"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves." -- John Adams

"No money shall be drawn from the treasury, for the benefit of any religious or theological institution." -- Indiana Constitution Article 1, Section 6.

"...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." – Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

2020 Teachers' New Year's Resolutions: 1. Read aloud

2020 Teachers' New Year's Resolutions
1. Read aloud


It's a new year and as is our custom here in the USA, we make resolutions which, while often broken, can be redefined as goals toward which we should strive.

[Updated and slightly edited from 2018]

TEACHERS' NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION #1
  • Read aloud to your children/students every day.
If you want your kids to be fully literate, start reading to them when they're babies.


That statement is the title given to a letter to the editor of the LA Times dated December 30, 2017. The letter was written by Allen and Adele Gottfried, professors at Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Northridge respectively and is in reference to a study the Gottfrieds did (with others) investigating adult success and early life predictors. Their letter, in response to an LA Times editorial, includes the following [emphasis added]...

If you want your kids to be fully literate, start reading to them when they're babies
Research from the Fullerton Longitudinal Study, contained in a paper we recently published in a peer-review journal, showed that the amount of time parents read to their infants and preschoolers correlated with their children’s reading achievement and motivation across the school years, which in turn correlated with higher post-secondary educational attainment...


The research, in other words, reinforces what the Report of the Commission on Reading reported in the publication, Becoming a Nation of Readers, way back in 1985.
The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. This is especially so during the preschool years.
Parents are their children's first reading teachers. They teach by reading aloud to their children beginning the day their children are born.


What happens, however, if parents and children don't have access to books? Stephen Krashen has the answer.

Read alouds lead to reading, reading requires access to books
...Having a reading habit only happens if children have access to books. A number of studies, including our own, have shown that access to libraries correlates with reading proficiency, and our recent work suggests that availability of libraries can balance the negative effect of poverty on literacy development.
Public libraries are an important resource for parents who might have no other means of acquiring books. School libraries, staffed by qualified librarians, are a necessity for every public school.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION #1
  • Read aloud to your children/students every day.

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More on Reading Aloud
- Read Aloud: 15 Minutes

- Jim Trelease's Home Page

- Information on Reading Aloud to Children

Click the image above for a larger version

More on the Fullerton Longitudinal Study
- Fullerton Longitudinal Study

- The Fullerton Longitudinal Study: A Long-Term Investigation of Intellectual and Motivational Giftedness by Allen W. Gottfried, Adele Eskeles Gottfried, and Diana Wright Guerin

- Schools Are Missing What Matters About Learning: Curiosity is underemphasized in the classroom, but research shows that it is one of the strongest markers of academic success.

- W.K. Kellogg Foundation to support the investigation of adult success based on early life predictors

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