It's Sunday; What's Up?

Aloha Jeannie.........And thanks for the early Sunday morning wake up! I have read the back and forth with you and Darlene, and find myself feeling sad that she doesn't post much anymore, and that you have been zapped for saying what you think and believe based on your own experiences. I don't like conflict so stay away from it as much as I can.....I grew up in a household where ANGER was unacceptable. You can only imagine how that turned out!! Wonder why I became a psychologist....hummmm.......maybe to figure out my own psyche?? Ha!

It's a glorious morning and it only has one flaw......the VOG from the volcano on the Big Island is hanging low because there is no wind. I'm used to being able to breathe deeply and feel the clean, fresh air in my lungs....not so today. This is very tough on the people who have any type of breathing condition.

You reminded me that I need to go back to buying coffee beans...instead of the gigantic can from Costco. My son is a big coffee drinker and only grinds his own beans and keeps them in the freezer. When he's here I always have good Kona in the freezer for him, and then after he leaves I go economical and buy the canned stuff. I think I'll treat myself to some fresh Kona beans this week!

Thanks for getting us started, and I wish more people would respond. We do all share something very significant in our lives....WLS...and so much more.

Sending you a aloha hug,

Maui Karen

Karen,

When I was in high school, there was a group of girls who pretty much determined what everyone else wore, who they were friends with, and who the rest of the girls were going to snub.  I suppose I was fifteen when I realized that I didn't want to be a part of that gang, so I walked to the beat of my own drum and found myself being punished for not being a part of their group.  A few times I've felt like that here, and while I get many emails from members here, it still feels very familiar in that fundamentally one mindset controls the rest.  So, will I continue, yep.  I've never been one to let a few bad apples run me off.  So, I will stay and post and hang out and when my summer vacation ends (I cannot believe I get paid to spend the summer doing research), I will get back to being busy teaching and writing. 

I, like you, have very bad lungs and when I went for the hike and went into the caves, some of them made me so short of breath that I decided that their must have been a fungus or something in the underground air.  Or, it could have been the bat **** LOL.

Okay, back to research.  Did you know that there are four reasons some children don't learn to read? 

No......what are the four reasons?

The obvious is cognition, some just are unable to learn because of learning disabilities, then there is, of course, poverty.  Studies have shown that children raised in poverty are not as quick to learn to read as middle class and up.  Also, there's linguistics.  By linguistics, I mean children who do not speak standard english or a form of standard english.  Like, for instance, the children in west virginia who speak appalacia, and black children who speak African American English and children in the Ozarks who speak an almost victorian dialect.  Then, the final is either parents who are marginally literate or who do not get involved in helping their children.  There's one more but I consider it still under investigation and that is the teachers' attitudes against certain children who they deem undesirable like fat children, ugly children, children of another race, or children who are poor.  These four or five factors determine how well or how easily a child learns to read.  I'm sure in your area there's certain prejudices against the native island speakers and linguistically they are hampered in learning to read.  I know in the border towns like El Paso, there is significant evidence that white middle class teachers tend to fail the hispanic children who speak English but English with a dialect.  Isn't that sad? 

Some of the children, especially those who speak a desirable dialect like American English or standard English, are able to overcome the obstacles of poverty or lack of parental help or even being fat or ugly, but many are not able to bounce back from that.  TEachers hold such power when it comes to the children they teach and they can either aim the kids for success and help them or hinder them.  Pretty sad.

Hi Jeannie,
I wasn't aware that your research was so closely aligned with my career. I'm a speech therapist, but my focus has been changing to the RTI model, which means (to whoever else reads this- not you- I'm sure you know) Response to Intervention. I work in a poor school with a heavily Hispanic population. We are targeting the K-2nd grades- we test them all with DIBELS, then we target the lowest group with lots of extra help... the Resource Specialist and myself are involved the most. I spend two hours a day with these kids. They are not special ed, but as you said, they have many things to overcome in order to read, and those first years of school are most important. I feel very good about this piece of my job. I am making a difference for these children, I just wish I had time to work with the older children too. I spend the other 4 hours of my day with speech and language disorders...
Julia

Julia,

While I teach at the university, my research is in linguistics and literacy; therefore, I spend a lot of time reading what it is that we can do to improve literacy.  I've been doing a lot of research in the delta in hopes to figure out what one state can do to improve reading scores. 

It sounds like you are doing great things.  Do you have statistics published or are you doing trial and error?

We are keeping track of progress after intervention, but we tweak our interventions depending on each child's needs. I have decided to test each "at risk" student with the "Phonological Awareness Test" and use the diagnostics to find general weaknesses. I combine phonological goals with lots of literacy and language development tasks.  I'm assuming that you are doing research in the delta where you live- we are living in the San Joaquin delta here- ... my school is a Program Improvement school- the scores have been low for many years. There is a combination of all of the things that you mentioned in your first statement. On top of the great need here, we frequently get the newest teachers with the least experience. We don't usually get the top of the line because we have an older school with less money and an occasional ****roach....I have been in the rich school and the poor school, with a mixture of the inbetweens, and this school is my heart.

IN the delta here, the teachers are inexperienced and usually are not from the area; therefore, they really are not vested in the school.  The experienced teachers that are here are not top of the line and many of them have issues that either deal with their own prejudices or they are just not good at what they do.  I'm developing a survey for all the teachers in Arkansas and W. Virginia and in that I'm going to try and determine the attitudes of the teachers towards African American English speakers, hispanics, and poor whites.  The really unique thing here is that most of the whites speak African American English on one level or another.  I suspect another reason for such poor literacy acquisition here is that while the AAE dialect has many grammatical rules of its own, there isn't a break in communication so the teachers are not aware that there are rules in that dialect that need to be honored.  If they had the knowledge of moving the students from AAE to Standard Engli**** would make such an improvement; that's where I come in. LOL  Anyway, linguistics amaze me. 

I totally understand- I honor your work!

Yow!
Sorry to butt in here, but stay out of bat caves!  It's not good for the bats and WAY not good for YOU! Their guano (****) is toxic for humans to inhale, though its decomposition is what keeps the nursery chamber warm. It's not good for the bats to disturb them, either, especially at this time of year when they are breeeding and/or incubating their young.
Just sign me bat-lover/tree-hugger and take care of your lungs!