1. Language has been connected to every chapter we have read so far. The beginning of the course, we talked about percption. Well, we need language to help up us understand and process what we perceive in the world around us. Then we delved into memory (working and long-term). We need language to be able to connect what we are learning to what we have already learned to help us transfer information from working to long-term memory. We also need the language to be able to pull information out from our memory.
2. I would like to know more about the research behind the phonics approach and the whole-word approach. Matlin does not give much proof of any studies, but says that research shows a favoritism to the phonics approach to learning reading. As a classroom teacher, I can see the benefits of both approaches and would like to see what research there is to support my thoughts.
3. I thought the section about ambiguous language was really interesting. As an elementary teacher, I find that students sometimes have a difficult time understanding what I am saying to them. I never thought that it could be because of their prior knowledge and lack of ability to understand the context of what I am saying. After reading this section, I'm planning on including more lessons about context clues and I want to make sure to use as little ambiguous language as possible in my lessons. I think it is also important for me to have my students talk to each other to check for understanding as well as create an exit slip where they can write down any questions they might still have.
I think exit slips would be an excellenet way to get students to open up and tell what they are still confused about in a private manner. It is amazing how much we don't realize students are confused about because we use ambiguous wording and don't even realize it. I am also a big fan on having students discuss openly with one another in class. Maybe another student can explain something to their peer better than the teacher can.
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