Essential Questions Blog

From the first article I feel like they are just showing how important books are in a child’s life. Whether they are mostly illustrations, or illustrations and words, it seems that getting children involved with books and learning at a young age is important. I had no idea so many events were out there like this for the younger crowd.
After reading the second article on literacy from wikipedia, I realize the importance of literacy. Literacy is needed for society to function. Most of the points in the article are things we all know, but just don’t truly think about all of the time. They are simply understood, but rarely talked about. In America there aren’t that many cases of illiteracy, at least probably where most of us come from, so we often forget that it exists. Most people who are illiterate probably don’t have jobs, or good ones at that, therefore probably don’t have a lot of money. This would be why they aren’t in our presence as often. After reading this article I see how there are still countries where the literacy rates are so low. Also, its crazy to think about how the whites not allowing the slaves to learn to read was truly holding one of the greatest abilities from them. They were denying them so much. Being literate is like have a power, it is our key to the world.
I feel like we never think about how much our parents and teachers really taught us at a young age. Not just to read and recognize letters and simple words, but to use phonics to sounds out more difficult words. And more importantly to understand all that we are reading.
It’s amazing that the literacy rates have increased in the past decades, yet from 1992-2003, the literacy rates of college grads have decreased. The sad part—I believe it. There are so many more easy ways out these days. Students don’t have to read through something to get by.
In reference to the 3rd article, I agree with Elizabeth that teachers needed to teach more as opposed to reading scripts that were designed for the average learner. Not the challenged, not the advanced. I don’t think that giving each student 45 minutes of personal time and 12-15 hours of individual time will do them much good. They will be much better learning as a whole, and in the end, learning from each other as they move along. I also don’t like how it is the poorer school that is being put through this curriculum and how they seem like they just don’t care since they aren’t the white, English speaking, wealthy kids who are going places in life.