.)

Both Sydney and I found the pacing of the word presentation a little too fast in some places. She would try to read the word, but either the answer was given too quickly, or the screen would move to a new word too fast, and it would frustrate her. Sometimes I would help her out by pausing the video so she could see the word--I suspect her vision issues were a factor in not seeing the word right away--and this helped. The word screens that accompanied songs moved way too fast, and so when the song "Old MacDonald" was playing, Sydney would read along in her own book rather than on the screen.

So, the videos? We'll probably continue to use them here and there, but I think the real gems of the system are the flash cards.

Sydney loves these flash cards. They're heavy duty, and you can write on them with a dry-erase marker. Sydney traces the words, "writes" her own words (not with recognizable letters, but she's writing from left to right, so that's a step), and overall enjoys playing with the cards. The word cards are clever in that there is a word on the front and back of the card, and a representational picture of the word pulls out from the card. I'm definitely getting more of these word cards for Sydney to use because they seem to work for her.

Overall, I think the Your Baby Can Read program is very educational, and certainly is a great addition to any early language development. I would recommend it to parents interested in introducing reading skills to their kids, particularly if they don't even know where to begin in helping teach their child to read. My 16-month old didn't learn to read, but my almost 4-year old is getting there. They'll both figure it out eventually--in their own timing--and I'm just happy to help them out, presenting reading in a fun and interesting way.

*****

(c) Creature Bug 2008. All rights reserved.

Let's Hear it for The Boy

Jason called WOU today to find out whether or not he passed his graduate exams that he took two weeks ago. (Yes, that's what he was doing Valentine's Day. No, talking about the Stuart Era--while interesting--is not so much romantic.)

Even though he finished his classes a year ago, it wasn't ever very convenient to take the exam. And by convenient I mean "feeling ambitious enough to put brain through academic torture." At long last, he forced himself to just do it, even if he didn't feel totally prepared.

The education exam was not so difficult (per usual for education exams).

The history exam was giving Jason nightmares. Literally. He had difficulty getting a hold of one of his professors in order to find out what he might need to study for. When you take courses on the Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Stuarts, Tudors, Terrorists, NAFTA, Africa, and Central America it's helpful if you have a general ballpark of what the essay questions (3 questions, answered in four hours) are about.

In the end, he had to take an educated guess (as well as put in no less than 100 hours of studying).

He called WOU this morning to find out if he passed, and then he called me with the answer:

"Hey. So. I got a master's degree."

Love this man. So proud of him. Also? Feeling happy that I can finally put away the huge stacks of books that have been littering our room (Jihad vs. McWorld, anyone?) for the past couple months. Mostly though I'm just feeling darn proud that tonight I get to sleep next to guy who just earned his MS in Education. Oh yeah.

Turning to the Purple Side

A couple weeks ago I was talking to my students about blogging and the sometimes reviewing that I do with Parent Bloggers Network, and yada yada yada speech communication model. (I don't remember how I tied it in to the course content, but let's assume it was.) At one point a student asked "So do you watch Barney?"

Funny you should ask, I said. Very funny.

I admit that I didn't exactly have fond feelings of Barney growing up. I think it's because he first surfaced 20 years ago, which would have put me at the age when I was spurning most children's shows (except DuckTales and Gummi Bears, naturally) and child actors (except those cool kids on The All New Mickey Mouse Club). Big purple dinosaurs and singing children seemed...odd. Kids hugging and sharing and being too cheerful was certainly not what I was interested in.

Then I pretty much forgot all about Barney until I got a DVD from Parent Bloggers Network in the mail a few weeks ago. Ah, I said to myself. I have to watch Barney.

I kind of put it off for a few days, not because I thought Sydney wouldn't like it but because I thought it was going to be really annoying. I remembered my general disdain for child actors, and wasn't sure if I could manage introducing a new crew of kids into our household. Eventually, I decided to watch it by myself. Without Sydney. If it was too terrible, Sydney would never be the wiser to all things Barney.

