Literacy and the Language Arts

1. Literacy and the Language Arts Specific processes What is SBRR and how does it impact instruction in the language arts?

2. What are the language arts?

3. How do we acquire them?

4. How do we listen? We are programmed genetically to listen. Assuming normal capacity to hear, we give attention to our surroundings. The stimuli around us provide the source of language and other sound stimulation that is our initial exposure to the process of acquiring information and testing the environment. Young children are exposed to cooing and early language from their earliest developmental stages. This connects sound to speech. Young children begin to focus sound to themselves by recognizing familiar sounds, like names, greetings, and “tone” messages.

5. What happens when we listen? HEARING UNDERSTANDING JUDGING Our sensory system processes sounds in the environment, then attaches our comprehension of what the sounds might mean through accessing our prior knowledge, and then assessing how the message applies to us. Does it merely inform us, or require an action, such as an answer or movement?

6. What impedes effective listening? • Competing sounds and messages – inability to filter • Preconception of messages – what should the speaker be saying? • Theory of Mind – does the source’s appearance and tone match the message? This impacts the concept of “gist” in learning • Ambiguity – is there really a message at all?

7. How to we speak? • We approximate the sounds around us by imitating them. • The feedback we get from our sound models let us know the impact of the sound we just made. • Active listening – total focus on source • Articulation of sounds heard – depends on clarity of source • Connection of concepts through sound • Distinction of sound from other physical communication, such as gestures, facial prompts, etc.

8. What happens when we speak? ARTICULATION LISTENER PERCEIVES MESSAGE AND ACTS

9. How do we read? • This complex act requires the integration of multiple cognitive systems working simultaneously physically interact with the source of the symbol view and perceive the symbol attach sound to the symbol attach prior knowledge connect the symbol to other symbols comprehend message from the symbol use the symbol

10. What systems are involved? Visual/Auditory/Kinesthetic Cognitive

11. How do we write? • Writing is a complex neurophysiological process • It is based on the connection of abstraction to a physical rendering of that abstraction • It represents an evolution of process – • First, the recognition that objects and feelings can be expressed in a symbolic way • Next, that a consistent symbolic system can translate thought across time and space • Finally, the system can change and expand but retain its purpose

12. Why is writing important? • Writing originated with the Sumerians in Mesopotamia and at approximately the same time, in China. Originally pictorial, it became symbolic. • Chinese and Japanese are considered logographic, or pictorial, languages. • It has been the means by which culture has been transmitted throughout the world ever since. • It is also the means by which law has been transmitted. Spoken language requires memory – written language only requires access. That is, if you don’t remember a rule, you can look it up.

13. What happens when we write? THOUGHT SYMBOLIC RENDERING MESSAGE

14. Why are the language arts important? Because we live in a world made comprehensible through the use of symbols. Thoughts are represented as symbols. The written world enlarges our ability to access information through time. We can receive a message and delay comprehending it if it is presented in a “storable “ form – printed on paper, preserved on a screen, left as a sound message. All language connects to itself – visual symbols translate to sounds and then we convey the sounds and expand them so that others can write them down.

15. Why is the alphabet so important? • The alphabet allowed for the consolidation of a symbolic, agreed upon, representation of thought and ideas. It is sometimes called “visible language” • It provides a certain facility in communication – it is easier to read a word than describe a picture (even though we say a picture is worth a thousand words) • There is, however, some confusion that occurs when we learn the alphabet – letters are similar (p,b,d,g,q), and they serve multiple functions as representations of sounds • In English, there are 26 symbols representing 44 sounds

16. Symbols convey messages

17. The Alphabetic Principle • The alphabetic principle, the belief that letters represent the sounds of speech, is the foundation of reading and writing in most languages.

18. Three regions for reading • FRONTAL - Broca’s area (inferior frontal gyrus)is activated when words are presented both orally and silently. It permits immediate utterance in response to those words • MIDDLE - Wernicke’s area (superior temporal gyrus and planum temporale) along with the angular gyrus permits understanding of written and spoken language • BASE – area of the left temporal lobe is the site of the visual word form area (Dehaene and Cohen)

19. What does the brain do when we read? Working memory resides in the prefrontal cortex Frontal lobes allow for organization & integration of information perceived Cortex houses declarative memory Thalamus houses language memory Neurotransmission creates connections for memories & associations Optic nerve stimulated Cerebellum houses procedural memory Language centers permit symbolic processing & expression Limbic region allows feelings to be accessed

20. What do we call upon students to do when they read and write? • Encode symbols • Decode symbols • Connect symbols to prior knowledge • Retrieve memories • Receive a message • Send a message • ISIS

21. ISIS – maintaining and sustaining attention INITIATE organize to begin tasks – focus on source or stimulusSUSTAIN continue focus through entire process INHIBIT prohibit or reduce distraction from the stimulus or source SHIFT move attention to new stimuli while retaining message of prior stimuli

22. Reading and Writing • Reading and writing are not genetically programmed in the same way that speech is • The superior and medial temporal gyrus is employed during reading • This “co-opting” of brain regions seems to have emerged over time

23. There is a demand for attention and focus • Go to the Misunderstood Minds link and participate in the ATTENTION segment and then the READING segment

24. TBQ#2 In chapter 3 of the text, it is noted that “Vygotsky observed that the very process of writing one’s thoughts leads individuals to refine those thoughts and to discover new ways of thinking… the writer’s efforts to capture ideas with ever more precise written words contain within them an inner dialogue…”. How does this integration of cognitive processes (thought, memory, listening to the inner dialogue, writing, reading what is written, and self-regulation) connect to our understanding of literacy and the need to develop all of the language arts in order to function more fully in the literacy sense? Do schools provide practice in developing this “inner dialogue”?