After watching the "Tale of Two Schools" it upset me because as the movie mentions early on, the school in Texas had 3/4 of the children living in poverty and in Mississippi a majority of the students were living in third world situations. It is sad because in America we like to think that everyone has an equal chance to learn, but there is no denying that it is much more difficult for these children. Teachers said that many of the students have never even read a book until they came to school and many don't even know how to hold it or the basic parts of a book. I think it is very important as a teacher to realize that not all students are going to have the resources at home to practice reading, and although you can only teach them in school, I would definitely try to have a library system for those children so that they can take home classroom books so they can practice at home. They even said that the town library was shut down in Mississippi, which really puts the students at a disadvantage.
If I was a teacher I think that I would want to use the Project Read program. Even though they did not seem to have a lot of professional development and support to use the program there is more freedom for the teachers. I did not like that the Reading Mastery program was so scripted and that the students could only read the books made for the program. The letters were turned into symbols and to me that is not going to help them when they transition to regular books. Also the books were all words and did not have any pictures. I also think it is important for children to read books from different kinds of authors and see the different styles of writing and the different kinds of illustrations, so that they can decide what they enjoy. Although Project Read didn't seem as effective as Reading Mastery I think it was because the teachers lacked knowledge of the program and tools. They used different hand gestures and little rhymes that I think could help students to read and they can remember them for when they are on their own. Reading Mastery on the other hand seems like it works best when there is a teacher there instructing the students, but when they are on their own I don't think that it helps them out as much.
I agree- it is very upsetting to know that there are children in this country who do not know how to read or do not have the resources to help them. This should not be happening, especially nowadays, and as teachers I feel that we have a huge responsibility to change this. There should not be one person in America who cannot read well or at all. Reading is the most important skill a person can have, and it should be mastered very early on.
ReplyDeleteI agree how upsetting it was to hear the living conditions for these students. I feel that it makes educating them that much more important to their future success! I also agree about the project read program, even though, I did choose the Reading Mastery Program in my blog. I feel that the Project Read Program would have had such potential to add other parts to it instead of just the decoding aspect, however, since the teachers were not well enough versed in the program, it made it hard to implement the program, let alone creatively allow them to add in other skills to their lessons. Since both systems only demonstrated the decoding skills, I voted the other way. I feel that it was hard to pick one since they both clearly had positive and negative aspects with how the video portrayed them.
ReplyDeleteIt breaks my heart knowing that these innocent children are progressing slowly due to their lack of resources. Having books available for each student is imperative! It is extremely unfortunate how project read did not receive essential materials until the end of the year. I wonder how successful this program would be if they had what they needed at the appropriate time. I worked with students from inner city schools and it is sad to see the majority of them struggle due to a lack of resource and negative family situations. However, it was mind-blowing to see how each and every one of them had such a strong passion for learning.
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