Having rarely seen Barney on tv, I don't know how this compares to the tv shows, but it turns out that this particular DVD--Barney: Celebrating Around the World--is darn entertaining. As soon as I saw it, I knew Sydney would like it. Turns out she liked it so much she took it with her up to my parents' house, and watched it with my mom, who made a point of telling me this past weekend that even she enjoyed it. The songs, the dancing, the cultural education--it's really actually pretty nifty.

The premise is that Barney and his friends get on a magical train and travel throughout the world--Rio de Janeiro, Ireland, India, Kenya, Japan--meeting children from other countries and learning how other cultures celebrate and dance. When we watch the Irish dancers, Sydney gets up and tries to imitate them (okay, I admit it--as soon as I saw the Irish dancers then I knew I had to show Sydney the movie. IRISH DANCERS! IRELAND! I've had a long love of all things Irish, remember?). When we see the girls from India dancing, Sydney says, "They're from India. India is a long ways away from here. Mariah [our friend] is from India." And then I showed her where India was on a globe. Because Barney inspired her.

I'm sure that one of the reasons why Sydney loves the movie so much is because of the dancing and the singing, and I love that she also gets to learn a little bit about other cultures in the process of that. Sure, the other little dinosaur pals are sort of strange (I find myself wondering who the people are inside the costumes...), and there is one song that I'm not real keen on (about getting nervous), but kids love to watch other kids perform, and that's what endears Barney to children.

If your pre-school kids like Barney then obviously they'll love this movie. If your kids don't know who Barney is (like Sydney didn't) then this is great introduction because it's not going to get on your nerves. If you're not keen on Barney yourself, I would say give this one a chance. National dancing...cultural education...IRISH DANCERS. Very cool. Plus, Barney's been around for 20 years, so I have to admit that he must be doing something right in educating preschoolers.

The movie has a run-time of 54 minutes, and goes on sale today over at Amazon. And hey, if you're a local dance fan, Sydney's dance studio is doing an Irish Dancing night next month that I think might be fun to go see. I'll drop you details if you're interested in going.

For this I have the night off

(yesterday)

Jason: How about I take the girls out tomorrow night...

Me: ... (this sounds good) ...

Jason: ...so you can have some time on your own...

Me: ...(loving it!) ...

Jason: ...to write up answers for our comprehensive graduate exams next month?

Me: *

Jason: Yes?

Me: Okay.

*****

And so here I sit, typing up phrases like "Qualitative research is well suited to the field of education more than quantitative research because..." and after that I'm sure you don't care. I don't really care either, but that doesn't seem to keep me from writing about it.

On the upside (because there has to be an upside!), I get to peruse through some of my old papers--always an interesting task and occasionally a boost to the ego, especially those papers I wrote before I was a parent when I had hours upon hours of free time to craft my papers into small masterpieces. I am deliberately steering away from the papers I wrote when I was pregnant. They're not pretty. They're not even cohesive.

Funny thing is, during those before-children days, an evening spent writing a paper would have been a "work night," as opposed to tonight, when my evening spent writing essays is a "free night."

Yep. Those were the days.

All right. Back to evaluating the major components of a classroom management theory.

The Longest Road

Well, I did it.

I finished graduate school.

When Jason and I started, way the heck back in the summer of 2000, the plan was that we'd end up with our MS in Education after three summers. I'd get an MS in English Education; Jason would get his in Social Studies. That's how the program is set up, and that was how we figured we'd do it.

Oh, you know, except that we didn't.

We were two-thirds of the way done when one summer it got a little trickier to shell out a few thousand bucks for tuition. We'd finish it the next summer, we said.

But then the next summer we couldn't finish it either.

Bit by bit we'd take classes here and there, watching as bit by bit tuition would also get more expensive. Jason was able to finish sooner, but I had a couple set-backs. I had a baby one summer, so I didn't take any classes. Then another summer the classes that I needed to take weren't being offered. And well, seven years later, here I am. It's kind of embarrassing how long it has taken me, considering it's a twelve-month program. Seven years? People become lawyers in seven years. People can get medical degrees in seven years. But that's the way it goes. To my credit, I was doing other stuff besides taking classes. Like working, and being pregnant, and having babies, and being pregnant, and folding laundry, and...stuff. I won't let a little thing like seven years get in the way of me being proud of myself. I'm here.

