NIFL-ASSESSMENT 2005: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:869] RE: Spelling discus

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From: Aragon, Donna (daragon@tvi.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 20 2005 - 10:15:52 EST 

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From: "Aragon, Donna" <daragon@tvi.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-assessment@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:869] RE: Spelling discussion continues
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Hello, I agree with Judy's comments below - students must experience
being successful and reasoning skills along with foundation skills must
be balanced.  I have had students come to the realization that they
cannot go forward until they step back and work on foundation skills.
This realization only comes when they have experienced success as a
result of teaching to their strengths.  My humble two cents!  Donna

-----Original Message-----
From: nifl-assessment@nifl.gov [mailto:nifl-assessment@nifl.gov] On
Behalf Of Marie Cora
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 7:51 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [NIFL-ASSESSMENT:868] Spelling discussion continues

Hi all, I am posting this message from colleague Judy Titzel.  (I have
to say that toward the end of Judy's message where she notes that "she
can't spell worth a dang" - I actually know this to be true!:-))
 
Thanks,
marie
 
 


Interesting interchange....hopefully the list thread won't slide into
the 'reading wars', or 'spelling wars', or 'math wars'  where extremely
complex sets of skills are polarized between foundation skills and
higher order thinking skills. [Katrina, I'm certainly not saying your
post is in that category.]

Example: many of my students feel they can't 'do math' because they
don't know their times tables (or can't write because they don't know
how to spell). But they can and should be encouraged to exercise their
reasoning skills while working on those less exciting foundation skills.

There is enough research by now to assure teachers and learners that one
does not need to be proficient in foundation skills (spelling, grammar,
times tables) to use and strengthen thinking skills (solving math
problems with mathematical reasoning; conveying thoughts through
writing) and in fact, work on foundation skills should not occur in
isolation but in the context of actually thinking through a problem,
situation, task, etc. A balance must be struck, especially to enable
adults students to experience success and gain a bit of self confidence
in using their thinking skills. It's pretty discouraging to focus on
those dang times tables for ever!

For full disclosure, I must say that dispite holding a bunch of advanced
degrees (i.e. over-educated), I can't spell worth a dang (my computer
spell check often tells me it can't figure out what the heck i'm
searching for and I have a hard time using the dictionary because it
takes way too long to find a word when you only know the first letter!!
and I'm not exagerating. )

I'm all for balance.

Judy Titzel
Providence, RI

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