The Reading Process Essay Example for Free

The Reading Process Essay When a child is speaking many words and using them as an integral part of his personality, he is ready to read them. In teaching reading to young children, word selection is often the first place where we go wrong. We pull words from thin air and try to put them into the child. Often we make matters worse by putting these strange words into printed context outside the realm of the childs experience and expecting him to readand he cannot. Children can learn to read any word they speak. One of the greatest hoaxes in all of educational pedagogy is that which says that reading vocabulary must be developed in a predeter ¬mined logical sequence. This simply is not the case. Linguists tell us that when a child comes to school he has all the language gear he needs in order to learn reading and all the other skills of lan ¬guage. The trouble is that we do not use his gear. We manufacture artificial systems of language development and methods of teaching reading, and we impose them on children. It is almost as though the child has to learn two languages in order to be able to read-one for communication and one to get through his reading books. More study has been done in the area of reading than in any other area of the elementary school curriculum. This is justifiable because reading is an important skill needed for learning. But it is not the most important method of communication. It is important only to the degree that it communicates. Much confusion exists about this research. It is the sec ¬ond place where we go wrong. We have built up a vast store ¬house of knowledge about reading, but all the needed knowledge is not yet known. And, because there are great gaps in that knowledge, we have turned to the next best source-the opinion of the experts in the reading field. Many experts have advocated their systems of teaching reading, basing them on known truths but filling in the gaps with their own ideas. When gaps in knowledge are filled in with opinions, we often confuse the two. As a result, schools have often adopted a reading system so wholeheartedly that teachers are not permitted to skip one page of a basal reading book or omit one single exercise in the reading manual that accompanies the text. Many teachers have simply become intermediaries, transmitting the ideas of the authors of a basal series to the children and not daring to use their own ideas to teach reading as a communication skill. This course of action takes all the sense out of language skill development and reduces the role of the teacher to that of a pawn. Undoubtedly, no imagination can break through such rigid orthodoxy. Teachers are teaching experts. Their training has made them this. Reading experts can help with a multitude of ideas, but they cannot possibly know the problems of any one teacher with any one group of children. Basal readers and teachers manuals work only if they are tailored to the group of children using them; they can be invaluable when used this way but are almost useless when they are not. Teachers should endeavor to do activities, which relate to the experiential background of the children they are teaching. In fact, doing activities that are foreign to the child’s background is like teaching another language in order to get them to read. Every reading programme needs to take first into account the particular group of children and each child within that group. If this is not the case then the approach is pseudoscientific. Only a teacher can know and understand the needs of the children he or she teaches. If any significant progress is to be made in any reading programme, then the teacher indeed must know his or her children. Reading is most effectively taught when the teacher becomes the source of the plan of the teaching and when he or she is able to make use of the experts books, resources, learning aids, procedures, and ideas to help her devise her own plan for her own particular group of children. Since teaching is a creative role, the teaching of reading must be a creative process. Linguistic research over the past forty years has given us greater insights as to how reading should be taught. Reading is the active process of constructing meaning from words that have been coded in print. Printed and spoken words are meaningful to the young child only to the extent where his field of experience overlaps that of the author of the printed text. The reader learns from a book only if he is able to comprehend the printed symbols and rearrange them into vivid experiences in his mind. A child’s ability to think, to rationalize, and to conceptualize makes it possible for him or her to accept new ideas from a printed page without actually experienc ¬ing the new idea. He or she must however, possess the knowledge of each symbol that helps make up the new idea. Ideally, the teacher would show a picture of an object and, through discus ¬sion, build the understandings necessary to give children a correct visual image of the object. Because of the unusual shape of some words (e. g. kangaroo) chil ¬dren memorized them quickly, but nothing is usually learned until the words take on meaning. The teacher should give the words meaning by using the childrens experiences. Experience combined with the power of imagery will make it possible for children to acquire new understandings, concepts, and learn ¬ings from their reading of each new word. Reading is not word calling; it is getting the meaning of the printed word from the page. The teaching of reading means assisting children to obtain those skills needed to get the meaning of the word from the printed page. However, the gaining of all the skills is of little or no worth without the experience with the words to make them meaningful. This is a basic component to all reading. It should now be clear why young children, before they can really learn to read, must have a wide range of expe ¬riences to which they have attached a multitude of oral symbols. It should be clearly understood too, why the primary program in reading must be loaded with experiences to which children and teachers apply symbolic expression. This will permit the children to be constantly building up new words in their oral vocabulary so that they will be able to read them. The children’s ability to read is a skill or tool that makes it possible for an author to communicate with them. Children read because they are curious about what is on the page. The reading process itself is not sacred. It is what the reading communicates to the child that is crucial. Reading is not the only important means of communication nor is it the best. To assure the successful development of a good primary literacy program, children must have a large background of experiences, the ability to listen well, and a good oral vocabulary that labels their experiences meaningfully. With this background, almost every child can be taught to read, provided, of course, he also has the required intelligence and has no serious physical, so ¬cial, or emotional problem. Teaching reading as a subject rather than a means for communication can be boring and tedious for children. No one reads reading. The child reads something, be they letters, books, poems, stories, newspapers — and he reads with intent. Each reading experience with chil ¬dren should have meaningful content, obvious purpose, and pleas ¬ant associations. The wide socioeconomic and experiential backgrounds of children, combined with their physical development and intellectual ability, will determine the points at which children are able to begin the formal reading process effectively. The teacher is responsible for the continued development of the child as a whole, and to deprive him of a rich variety of experiences so that he may spend time reading from books is the quickest way to insure reading difficulty among children, in both ability and attitude. When a first-grade teacher sees the teaching of reading as her most important objective and allocates a major part of the childs day to reading, she is capitalizing on the exceptional experiences the home and the kindergarten have provided for the child. For, after all, these give meaning to his reading stories, which, at the first grade level, are based on his first-hand home and school ex ¬periences. She may flatter herself on the excellent reading ability of her children and be smug in her knowledge that she can teach any child to read! What she fails to realize is that unless she continues to provide suitable additional experiences in social studies, community contacts, literature, music, and so forth, she is depriving succeeding teachers of their privilege of doing a good job in teaching reading. This explains why, too often, children start out as good readers but experience reading difficulty by the time they reach third grade. They lose meaning in their reading because planned background experience stops when formal read ¬ing begins. Their real first interest in reading lies in their joy at dis ¬covering they can read. To exploit this joy, and to use it for need ¬less repetition, means to soon destroy the only motivation children have.

