Double Entry Journal #9

Chapter 2 - A Strange Fact About Not Learning to Read

1. What is the strange fact about not learning to read?

The strange fact about not learning to read is that it is related to poverty. 

2. Why is this fact so strange?

This fact is strange because it is not true.  A student’s ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status doesn’t determine whether the student can or cannot learn!  All students can learn, even if they are born in complete poverty. 

3. What is it about school that manages to transform children who are good at learning things like Pokémon into children who are not good at learning?

The author doesn’t really answer this question, but I think that the factor that transforms children who are good at learning things like Pokémon into children who are not good at learning is simply the teacher/administration/school system stereotyping of poor students.  It is a matter of self fulfilling prophecy from the leaders in the school system! 

4. What is the difference between a traditionalists approach to learning to read and more progressive educators?

“Traditionalists argue that learning to read requires overt instruction.  For them, reading is what we can call an “instructed process.”  More progressive educators, on the other hand, stress meaning-making.  They believe that people learn to read best when they pick up the skills stressed by the traditionalists as part and parcel of attempting to give meaning to written texts (10).”    

5. Is learning to read a natural process like learning to speak a language?

Gee says on page 11 “Today’s reading traditionalists, supported  by many linguists, myself included, argue that learning to read, unlike acquiring one’s first oral language, cannot be a biologically supported process and, thus, cannot be “natural.”  Literacy (written language) is too new a process historically to have had the evolutionary time required to have become “wired” into our human genetic structure.” 

6. What is the difference between natural, instructed and cultural processes and which process should reading be classified under?

- Natural process: “When humans acquire something by a natural process, like their first language or walking, we find that everyone, barring those with serious disorders, succeeds and succeeds well.  This is the hallmark of biologically supported acquisition.  All human beings acquire their first language well, and about equally as well as everyone else (11).”

- Instructed process: Learning something through an instructed process is like learning physics.  It is something that is actually taught, not naturally learned. 

- Cultural process: “There are some things that are so important to a cultural group that the group ensures that everyone who needs to learns them.”  This is the cultural process.  An example of learning something because of culture is cooking. 

Reading falls into the instructed process category.    

7. How do humans learn best? Through instructional processes or through cultural processes? How is reading taught in school?

Humans learn best through the cultural process.  “IT is clear that deep learning works better as a cultural process than it does as an instructed process.  Most humans are not, in fact, very good at learning via overt instruction (13).”  Unfortunately, reading is taught as an instructional process.    

8. According to the author, what is the reason for the "fourth grade slump."

According to Gee, the reason for the 4^th grade slump is whenever “some children seem to acquire reading fine in the early grades, but fail to be able to use reading to learn school content in the later grades, when the language demands of that content get more and more complex (15).”

9. What is a better predictor of reading success than phonemic awareness?

“Early language ability” is a better predictor of reading success than phonemic awareness. 

10. What is the difference between "vernacular" and "specialist" varieties of language? Give an example of two sentences, one written in the vernacular and one written in a "specialized variety", about a topic in your content area.

-Vernacular language is “used for face-to-face conversation and for “everyday” purposes.  A person’s vernacular dialect is closely connected to his or her initial sense of self and belonging in life (17).” 

- Specialist language is the specific way of talking that is used for “special purposes and activities (17).” 

Vernacular sentence:  If I said to a 3 year old, “The horse doctor is coming today to give Jasmine some medicine.” 

Specialist language: “The equine veterinarian is coming to administer some aminoplex. 

11. What is "early language ability" and how is it developed?

Early language ability is the ability of a student to know and extensive vocabulary (15).  It is developed by “family, community, and school language environments in which children interact intensively with adults and more advanced peers and experience cognitively challenging talk and texts on sustained topics and in different genres of oral and written language (16).”   

12. According to the author why and how does the traditionalist approach to teaching children to read fail?

According to the author, schools teach children “to read only in the sense of being able to do phonics and dealing with the superficial literal meanings of words mostly in the vernacular.  Poor children suffer the same sort of plight that someone who tries to pass French 4 with out French 1, French 2, and French 3 does.”  Thus, schools don’t provide the background work, so that is why the traditionalist approach fails. 

13. Are parents of poor children to blame for their children's inexperience with specialized varieties of language before coming to school?

Yes, I believe that it is the responsibility of parents to teach their children prior to the child entering school.  If the parent doesn’t teach the child (and he/she isn’t in daycare, etc.), then who will??? Children are little sponges… parents should take every opportunity to make a situation a teachable moment! 

14. Did you struggle with reading this text? Why? Are you a poor reader or are you unfamiliar with this variety of specialized language?

No, I didn’t struggle with reading this text.  I will admit that I did a little bit of skimming over the text that the author put in parenthesis, but other than that, I read the chapter word for word.  There were a few paragraphs that I had to re-read, but after doing that, I was able to fully comprehend the author’s message. 

 

Source: Gee, James Paul. Situated language and learning: a critique of traditional schooling. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.