You know, Jennifer, I've thought for some time it's unfortunate that the understanding of the word "pragmatic" has been degraded so seriously by the relatively recent (30-40 years probably) shift to a common working definition of "pragmatic." Now, for many people (including some educators) "pragmatic" has really become synonymous with "practical." i.e. "The decision was really the most pragmatic one." or "You're quite the pragmatist, aren't you?" I just hate it when our perfectly good words get reduced or distorted by the masses and, unfortunately, I think this has become one of the worst examples. I've been increasingly fascinated these past years by the expansion of understanding I THINK I've coming to regarding structures. I'm embarrassed to admit to my shallow understanding, but come to think of it, it has really prepared me to read To Understand. I've developed an awareness of lack of knowledge which has really prepared me to seek that which I need to know. For some teachers (and more lay people), there is really a one-dimensional view of reading structure. You get phonemic awareness, you learn the letters and the sounds those letters make, you stuff those sounds together to make a word (or not :-), you stick all those words together to make a sentence, and someday maybe you'll understand what that sentence says: that single sentence, though, at the most. And often composed entirely of "sight words" or "decodable words." (Why don't we have a character or visual clue which drips sarcasm? We get the exclamation mark, for heaven's sake!) So along comes Marie Clay and Bill Teale and Elizabeth Sulzby and, of course, the Goodmans, and they watch real kids read!! The kids that nobody had taught the theory of unifix-cube words "stuck" together in a linear fashion. And what did they do? Well, they got the unifix-cube corners (!), so that they could use more than one direction of structure and words were "decoded" with a continuous ebb and flow of semantics, syntax, and graphophonics. Well, then the pragmatists got excited and ran over and put in all sorts of 3-D connectors and, just barely, a third dimension began to emerge/rise. And, wow, things were so much more stable and strong with all the interconnectedness, especially as the third dimension was added to a deeper and deeper construct. And understanding became exponentially deeper and higher and wiser and more creative and more supportive, all build on a really firm foundation. And nobody even knew what floor they were on (maybe there weren't even floors - horrors!). And those kids who "got it" showed us the way. But only if our "receivers" were HD ready of course. And how did they teach us? Well, of course, the best way. They showed us. When we introduce/model/make explicit the building blocks of construction and understanding, but do so in an authentic fashion, using not what I've called 2-dimensional cueing system (the triune Gods of s, s, and g) but adding the depth, richness, and meaningfulness of our deeper, multi-dimensional language and story structures, we are introducing something so amazing to our little ones. And they're the ones who taught us how to do it. Bless you, Kenneth Goodman. You watched the children. And bless you, Ellin Keene; you made us understand that strong, deep, rich understanding is available to us all. To the least among us. And that wouldn't always be the kids. Sorry to be so corny. Can you tell this is near and dear to my heart? Bev
The other weakness for me is the pragmatic system. It was a goal for me this past year to really increase the number of times kids talk to each other about their reading and also about their understanding. But now I am thinking I really didn't understand, until now, the reason why this was important...and maybe I still don't get it. I feel like if I am going to use this language to talk about these systems with kids, I need to understand them deeply myself and I am not sure I am getting the pragmatic one yet. Can you all help me out? _________________________________________________________________ Make Windows Vista more reliable and secure with Windows Vista Service Pack 1. http://www.windowsvista.com/SP1?WT.mc_id=hotmailvistasp1banner _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