Hamlet: The Character of Claudius in Shakespeares Hamlet Essay

Hamlet: The Character of Claudius  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Of all the characters in Shakespeare's Hamlet, perhaps the role of Claudius is the most intriguing and crucial. Claudius is the most controversial, the most mysterious and the most talked about character in this play. Many people look at Claudius and only see a villain, but there are additional sides to him that are often overlooked: Claudius the father, the husband, the ruler and the mortal individual. In this play the characters are not super-human beings. They make mistakes, just as Claudius does, but it goes to show that they are only human. Claudius, the father is very recognizable in Scene 2 of Act 1. He states to Hamlet starting at Line 109 "...think of us as of a father: for let the world take note, you are the most immediate to our throne, and with no less nobility of love that that which dearest father bears his son do I impart toward you." Hamlet is "Our chiefest courtier, cousin and our son." (Line 119) Here Claudius is speaking to Hamlet and saying that he is loved and accepted even since he is not Claudius' natural son. Claudius seems to have no trouble speaking to his son Hamlet in front of a crowd. But when the two men are alone, Claudius is at a loss for words and cannot figure out what to say, or when to say it. It could be that the King feels so guilty about murdering King Hamlet that he is unable to speak to Hamlet in private, for fear of his true self emerging. Along the same lines, Claudius is also a great and sovereign leader. When young Fortinbras came to demand the surrender of those lands lost by hi s father to King Hamlet, Claudius handled the matter with such ease and grace. He informed Fortinbras that a letter was going to be sent to the King of Nor... ...d turned-bad turned-even worse characters of all time. His strength to get through all of the circumstances in this play is tremendous. In the end, Claudius was the cause of nine deaths, including himself. Claudius' obsession for control and power ruined one of the greatest kingdoms in history. Works Cited and Consulted: Bradley, A.C. "Shakespeare's Tragic Period--Hamlet." Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Toronto: MacMillan, 1967. 79-174. Oakes, Elizabeth. " Claudius." New Essays on Hamlet. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett and John Manning. NY: AMS Press, 1994. 103-112. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Sven Birkerts, ed., Literature The Evolving Canon, Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1977. States, Bert O. "Horatio-Our Man in Elsinore: An Essay on Dramatic Logic." South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Winter 1979) 46-56

