Sinc I have not started my career, it is hard to choose sections particularly relevant to my current professional development. But I think the section called the latest research is useful. It includes data and results of new programs all around the US, scientific research on child development, public policy and funding, and so on.
A controversial topic I found in the newsletter is about mandatory retention at third grade. Advocates for it argue that third grade is the line that changes form learning to read into reading to learn and children without enough literacy skills will fail in school. They point out positive outcomes such as that “reading scores for kids who repeated third grade went from way below average to well above average” and “Florida's Hispanic students alone are ahead of 31 other states' total student populations in fourth-grade reading”(Smith, 2012, p. 1). Opponents for it argue that better scores of children who spent another year at the third grade is natural because they are older than others and those gains faded by 8th grade. They think holdback is traumatic and stigmatizing. They suggest that schools should spend the money it takes to give children another year for other resources such as tutoring.
There was an article about a conference where Nobel prize-winning economist James Heckman told business leaders and policymakers the importance of investment in child education. He insisted that quality early education makes a productive workforce and remedial investments are excessively costly while investments for early ages have high returns. I feel that supports from economists are very meaningful not only because support from other fields make the issues open to more people but also they could appeal to policymakers and businessmen who can actually make ideals into real practices.
The new insights I gained about dual-language programs are that they are beneficial for English speaking children in language, literacy, and mathematics and they learn Spanish without losses in English language learning. I think every child should be given the opportunities to learn two languages
References
NIEER. (2005). Nobel Laureate Economist Calls For Major Investment in Public Pre-K. Retrieve on March 24, 2012, from http://nieer.org/psm/index.php?article=96
Smith, T (2012). Schools Get Tough With Third-Graders: Read Or Flunk
Retrieved on March 24, 2012 from http://www.npr.org/2012/03/05/147980299/tough-love-reading-laws-target-third-graders?ft=1&f=1013
I do think that it is fair to the children if they are retained for the mere fact that they cannot read. Children learn at different paces and may have other contributing factors that may be causing their difficulties with reading. If a child makes it to the third grade with the inability to read I would find some fault in the schools also. This is a problem that should be identified well before the third grade.
ReplyDeleteSince you have not yet started your career in early childhood, I hope that the research you do for your classes will help you in deciding what age group you are interested in working with. All children need good quality teachers!
Aya we're all in this together. No matter where we are now, tomorrow someone will be siting our work. Thanks for sharing your resources, they contain a lot of good information. I'm just starting too, and I really could use you input and feed back and I support you. Let help our children, one day at a time, one child at a time.
ReplyDeleteAya,
ReplyDeleteI agree that retention in the third grade is a controversial topic because I myself believe that that should be looked at as early as kindergarten because here in NC that is when children start building that foundation to read, by the end of the year children will have learned to read and spell over 100 words.