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Teaching Strategies
Active Learning: 101 Strategies to Teach Any Subject
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Here are some standard Teaching Strategies Instructional scaffolds are the provision of extensive instructional supports when concepts and skills are being first introduced to a learner. These supports are gradually removed when students begin to develop learning strategies to promote their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Bloom's TaxonomyaffectiveThe way people react emotionally, their ability to feel another living things pain or joy. see also affective filter An affective filter is an emotional blockage to new learning. If a learner is suffering from discomfort from embarrassment, shame, or fear of punishment around learning then one would say that the learner has an affective filter preventing learning from taking place. Affective filters are common and instructors need to be aware of the causes of affective filters while dealing with learners who may be more susceptible to emotional impulses or pressures. psychomotorThe ability to physically manipulate a tool or instrument like a hand or a hammer. cognitiveThis is the ability 'to think things through'. There are six levels in the taxonomy, moving through the lowest order processes to the highest: Knowledge
Comprehension
Application
Analysis
Synthesis
Evaluation
Graphic organizers are visual representations of knowledge, concepts or ideas. They are known to help
There are basically two different common methods of teaching reading in English. A "look say" method introduces rigidly selected vocabularies in progressive texts. Students memorize the appearance of words, or learn to recognize words by looking at the first and last letter. Students taught to read by the "look say" method are not taught to pronounce new words. It is known that "look say" students do not naturally learn to spell or write unless explicitly taught. However, they can learn the 5,000 most common words in roughly three years. This is sufficient for basic literacy. The classic implementation of this approach was the McGill reading curriculum used to teach most baby boomers to read in the U.S. "Look say" is the same method used to acquire literacy in languages such as Chinese, based on ideograms. A "phonetic" method teaches sounds to be associated with letters and combinations of letters. Students memorize these associations. They learn to sound out and then blend sound combinations to produce words. This method requires direct teaching of "sounding out" methods, and memorization of pronunciation rules. The most perfect phonetic system is Orton phonography, originally developed to teach brain-damaged adults to read. Orton described 73 "phonograms", or letter combinations, and 23 rules for spelling and pronunciation. By following these rules one can correctly pronounce and spell all but 123 of the 13,000 most common English words. Advocates of "look say" teaching argue that it is the method used by literate adults to read all familiar words. Also the method is said to be easy to teach, and pleasant for students. Critics charge that a "look say" student can only speak and spell words that they have been taught, therefore, the critic says, they are permanently crippled when compared to phonetically-taught students. Also, it is established that this method requires an expensive set of textbooks for each student. It is therefore very popular with textbook companies. Critics have charged that for this reason, book companies may have found methods to bias experts and institutions to favor this method. Advocates of phonetics cite the large reading and spelling vocabulary that phonetic students can theoretically obtain. However, critics of phonetic methods talk of students that fail at each one of the method's many mandatory skills. Almost all students learn letter-sounds. Many students find it difficult to "blend" the letter sounds to produce sensible speech. Some students also fail to apply rules to select letter sounds. Also, critics charge that in phonetic programs, students can learn to pronounce a sentence without ever learning to understand it. The same, of course, holds true for "look say". In practice, the most successful reading programs combine elements of both. For example, the extremely popular book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, by Siegfried Engelmann,, teaches pronunciation and simple phonetics, then supplements it with progressive texts and practice in directed reading. The end result of a mixed method is a casually phonetic student, a much better first-time pronouncer and speller, who still also has look-say acquisition, quick fluency and comprehension. Using an eclectic method, students can select their preferred learning style. This lets all students make progress, yet permits a motivated student to use and recognize the best traits of each method. In the phonic method of teaching English, the schoolchildren are taught the following rules in English pronunciation:
The whole language movement is an attempt to improve the teaching of reading in the public schools. It is the belief that language should not be separated into component skills, but rather experienced as a whole language system of communication; the principles of whole language include:
The components of a whole language literacy program include
Whole language has been characterized as encouraging children to guess at the pronunciation of words rather than focusing on phonics or memorization. Critics of "whole language" maintain that it is less effective than the traditional phonics-based approach, and that it serves chiefly to provide employment for special ed teachers. Proponents maintain that it does incorporate phonics. Of note is that non-alphabetic languages can only be taught "whole language", one pictogram or character at a time.
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