Emergence of Economic, Social and Political Ideas Essay

Introduction The new ideas that shaped our modern world are the influence of democracy, republicanism, nationalism and liberalism. Democracy is a form of gaovernment in which the citizen elects a representative to create laws on their behalf. Republicanism is a form of government in which the head of the state is the citizen of that nation rather than a monarch. A monarch is someone like a king, queen or an emperor. Nationalism is the belief that people of a similar race, culture or ideas ought to belong to the same nation state and liberalism was a movement aimed at protecting and improving the rights of individuals. Age of Revolution American Revolution The American Revolution was a political upheaval, 1765–1783, as the Thirteen American Colonies broke from the British Empire and formed an independent nation, the United States of America. Starting in 1765 the Americans rejected the authority of Parliament to tax them without elected representation. In 1774 the Patriots suppressed the Loy alists and expelled all royal officials. Each colony now had a new government that took control. The British responded by sending combat troops to re-establish royal control. Through the Second Continental Congress, the Patriots fought the British in the American Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. In early 1778, after an invading army from Canada was captured by the Americans, the French entered the war as allies of the United States. The naval and military power of the two sides was about equal, and France had allies in the Netherlands and Spain, while Britain had no major allies in this large-scale war. The war turned to the South, where the British captured an American army at South Carolina, but failed to enlist enough volunteers from Loyalist civilian to take effective control. A combined American–French force captured a second British army at Yorktown in 1781, effectively ending the war in the United States. A peace treaty in 1783 confirmed the new nations complete separation from the British Empire. The United States took possession of nearly all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, with the British retaining control of Canada and Spain taking Florida. The American Revolution was the result of a series of social, political, and intellectual transformations in American society, government and ways of thinking and gained independence. French Revolution The French revolution was from 1780 to 1799. It brought an end to the medieval feudal system of land ownership ain France and eventually Europe but not everyone agreed with this. After the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793, opponents sought to crush it with the help of foreign armies (period known as Reign Of Terror). In the autumn of 1793, Robespierre and the Jacobins focused on addressing economic and political threats within France. What began as a proactive approach to reclaiming the nation quickly turned bloody as the government instituted its infamous campaign against internal opposition known as the Reign of Terror. Beginning in September, Robespierre, under the auspices of the Committee of Public Safety, began pointing an accusing finger at anyone whose beliefs seemed to be counterrevolutionary—citizens who had committed no crime but merely had social or political agendas that varied too much from Robespierre’s. The committee targeted even those who shared many Jacobin views but were perceived as just slightly too radical or conservative. During the nine-month period that followed, anywhere from 15,000 to 50,000 French citizens were beheaded at the guillotine. Even long-time associates of Robespierre such as Georges Danton, who had helped orchestrate the Jacobin rise to power, fell victim to the paranoia. When Danton wavered in his conviction, questioned Robespierre’s increasingly rash actions, and tried to arrange a truce between France and the warring countries, he himself lost his life to the guillotine, in April 1794. ] In conclusion, the outcome of the French revolution is that they overthrew the aristocracy of the day and took control, swept away the French monarchy and nobility, the French Revolution may have been bloody and violent, but in the end it changed the economic, political, and social structure of France forever, Probably the best reforms to come out of the Revolution were the reforms that would be the cornerstone of a legal and administrative system that still endures. There is only one negative outcome I can think of, is that King Louis XVI died, if he hadn’t died then they wouldn’t have attacked France and none would have shed a blood. The Eureka Rebellion The Eureka rebellion in the year 1854 was a historically amazing organised rebellion of gold miners of Victoria, Australia. The battle of the Eureka  Rebellion was fought between miners and the colonial forces of Australia. This event happened because of an act of disobedient in the Ballarat region, during the Victorian gold rush with miners against carrying a miner’s licence due to high fees. The licence fee became the main point of a much larger protest against the lack of democratic rights, and without the right to vote, miners had no say in the governments decisions. The only way their views were known was to either not carry them or even publically burn them and as this gets the Polices attention, they built stockades to protect themselves from the Police. The outcome of the Eureka Rebellion was that they came to symbolize the fight of the ordinary people for justice and basic rights. Female Suffrage The suffragettes argued that women should be able to vote and stand for election because the wishes of women should be reflected in parliament. They argued that a government ‘by the people’ should include government by women, because laws affect women as much as they do men. Vida Goldstein was born in Portland, Victoria. She believed that men and women should have equal rights. She worked for the right of women to vote, called ‘suffrage’, and her parents encouraged her to be strong and free. In 1903 Goldstein was the first woman in the British Empire to try to become a member of a national parliament. She stood for election to the Australian Commonwealth Parliament but did not win. She did not give up but worked towards women’s suffrage in Victorian state elections. Women in Victoria got the vote in 1908. During the First World War, Goldstein formed a group of people who worked for peace. A special tree was planted in the grounds of the Victorian Parl iament to honour her achievements and an electorate (voting area) in Melbourne is named after her. Australian Egalitarianism Egalitarianism basically means a fair go for all. Fairness and equality, mateship and brotherhood are words I would use to describe egalitarianism. Everyone helping everyone through tough and thin, bushfires, droughts and floods, they would all need to co-operate and help each other to survive. However egalitarianism hasn’t applied to everyone in Australia. Within the framework of Australia’s laws, all Australians have the right to express their culture and beliefs and to participate freely in Australia’s national  life. At the same time, everyone is expected to uphold the principles and shared values that support Australia’s way of life. These include: †¢respect for equal worth, dignity and freedom of the individual †¢freedom of speech and association †¢freedom of religion and a secular government †¢support for parliamentary democracy and the rule of law †¢equality under the law †¢equality of men and women and opportunity †¢peacefulness †¢a spirit of egalitarianism that embraces tolerance, and compassion for those in need. Australia also holds firmly to the belief that no one should be disadvantaged on the basis of their country of birth, cultural heritage, language, gender or religious belief. So Is Australia an egalitarian society? Australia is a relatively new country, with federation occurring little over a century ago. However, it has progressed steadily and today we are considered a wealthy, internationally competitive democracy. To many outsiders, Australia looks like heaven, a perfect paradise in which to live. Beautiful beaches, unique animals, a laidback lifestyle and a democratic system of government all add to this image of Australia being the perfect place to live. It has become the way of Australians to promote the image of equality in our country. However, Australia has had a very racist past, with policies such as the White Australia policy and the many discriminatory acts of injustice placed against the native Aboriginals. An egalitarian society is one that looks after the poor, treating them with dignity, and taking appropriate measures to ensure the welfare of all its citizens regardless of age, gender or race. An egalitarian society should not condone any form of discrimination, and should attempt to provide equal opportunity for everyone. Since 1901, Australia has come a long way in fighting inequality. Women now have equal rights to men; the White Australia policy and the Assimilation policy were abolished; life has improved for Aboriginals as their rights are now being acknowledged; average life expectancy has increased; and the government does a good job ensuring that  all Australian citizens benefit from the nation’s prosperity. However, there is an ongoing debate as to whether Australia is starting to neglect the important issue of equality in society. In 2003, it was found that the top 10% of Australian households had a higher income than the bottom 50% of households combined. While one may argue that Australia has become wealthier than ever, statistics read that there are more homeless and disadvantaged people than there were 25 years ago. I believe that Australia has improved in becoming a more equal and fair society but it seems that these days were lacking something, like there is a big gap in between the poor and the rich, like no matter how much they work the poor will stay a poor, and the rich get richer as time goes by.