Done.

There is the small matter of passing the comprehensive exams in August, and I'm sure I'll still end up taking some classes just for fun, but I'm done with all the required stuff. Done writing papers. Done worrying about keeping my streak of straight A's. Done staying up until 2 am typing, finishing my paper just as a baby wakes up crying to be fed.

Even though I wish I had finished the program a long time ago, I can say for certain that I truly loved every single English class I took. I loved the Teaching Writing class with David, the Teaching Grammar class with Cornelia, the Shakespeare class with Dr. Rand, the 1920's class with Carol. But the courses that I really loved were those Lit Theory and Irish Lit classes from Gavin. Oh, I do love me some Irish lit.

One of the best traditions to come from these many, many years of graduate school is getting together every once in awhile with some of the folks I've met in Gavin's classes. Last night was one of those nights when a few of us were able to get together for dinner, and it was, as always, a lot of laughs. I was so surprised when I looked at the time to see that I already had to go home. Two hours flies by when you never run out of things to talk about.

As I drove home, listening to NPR's hilarious interview with Flight of the Conchords, I thought back on all the years of school.  It took a long time, longer than it should have. It took a lot of money, though quite well spent. It took a lot of effort, more so after having kids. But I did it.

I did it.

One more paper to go

Even though I finished my Teaching Grammar class last Friday, I still had this week to finish up the final papers. I had to write annotated bibliographies on Steering the Craft and Grammar Alive! (The exclamation point is part of the title; I'm not outraged over having to write annotated bibliographies.) I highly recommend both these titles to English teachers, but I especially recommend Steering the Craft if you are a writer or like to reading about the craft of writing. Ursula K. Le Guin, who lives in Portland, is so engaging and humorous in this book; plus, it's filled with all sorts of lovely examples of great writing from classic texts.

Like this quiet, gentle sentence from Huck Finn:

The first thing to see, looking away over the water, was a kind of dull line – that was the wood on t’other side – you couldn’t make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness, spreading around; then the river softened up , away off, and warn’t black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along, ever so far away – trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks – rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled-up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by-and-by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the streak that there’s a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t’other side of the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they’ve left dead fish laying around, gars, and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next you’ve go the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it!  --Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huck Finn

It is, as Le Guin writes, one of the greatest sunrises in all of literature. Read it aloud and you'll find that you can't yell it. There's a slow rhythm to it, a gradualness, like the sun coming up. If you skipped over reading the last paragraph to get to this one, I'm telling you in my best bossy teacherly voice, go back and read it. Seriously. It's amazing.

Speaking of sunrises, that's how long I have until my final paper--a case study of my own writing--is due. All this writing about my own writing is making me want to take a vacation from writing. I might have to spend the next two weeks just doing blog memes. That'll clear my head.

Okay. Back to work.

Couldn't have done it without you

Thanks SO MUCH to those of you who did the survey! Oh my word, you gave me so much great material. All your wonderful comments, and all your wonderful emails (Megan, Goslyn, Christie, Rachy, Rachelle, CCAP & CCAP's Boy, and Julie) made my paper a snap to do. Particularly helpful, since that was the only easy thing about my day! If you could have seen me this morning--sitting on the floor reading an academic article, nursing Jules on one side and pumping milk on the other--you would have thought I was one crazy momma for trying to take this class. Ah, yes. I am crazy.

If any of you missed out on the survey and still want to complete it, please feel free to send along your comments. I will use them in another paper I am doing later on this term. And yes, I'll still send you chocolate (because I firmly believe people needs chocolate in their life, except for a friend of mine who is deathly allergic to chocolate, in which case he needs Skittles in his life).

And now I'm going to bed because I am dog tired.

Blessings to you my grammarian friends.

If I say pretty please...

...would you take this survey? (EDITED TO ADD: Even if you know nothing about the English language, that's okay! I'm collecting the voice of the people. Even if you look at this survey and think, "ACK! I hate this stuff," I want to hear it. It's all part of the research.)

It's for my Teaching Grammar class, and the full assignment is due tomorrow but I can always use your answers for further assignments.

