“The Author’s Chair” Revisited

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Notes

Notes

1 Panel members, reflecting the narrow conception of the phenomenon of reading across the field of education research in general, did not exploit the reading–writing/decoding–encoding connection in either their review of the literature on effective reading practices or instructional recommendations. Thus, they overlooked what most good teachers of emergent readers regularly observe: Writing offers plentiful reading practice. When the young writer composes a text, she will typically read the first sentence at least as many times as there are sentences in the composition (if she’s mastered the ability to track text). Writing offers plentiful opportunity to practice and apply phonics knowledge, phonemic awareness and alphabet knowledge. Emergent writers work hard to capture their ideas in print, and in so doing, deploy alphabet and phonics knowledge, and mine their depths of phonemic awareness. Writing offers concentrated practice for reading.

2 In New York City workshop vernacular, teachers are encouraged to help children build stamina for writing. If teachers index the writing process as a Herculean feat rather than free-play with language, there is little wonder that children view the process as exhausting. Might they consider the possibility of nurturing engagement and absorption instead of stamina?

3 John Dewey offered a dialectic philosophy for education that was never embraced by mainstream general psychology in North America, and consequently rarely framed basic or applied education psychology research projects.