Theory of literacy of learning

Cambourne, B. (1995, November). Toward an educationally relevant theory of literacy learning: Twenty years of inquiry. The Reading Teacher, 49(3), pp. 182-190.

​Cambourne discusses theorizing literacy learning. He finds difficulty in calling children deficient because of the negative stigma attached, especially since it is not relevant in most area of the child’s life. Forming habits, guided by the teacher, is an important part of the learning process. These habits must be broken down into smaller parts and presented gradually.

Camborne also discusses conditions of learning and the ability to apply these conditions to literacy teaching. The main finding of the researchers is that engagement with language is the most important factor of literacy learning. Additionally learners need to engage in reflection to make their understanding of literacy and language explicit.

​The goal of this source is to provide guidance about literacy theory to readers. The author, at the time of publication, was a practicing teacher. This information demonstrates his reflexivity in practice. He not only is reflective, himself, but puts value and emphasis in moving literacy learners to become reflective about their literacy learning process as well.


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Outrageous Textbook Prices

I've already signed up for next semester's classes and I'm checking out the book lists on the NMSU B&N site. For just my EDUC 604 class (which has something to do with social justice and pedagogy) there are six required texts. I'd heard B&N had this NookStudy thing going on and for texts that have that option, there is a price listed. Here's the one that caught me:

Now, I'm all about convenience, but if I'm looking at the cheapest to drop $200 on textbooks (not even the fun YA lit that I like to read) and I can get a used paperback copy for $20, then I'm not about to drop that much more to have it on my mobile device.

I did a little more digging and found something different. I wandered over to Amazon.com to see if the used copies through other resellers were cheaper than what B&N was advertising. Here is what I found:

Um, huge discrepancy anyone? With Amazon providing all Kindle apps for free, I'm not sure why anyone would pay the $135 for a nookStudy version. I think I'll use the rest of that $119 to pick up the rest of my books.

Unfortunately, there are no books currently posted for my other class. I guess we'll have to wait and see how much damage is done then.

Using Comic Life

For my RDG 621 class we are required to complete a collaborative project. In terms of the other students in my class, that means that they work with another student and the kids they're tutoring to present whatever they created together.

For me, because I didn't have a student, it was a little different. I teamed up with a master's student to create a comic. The two boys that she worked with wrote a story about superheroes and we used Comic Life to put together the story.

I think the master's student with whom I was working was more excited about the project than the two fourth graders. And that's okay. I wanted to design an activity that got the kids out of their chairs -- something I noticed as lacking throughout the semester in my observations. I wish I could include pictures from the comic we created but I can't put photos of children online.

What I really liked about the project was that it hit multiple types of literacy. Not only did the children write the story, but they had to use their understanding of the story they created to come up with the pictures they were going to take to illustrate that story. Talk about the highest level of Bloom's Taxonomy. I'm excited about presenting this project in two weeks. I wish I could get my students this excited about a project.

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In the interest of time

I never thought the logistics of trying to get a simple survey approved would cause so much annoyance. But it feels like while the higher ups profess to want highly qualified teachers, they can't take out five minutes to let me know whether I can ask students questions. Hmm...set anyone up for failure? I'm just frustrated. I'm going to sleep and hope that things look brighter in the morning.

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What is Reading?

Today, two other colleagues and I were talking about what makes a struggling reader. My response was, "it depends on your definition of reading."

Here's the situation: a colleague's student (we're taking a literacy assessment class and tutoring elementary students) is struggling with oral fluency. Even though he is having issues reading aloud, he has good comprehension. Colleague #2 says that this student is a struggling reader because he struggles with one aspect of reading.

What do you think? Should he be labeled a struggling reader?


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Trouble with interview questions

So thus far, my research team's research questions are as follows:

The trouble I'm having is that in writing the interview questions, they all seem to focus on questions 3 and 4 (yes, I know they're not numbered. Count them). I think the first question gets answered through document analysis in conjunction with data we collect for questions 3 and 4. I'm honestly not sure how we're going to answer the second. Maybe, again, in students' answers to the interview questions, but indirectly so. And then four and five. And I've thought of some questions while writing this post, so I'm going to get back to that.

Things to work on

We were reading articles about bullying in qualitative research class last night and through the discussion surrounding these articles I came up with two things I need to work on in terms of how I read. First, I need to learn to read literature reviews for the gaps in the literature. Second, I need to learn to notice researchers subjectivities--and how their biases appear in their research.


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