Week Eight Post Two

            While reading chapter twelve I discovered the section on reading wars, math wars, and cognitive theory to be quite intriguing. The two core subjects, math and reading, are being taught to children in one way and the children are then confronted with another method when they changed schools and sometimes even teachers. There have been several debates on how reading should be taught. There are several advocates of the phonics approach, which teaches letter-sound correspondence. Many try to challenge this approach with the whole-language approach, which encourages all language including talking, listening, reading and writing. The phonics proponents believe that decoding letters and sounds is essential to reading and that without it children will flounder and become frustrated. The whole-language proponents counter that phonics drill destroy motivation, reduce comprehension, and lead to children no longer wanting to learn. Vygotsky applies the idea of offering children a choice of books on various subjects, encouraging students to read what they have written to each other and guiding learners within their particular zone of proximal development. I personally believe that the two approaches should be combined together. I believe that it is very important to decode letters and sounds in order to read. I also believe that if you give students the chance to choose their own reading as well as encourage them to share their writings with classmates it would be beneficial. The math wars is a divide between those who see a need for greater emphasis on basic skills in math and others who say students lack a broader, conceptual understanding of the subject. Piaget and Vygotsky inspired sought to make math instruction more active and engaging rather than a matter of memorization than of discovery. I think math is a very hard subject to teach and to learn. When you base your classes on the conceptual understanding of the subject, they will loose interest. If you make math more active and engaging students will learn better because they will have a hands on experience rather than sitting at a table and memorizing. I do think that every person learns a different way, and some techniques are better for specific people.