Tuesday, January 19, 2010
week 6
After reading Chapter six, I felt that I understood what the author was saying...this book has been kind of hard to follow at times! I found what he said about early childhood education so interesting!! In my own family I have seen what he is saying about language dancing take form. I am 12 years older than my youngest sister, Rachael. When she was just a baby, my younger sister, Megan, (who is 11 years older than her) and I would constantly talk to her. We even have it on video where Megan was interviewing Rachael when she was about eight months old. It's hilarious to watch now and of course we make fun of Megan for making up Racheal's "voice" when she's answering the questions she is asking her.....but what is amazing to me, and i'm really starting to see it now that Rachael is in 8th grade......is her passion for reading, and i'm not talking kiddie novels, Rachael is reading everything!!!! And she gets it!! She can analyze these novels, she can see the bigger picture....she can see the authors message....and she loves it. I guess my point to this family story is that I can see the effects of "language dancing" first hand and I can see the benefits of having a child grow up in a house where she was spoken to much more than just for business. I'm sure comparing her to a child in her grade who didn't have 2 older sisters to talk to her would be like comparing the colors black and white, in some aspects. How sad we can't give every child this opportunity. What's more sad is that if they try to come up with programs that provide a child with this language dancing from someone other than a parent, will that become as disoriented as some of our programs we have out now?
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I can report the same experience in language dancing (love that name) with my own two children. I always talked to Nate from almost the moment of his birth....in the car, in the grocery store, all the time. He has always had a vocabulary (both speaking and reading) above his age level. He completed his college degree and is now working on his masters in business. His younger brother was born when Nate was at his most active phase (30 months old)so I never had time to do the language dancing with Nick that I did with Nate. Nick did not complete college and is struggling to support himself as a young adult. He never had the reading skills that Nate has even though he was raised by the same two parents and attended the same schools and had many of the same teachers that Nate did.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm thinking of all the young parents that I know and am planning to tell them about this idea....language dancing!
I had a difficult time with the chapter on research. I went back and reread some parts and am still not sure what point the authors were making about educational research! Can anyone clarify that chapter for me?
Linda and Laura, I too agree about the importance of language dancing with your child. When my daughter turned a year old, she was literally COMMUNICATING, in full sentences for the most part. She is the most avid reader in my family and she too reads and comprehends everything! With my son Noah, I was a little busier and a lot more hands on as a single parent trying to raise a son. There was less language dancing, though still a significant amount. He didn't really start talking until about 18 months, and it was mainly in fragments like most kids. He isn't really a big reader. It is a challenge to find anything that will keep his interest. Noah is now in the gifted program at school and qualified for the national equations tournament today. Joey is just now, at 22 months, starting to speak so that he can be understood while making demands and expressing affection. He gets plenty of talk from everyone around him, but is honestly more interested in being a daredevil than anything. He is the most coordinated child I have ever seen, he actually practices doing dangerous things so he teached himself not to get hurt.
ReplyDeleteMy point in sharing all of this is that while I agree that some children do not come to school with the correct kind of talk, every kid comes to school with something. I haven't raised any of my kids in exactly the same way and if you ask me, they are all perfect (and pretty smart too). I guess I just wanted to point out that we have to delve in to that child, every child, and figure out what they are bringing in with them. I really believe that making connections to thier lives and tapping in to their learning styles is key to success whether they received the right kind of talk or not.