Hi all, <br><br>For my two cents...<br><br>As I special education teacher/doctoral student, I agree with your comments. I find that the drive to increase test scores dominates not only reading but other aspects of children's development. This is based upon the readings in educational newsletters and policy reports, as well as from speaking with parents and observing in many different schools. This outcome based view seemed to be part of the LENA information for parents. <br>
<br>After looking at the LENA website, I found the marketing of the tool to reflect the drive for results. It reinforced the importance of parents to talking their children, but not necessarily how. From a teaching perspective, quality is as important. The trend I am seeing through the review of records, test scores, and from parent and teacher reports for elementary school-aged children is they have developed adequate expressive language, especially in vocabulary recognition and in the length of utterances. However, it is their application, their depth of understanding, and their ability to generalize that is concerning. If parents are to use the LENA as a tool, it will be important to provide information on how to interact with the infant. <br>
<br>There was an interesting report on NPR Morning Edition on Thursday,
February 21st about the impact of the limited opportunities children
have for imaginary, unstructured play and children's ability to
self-regulate this included the use of language. This was two-part
report and spoke to a range of psychologists, teachers, and a cultural
historian who explored play, culture, and child development. The piece was well researched and was easy to understand for
parents and those without a background on child development. It would be beneficial for more reports of this be become available for parents. <br><br> I like the idea of providing parents information generated from those who research in the field, such as the NPR report..It would be important for the articles etc. to be provided by those who are not vested in the success of a product. <br>
<br><br>Molly Millians (Marcus Institute, Atlanta GA/University of South Africa)<br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Tom Roeper <<a href="mailto:roeper@linguist.umass.edu">roeper@linguist.umass.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Dear Margaret---<div><br></div><div> No doubt you are right---politics in education is dominating</div>
<div>reading instruction and I am sure that individual children feel</div><div>it. It is another area where teacher's and educators voices</div>
<div>need to be more clearly heard.</div><div><br></div><div>Tom</div><div><br></div><div>PS. One educator's voice, my mother Annemarie Roeper,</div><div>
is one such voice. She </div><div>just wrote a book "The "I" of the Beholder" about the</div><div>Roeper school (now 66 years old) which reflects where</div><div>my views originate. <div class="Ih2E3d">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 6:02 PM, Margaret Fleck <<a href="mailto:margaretmfleck@yahoo.com" target="_blank">margaretmfleck@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<br>
<br>
--- Tom Roeper <<a href="mailto:roeper@linguist.umass.edu" target="_blank">roeper@linguist.umass.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
> Dear Everyone,<br>
..... How strenuously you push a child who is behind in reading is<br>
<div>> largely a parental decision. In retrospect I think we pushed<br>
><br>
> my daughter, now in law school, a bit too hard when she had trouble reading,<br>
> though her continuing absolute inability to spell suggests a deep difference<br>
> is still present.)<br>
<br>
</div>Actually, these days it seems to be a political decision. Since the public<br>
schools in the US suffer<br>
rather dire consequences if the kids (disabled or not) can't pass standardized<br>
tests, these<br>
kids now get pushed rather hard, regardless of what the parents want.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Margaret (Margaret Fleck, U. Illinois)<br>
</font><div><div></div><div><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br></div><div class="Ih2E3d">Tom Roeper<br>Dept of Lingiustics<br>UMass South College<br>Amherst, Mass. 01003 ISA<br>413 256 0390
</div></div><br>
<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br>
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