(No, I did not procrastinate. The bookstore ran of textbooks and didn't have one for me until today.)

You don't have to answer all the questions, whatever you have time for helps. I have to write two pages. Before 9 AM tomorrow. No rush or anything.

You can put your answers in the comments or email them to me.

The short question that I'd be so indebted to you for answering: What is grammar? What do you think most contributed to your knowledge of grammar?

The long question for which I will seriously send you a thank you card (FOR REAL!) if you can answer any of the following (specifically 5-11):

1. Gender
2. Years of schooling
3. Previous linguistics classes
4. How confident do you feel about your grammar? your writing skills?
5. (the following questions on a scale of 1-5; 1 is strongly disagree, 5 is strongly agree) Children should be taught grammar in school because that's how they learn to speak/write correctly?
6. The version of English used in school (i.e., Standard English) is the only proper dialect of English.
7. Inferior versions of English shouldn't be allowed in the classroom.
8. There's a right way to speak/write, and you can find out what it is by consulting dictionaries, et al.
9. The English language is in decline. Today's young people don't speak/write as grammatically as previous generations did. (insert finger wagging here)
10. It's the job of English and language arts teachers to teach students correct English.
11. Teachers should correct students who learn bad grammar at home.

The even longer answers for which I will send you chocolate or something:

1. What are some characteristics of good writing? What connection do you see between grammar and good writing?
2. How much grammar should the average person know?
3. Should grammar be taught in school? Why? Should it be a required subject for everyone?
4. Give some examples of "good" grammar and of "bad" grammar.

Okay, resume your regular blog surfing. I'm off to read this. Good times.

Smarting

Next Thursday I start teaching again. I'm back at teaching Fundamentals of Speech, although I'm only teaching one class instead of two because I wanted to go easy this semester. The other day I decided that I should plan out the syllabus and start thinking about lesson planning. While of course it is easier to just use the same curriculum over and over again, I'm all about reinventing the wheel (and what's that I tell my students about working smarter not harder?). I suppose it's because lesson planning is probably my most favorite part of teaching. Yes, I do love the students too. But if I had to pick an afternoon of lesson planning over an afternoon of actually teaching the lesson plan...hmm...it'd be a tough choice.

Anyway, I had to get myself in the academic mode. That is, I had to work hard to fight against my natural inclination to ponder the complexities of diapers and spit-up and whether or not hot-pink onesies can be washed with light-pink onesies. Back when Sydney was born, I experienced some serious brain drain, but this time around I have something to help keep the gray matter from turning to mush: Mental Floss.

Have you heard of this magazine? You haven't?? Well, you're missing out. The mag's tagline is "Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix," and I have to say that it's totally true. I got Jason a subscription to it last year, but I confess that I enjoy reading it as much as he does. Sure, you may think that any magazine that features a regular column by Ken Jennings (he of Jeopardy fame) is way too nerdy for you, but it's not. Well, maybe it is. But still. How could I possibly not love a magazine that sells t-shirts featuring Easter Island, Pavlov's Dog, Alfred Nobel, or Lady Macbeth Hand Soap?

The magazine is the perfect blend of humor and snark and sarcasm and levity. For instance, the January-February issue has an A-Z "Where are they now?" article catching us all up to speed on hanging chads, Ken dolls, Russian nukes and Manuel Noriega (he's at the Miami Federal Correctional Institution, btw). It also has an amazing article called "13 Photographs that Changed the World." I'd buy the issue just for this article alone.

But beware: you may discover some knowledge you'd rather not know. Like a link to Foreign Policy's "Killer Product" list (which I read after consuming a bag of chocolates from Africa...boo). At least I did avoid buying/receiving gold for Christmas. Lucky me.

So, now I've revealed my inner-nerd obsession, but after doing a cover-to-cover read through of the magazine I have to tell you I whipped out an awesome syllabus, complete with this totally brilliant idea about how to approach impromptu speeches. Furthermore, I was even inspired to stay up late reading selections from The Communication Teacher.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Of course, I also stayed up late wondering how many poopie diapers I changed that day. So, I guess it all evens out in the end.