Research Paper Writing

 Another old grad school paper I found while looking for something entirely different. 

Writing Process
Enrico
November 27, 2007

New Structures for Research Writing

    Patricia J. Collins' “Bridging the Gap” raised my interest in investigating research paper writing.  All the freshmen at Leavitt complete a big research project every spring.  For the three years we have given the assignment, no one has been satisfied.  The students find the project long, boring, and unrelated to their lives and other content.  Meanwhile, the teachers feel frustrated that the students merely repeat the information they found, sometimes not even in their own words.  They show no determining of importance or synthesis of ideas.  This project frustrates my whole network, and I hoped to find some information that we could apply this spring when we undertake our research project again. 
    The three articles I found were all from College Teaching.  Initially, I was concerned that the information would not apply to high school freshmen, but because the research papers described were for college freshmen, the information actually fit very well.  Each article discussed the typical college freshmen research paper done in a writing course that is meant to give students an overview of how to do research.  This is the same purpose of our high school freshmen research project: we aim to prepare them for the research they will do the other years of high school.  All three articles present ideas to get students to use critical thinking while researching, synthesizing information, and enlivening their writing.  Also, all three work on breaking the large assignment down into smaller more manageable pieces. 
    James E. Foley's “The Freshmen Research Paper” (2001) details a research project with a different focus.  Tired of boring research papers, Foley assigned students people instead of topics.  However, he did not want reports on celebrity gossip and trivia, so he chose predominate persons in their majors.  Foley used examples of New York Times obituaries as models to show students how to focus on the person's work, not the details of his or her life.  The students' end products would be to write obituaries for their assigned person, but they also had smaller assignments due along the way to help scaffold their work on the project.  In the end, Foley found that not only were the majority of papers no longer boring, but that the students' overall work was much better showing growth not only on research but also on writing.
    Unlike, Foley's article, the other two pieces did not focus on the project as a whole, but rather gave ideas for the structure of the assignment presented to the students.  Stephen L. Broskoske's “Prove Your Case: A New Approach to Teaching Research Papers” (2007) suggests elaborating for students the connection between a lawyer preparing a case and the students preparing their research papers.  Broskoske states, “I draw out the analogy in terms of how lawyers frame their case (as the students define their topics), search out evidence (as the students search for sources), present the evidence (as the students write the paper), and make the closing argument (as the students draw conclusions)” (2007).  Using popular trials currently occurring in the media, Broskoske links the considerations lawyers must take while preparing a case to the decisions student must make as they follow the research process, such as narrowing a topic, presenting creditable evidence, and using an authoritative tone.  Broskoske concludes that the majority of students who used this approach would recommend it and use it again.
    Mardi Mahaffy's “Encouraging Critical Thinking in Student Library Research: An Application of National Standards” (2006) compares to Broskoske's article in that it gives ideas on how to present the research assignment.  This piece discusses the wording of the research assignment or prompt.  Mahaffy presents the five standards for information literacy published by the Association of College and Research Libraries and explains how re-wording a traditional research assignment can help students to demonstrate those standards.  For each of the five standards, Mahaffy explains how re-writing part of an assignment can lead students toward meeting that standard.  For example, to help students “determine the nature and extent of the information needed” Mahaffy suggests asking students to build their background knowledge on a topic using an encyclopedia and then craft two possible thesis statements as opposed to a more traditional assignment which would merely state “choose an issue that you would like to explore further” (Mahaffy 2006).  Unlike the others, Mahaffy does not present any data on how well using this technique works. 
    In my research, I only found two points in these readings lacking for my own personal use.  First, Broskoske's ideas would probably not work for my students.  Most of them would not have the appropriate background knowledge on how a court case or lawyer works for them to understand the analogy.  If we wanted to create a new project that also discussed court cases, maybe something that linked to a text with a trial (ex. To Kill a Mockingbird) or a text that could have a mock trail, then this would perhaps merit the amount of pre-teaching that would be involved to make the analogy accessible for the students.  Secondly , since these articles were for college students, one area was overlooked.  None of the articles discussed formats of or management for note taking.  I found Collins' description of taking notes without looking at the original text unrealistic.  Not only do my students use printouts and photocopies that they will like to highlight, but I would never chose to take notes in that fashion myself.  Since Collin's discussion of note taking left me unsatisfied, this is an area I can investigate further in the future.
    Foley's ideas match my students the best.  Currently, my school has a research project that is based on science content.  The students do not invest in the topics that are handed to them.  Also, my freshmen are not familiar and comfortable with scientific non-fiction and the lack of adequate background and models makes the writing of the paper difficult for them, which aligns with what we have discussed about modeling in class and read in Spandel's chapter on watching others write (Spandel 2005).  Foley's use of obituary format enlivens the writing and provides an accessible model for students, both of which my students need.  The creativity necessary to write an obituary reminded me of the types of projects presented in Collins' piece.  When I read “Bridging the Gap,” I found the list of formats available for presenting their final projects interesting, creative, and fun (Collins 1990).  While I want to offer my students engaging choices for how to present their information, I also see the importance of practicing the non-fiction format.  Keeping that in mind, overall, Foley's topics and format could improve the research assignment, making it more accessible to my students. 
    Similarly, the way Foley breaks down the project also would aid my students.  I am particularly interested in the library scavenger hunt he mentions because Collins did not discuss locating sources because she gathered the materials for her younger students.  While both the librarian and science teachers at Leavitt gather some sources, our goal is for students to locate and evaluate their own sources.  All students get library orientation, but it isn't very gripping.  Having a scavenger hunt once or twice after the orientation would help the students to apply and review the information.  The format would be competitive and fun and could be positively reinforced with prizes.  Foley's annotated bibliography and oral presentation would also work well for my students because we focus on citing and speaking skills freshmen year. 
    Lastly, just before the final assignment is due, Foley takes a week to conference individually with each student.  This connected to Collins' article as well.  She describes how she did status of the class inventories and meets with students during working time to help them along.  Even though Foley is formal and Collins informal, both styles of conferencing give students direct help with their projects.  Currently, the freshmen research project in my school is used as a local assessment and for that reason I am not allowed to help the students much or else it influences the validity of the scores.  However, I want to conference with my students to help.  So often, students just need a little extra help with citing, flow, or adding analysis and I am unable to give them that while they are working. 
    Due to my frustration with our current project and enthusiasm for Foley's ideas I am planning to present my research to my network in hopes that we will scrap, or at least revise, our current assessment and try one which provides more opportunity for the students to connect to their topics, provides more models for the final project, and assesses not only the end product, but many steps along the way giving helpful feedback.  If my network is willing to create a new assessment, we could also use Mahaffy's ideas on how to word the prompts to get more critical thinking.  As our assessment is at present, students are handed a topic by their science teacher and told to research it with a focus on current findings and that they must have one Internet, one journal, and one book source minimum.  This assignment prompt is exactly like the traditional one Mahaffy presents in this article.  Even if we do not create a new assessment, we at least need to re-word our current one so the directions prompt the information literacy standards Mahaffy discusses (determining the scope of the project, accessing needed information, evaluating sources, accomplishing a purpose with the research, and understand legal issues of researching like plagiarism) (Mahaffy 2006). 
    Two of Mahaffy's ideas raise interesting points that contrast our current research assignment.  First, Mahaffy criticizes dictating to students an exact type and number of sources.  He states, “prescribing the types of sources the student is to use sidesteps an opportunity to help the student in developing critical thinking skills” (Mahaffy 2006).  He explains that when students investigate all types of sources, they must evaluate them more fully on their own; while independence is an ultimate goal at Leavitt, our current assignment structure might be limiting the students.  Secondly, Mahaffy mentions using an annotated bibliography in substitution for a formal paper.  He describes students documenting all of their sources and then writing about how each source was useful or not useful and which source was overall most valuable.  This assignment  would work well for the goals of our current freshmen research assessment.  For this assignment, the English department is only concerned with research process, not writing.  The annotated bibliography would be easier for the students to write and the teachers to grade while also fostering in-depth evaluation of sources.  However, the downfall of this assignment is that the students may not ultimately synthesize the information they have gathered if all that was asked of them was a bibliography. 
    Overall, I found it enlightening that college professors struggle with the same problems I do with my high school researchers.  I am excited to present the ideas I have discovered to my network in hopes of bring about some effective change to our assessment. 


