1) I think that language ties in with just about everything else that we have learned in this course. I thought that the info on negative language ties in with the Pollyanna principle from earlier chapters. In order to communicate and learn through our working and long-term memory we need to be able to understand language and reading to be successful learners. I though that the top-down and bottom-up processes were similar to the whole-word (top-down) versus phonics (bottom-up)approach to learning how to read.
2) I wonder why the ACT test has several negative questions when it is a timed test? The book makes a point that these questions/statements take longer to comprehend. Are there educators out there that just use the whole-word approach without going through the separate sounds and letters first? This seems like it would be a struggle for kindergarten students if both approaches were not used.
3) I will be more careful in how I phrase my questions to be sure that I am using positives, the active voice, not nesting, and watching my ambiguities. I do not think that it is bad for kids to be exposed to this either though. They should be exposed to these in order to be aware of them when they are writing and communicating. If we failed as teachers to expose them to these, the students probably would not be successful communicators later on in life. Of course, we cannot be consistently ambiguous and we should try our best to stray away from these because there is a decrease in comprehension. We all learn from our experiences and I think that I am a better teacher from seeing both effective and non-effective ways to communicate.
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I agree that it is important to be efficient and make sure students understand language to the best of their ability by using positive, active and not nesting conversation. However, reading comprehension questions are known for the doing the opposite of the easy language techniques (phrasing in the negative), so students still need to learn how to comprehend language efficiently.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your question about why the ACT has negative questions asked especially when it is timed. I guess it is to make it more challenging and seeing whom can process information quicker.
ReplyDeleteI also find myself trying to watch how I phrase a question a little more. Do not use negatives, use the active voice, and don't be ambiguous.
I teach third graders and it is amazing to be how many questions are presented to them on standardized test that are in the negative form or have a nested structure. I understand that it is necessary to challenge them at times, but I don't think difficult questions such as those are truly testing their knowledge of content. They get confused with the wording, or run out of time to answer these types of questions.
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