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Showing posts from January, 2019

The importance of phonics and word recognition.

When testing children on their literacy, often times comprehension is weighed tremendously in this. Personally, I believe phonics to be extremely important. With this being said,  My anticipated thought process is that intensified phonics instruction is only necessary for grade levels up to first grade. Phonics may seem simple, but with an absence of proper phonics instruction, reading for any student would be nearly impossible. Phonics is, to put it simply, an understanding that certain letters make specific sounds; Additionally, understanding that a grouping of simple sounds can form words. Word recognition (identification) at the most basic point should be inclusive with a knowledge of phonics. Although high frequency words should automatically be sounded by students, in order to have students recognize words that require a high cognitive demand to recognize, instructional activities are necessary. For example, the word "Hardship" would be a word I can expect a student

Praise Versus Not.

While attending one of my classes, a topic of debate was if children were praised TOO much for good behavior. The viewpoint of those that agreed with praise essentially held the belief that praise is necessary in order to manage children's behavior. It was said, in short, that children that understand what is bad and good behavior through praise will gravitate towards the good behavior. This, of course, was the majority of the arguments that consisted of my classmates. Naturally arguments did vary, it was argued also that children need excessive praise as this is a better fit with today's cooperate structure in "real world" jobs. Those that were opposed to praise typically argued that praise is a tool that can hurt kids in reality, as opposed to helping them. It was said that praise, although helpful, can transform children into being reliant on feedback from others. This was said to be a bad thing because children would only do behaviors that have an end result