- NCTE Publications Home
- Subjects
- English Language Arts/ Parent Participation
English Language Arts/ Parent Participation
What I Learned at the WLU Conference
Describes things the author learned from presentations at the 2001 Whole Language Umbrella conference including: not many classroom teachers attended the conference; classroom teachers and professors need each other; people take pride in the whole language name; the most powerful force in a classroom is an expert teacher; and building a community is always a work in progress.
Interview with Patrick Shannon
Pat Shannon is Professor of Education at Penn State University. He writes widely on the politics of literacy and in particular the marketing of literacy. Peggy Albers talked with him in November 2001 about his interpretation of how literacy is marketed in schools today.
What’s Going on with … Kittye Copeland
The editors use this column to interview individuals who are active and well known in WLU. Kittye Copeland is a specialist with the public schools working with Title I projects and other literacy services. She is the past president of WLU and we caught up with her in Nashville at the 2000 conference.
Don’t Steal the Struggle! The Commercialization of Literacy and Impact on Teachers
According to Hibbert “[i]ncreasingly it seems the predominance of market ideology is seeping into education (Engel 2000) and literacy is no exception.”
We Need an Education Rights Movement
This speech was delivered at the 2001 Whole Language Umbrella Conference in Chicago Illinois.
The NRP Comparison of Whole Language and Phonics: Ignoring the Crucial Variable in Reading
In this article Krashen examines the results of the NRP’s comparison of skills-based and whole language approaches through the lens of reading comprehension. His findings reveal that even when one accepts the restrictions on what is acceptable research imposed by the panel when one considers the actual amount of reading done by children and examines the results for tests of reading comprehension the research does not show that skills-based methods are superior.
Grocery Lists, Shopping, and a Child’s Writing and Spelling Developmen
Discusses the case of a parent who enrolled her daughter in an after-school literacy program after being told she was not succeeding in school. Notes the teacher was by turns suspicious of and uninterested in the techniques used in the program. Examines the girl’s development as a learner as she worked with her mother on developing weekly grocery lists.
When “Holiday Magic” Hurts
Claims that religious messages in public school are not acceptable and are hurtful to kids who do not subscribe to the beliefs expressed in those messages. Describes the author’s personal experience in witnessing the marginalizing effect of a public school holiday pageant on some of the students.