commentry on the handsmaid tale - 1141 Words

This novel is an account of the near future, a dystopia, wherepollution and radiation has rendered countless women sterile, and the birthrates of North America are dangerously declining. A puritan theocracy nowcontrols the former United States called the Republic of Gilead andHandmaids are recruited to repopulate the state. This novel containsAtwoods strong sense of social awareness, as seen in the use of satire tocomment on different social conditions in the novel. The HandmaidsTale is a warning to young women of the post-feminist 1980s and after,who began taking for granted the rights that had been secured for womenby the women before them. The environmental danger of pollution and radiation run off from powerplants is commented on†¦show more content†¦She explained later toOffred that he was no rapist, only a member of the undergroundrebellion. She wanted to end his suffering. Due to the lack open rebellion, Offreds society is faced with thecomplete loss of freedom. Women are now forbidden any kind ofcommunication. They have to lead a life of servitude and are stripped of allpersonal possessions, of their families, and finally their identities. Theyare all replaceable, categorized objects, Handmaids who are deemedinfertile are sent to the colonies to die. The women are also made to wearuniforms and are named to be defined in their relation to men, forexample Offred serves Fred, and his wife is known only as Wife. Theuniforms in Gilead categorize each group by colour, this serves to segregatethem, like the Jews during World War II. The Wives, who are the higheston the list, wear only light blue. The Handmaids must wear red and theMarthas wear brown. The men all wear similar military uniforms. TheHandmaids uniform is reminiscent of women in the Middle East, becausethey are made to hide the womens bodies and prevent them from beingseen: quot;I get up out of the chair, advance my feet into the sunlight, in theirred shoes, flat-heeled to save the spine and not for dancing. The redgloves are lying on the bed. I pick them up, pull them onto my hands,finger by finger. Everything except the wings around my face is red:the