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SLO County Office of Education | Teaching Reading
SLOCOEDU
Teaching Reading
BY JAMES BRESCIA, ED.D. COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTOF SCHOOLS
Irecently listened to an EdSource Podcast report on why so many kids struggle to learn to read. Some reports indicate that nearly one-half of California third-graders do not read at grade level. Academic journals publish brain research suggesting that most children should learn to connect sounds with letters (Phonics), yet many children struggle with this approach. Others claim that Whole Language is the only approach and phonics are old school. Since becoming a teacher in 1986, I have wondered why so many children struggle to read. Today I question why we are still debating over how we teach reading and if there is genuinely a uniform strategy for every learner.
The EdSource Podcast described a child excited to learn to read and a Bay Area teacher creating a vibrant environment for literacy. As parents in Paso Robles, we too experienced our daughter’s teacher providing a classroom library, welcoming parents to read to children, and messaging parents about the joy of reading. Our two daughters were fortunate enough to have the same kindergarten teacher, and each learned to read at a different pace in step with what research reveals about first and second-born children. The EdSource Podcast describes the child feeling sick and complaining of stomach aches, and going to the nurse’s office. The contextual teaching challenged the child in the Bay Area classroom. The child was stressed about reading and perceived unable to keep up with the others in the class.
As an elementary school principal, I observed different learning styles, parenting styles, teaching styles, and interests in school. What I found as a common thread in my practice and supported in the research is that contextual learning (similar to the Bay Area classroom) and phonics-based learning (similar to my daughter’s classrooms) are both essential strategies in learning to read.
One aspect of our daughters’ elementary experience in Paso Robles was that multiple teachers over multiple early elementary grades varied and balanced the approaches to reading with phonics, a whole-word system, and the Language Experience Method.
The Phonics Method focuses on helping children learn to break words down into sounds, translate sounds into letters and combine letters to form new words. Phonemes and the corresponding letters are often taught based on their frequency in English words. Typically 40 English phonemes are guided through different instructional approaches.
The Whole-Word Approach teaches reading at the word level and skips the decoding process by learning to say the word as recognized in written form. Reading via this method is somewhat automatic and often called sight-reading. This approach is one of the reasons words that are repeated often (high-frequency words) are focused on in spellers and on spelling tests.
The Language Experience Method is more of a personalized approach where the words taught differ for each child. The premise is that learning to spell familiar words is a more manageable approach with a higher retention potential. Teachers and parents create unique stories that use words familiar to the child.
We acquire literacy through various everyday classroom, home, and community activities. Similar to learning another language, exposure to spoken words, written words, short stories, novels, and even telanovelas facilitate language comprehension. Young children learn about literacy when describing a drawing, writing words as they can, and reading stories even if they make up some of the terms.
The San Luis Obispo County Office of Education tailors supports to address the specific needs based on the student group’s performance, including ethnic and racial groups, low-income students, English Language Learners, foster youth, and students with disabilities. As my staff works with school districts across the county, I try to remember the young physician in the parking lot with her daughter. I remind my team, stakeholders, and the community of the importance of treating everyone with respect and dignity and considering that we all learn differently. We have many reasons to give thanks in our county. Examples include: more students completing high school, school attendance rates increasing, more students entering career pathways during high school, more students receiving college credits while in high school through Cuesta College’s dual enrollment, and test scores improving. We have much work ahead of us to continue teaching and learning. Improving outcomes for all students will depend on proven methods and new ideas coming from many voices. Success occurs when we empower local communities to work together for the greater good. It is an honor to serve as your County Superintendent of Schools.
“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” — Vince Lonbardi
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.” — Arthur Conan Doyle.
PASO ARTS
BY JORDAN HOCKETT
Each and every person in this world has a different personality, different values, and different political views, to name a few things. If you watch the news for longer than two minutes, you are told how different we are from the other team. The extreme tribalism that has become more of the norm divides us as human beings. We are continually told that “It’s us or them.” “We’re good, and they’re bad.” “We’re normal, and they’re wrong.” Even though it’s clear that we have many things that differ among us, Jordan Hockett tends to create art that focuses on the things that most people can relate to and connects us.
As an artist, it’s your job to observe the world around you then create art that reinterprets and comments on what you observed. This holds true if you are painting a tree, photographing an individual’s portrait or building a monolithic abstract sculpture. Jordan, a Paso Robles artist, finds that people are endlessly fascinating and the most basic human interactions are the most important and the ones in which we can find common ground.
Because of his training as a graphic designer, many of his acrylic paintings are simple and graphic in style. The compositions in his series “It’ll be OK” depict people in different relatable scenarios pertaining to anxiety and depression. The people are represented by stick figures and placed in flat geometric environments. Even though these people have no features, you can recognize them as people and can place yourself in that scenario and recognize the feelings the figure is experiencing. His goal was to make archetypal images that anyone could relate to regardless if they liked the style in which they were created. One piece in this series shows three figures. The main focus of the picture is a person holding flowers as to present them to one of the other figures. Unfortunately, their feelings are not reciprocated as their love interest is in the arm of the third individual. The composition is completed with an anvil being suspend over the main figure’s head in proper animated “Looney Tunes” fashion. This piece is very relatable and is a very human experience. Regardless of age, race or sexual orientation, it is highly likely that you have felt what the main individual in the painting is feeling in that moment. It feels like a ton of bricks is coming down, crushing you when you put yourself out there and express your feelings for another person and they don’t share those feelings.
Jordan’s work isn’t supposed to be sad. In fact, most of his work is very colorful and funny. When he does tackle an issue like anxiety or something more serious or on the political side. He intends that his art comments on different scenarios with thoughtfulness but also humor. He hopes that The work brings people together and can laugh at how that the same thing happened to them but now they can look back on it and reflect on how they got through something or just look at the absurdity of a situation. The fact is people are very strange and imperfect. Hopefully looking at some art can make us look at things a little differently and realize that shared human experiences are what keep up together.
You can see Jordan Hockett’s work at Studios on the Park at 1130 Pine Street, Paso Robles.