Works Cited
Broskoske, Stephen L.  (2007).  Prove Your Case: A New Approach to Teaching Research Papers.
      College Teaching.  55.  31-32.
Collins, Patricia J.  “Chapter 2: Bridging the Gap,” pp. 17-31.  Coming to Know: Writing to Learn in
     the Intermediate Grades, 1990.  New York: Heinemann Educational Books. 
Foley, James E.  (2001).  The Freshmen Research Paper.  College Teaching.  49.  83-86. 
Mahaffy, Mardi.  (2006).  Encouraging Critical Thinking in Student Library Research: An Application
     of National Standards.  College Teaching.  54.  324-327. 
Spandel, Vicki.  (2005).  The Nine Rights of Every Writer.  New York: Heinemann. 

Homework Research

While looking for other old work, came across this research paper I did on homework.  Its really more a paper about research than about homework though. 

 

My Homework was Researching Homework:
An Interpretative Review of Primary Research on Homework

EDU 600 Research Methods and Techniques
Beaudry / Miller
University of Southern Maine
April 29, 2008


Introduction:
    Homework is an integral part to my daily life as a teacher.  I assign reading homework almost every night all year as well as writing assignments and projects.  At my school, we recently spent an in-service day discussing struggling students and student failures, which lead to discussion on homework.  The necessity and grading of homework is highly debated, but I can not see doing without it in my classroom.  So, I decided to use this assignment to become more informed on the issue of homework and see what some research had to say about it.  Even though none of the studies I wound up using directly discussed a secondary English language arts classroom, I found the information interesting and useful. 

Search Process:
    Back in February, I decided to search for studies that dealt with foster care and schooling.  I wrote down the titles of several articles one day in class, but I turned in that sheet and never got it back.  As I waited to get that sheet back, I focused on our current assignments and procrastinated getting my articles.  It turns out that  waiting to get my articles was beneficial because I lost interest in my topic when it came time to buckle down on this assignment.  So, I came up with the idea to research homework, in which I am highly interested.   I went to Academic Search Premiere to find my articles.  I clicked the box for peer reviewed journals and the full text box to help narrow my results.  The original search term I used was just “homework,” but when I saw this search term yielded many results, I narrowed it down to “reading homework,” which reduced the results considerably.  I used the article title and journal name to choose which articles' abstracts I would read.  From the abstracts, I generally could tell if the article was a primary source or not because it would mention samples and such.  In the end, I decided to use the homework study we read in class, so I got rid of my longest article to ease my work load. 

Essential Questions and Hypotheses:
    The first study I read dealing with homework was Elawar and Corno (1985) and it had a clear purpose.  In general, the study question was “What types of homework and teacher uses of homework appear most beneficial for different types of students?” (p. 162).  More specifically, the primary purpose was “to test a response-sensitive feedback treatment in actual classrooms, with specific written feedback tailored to student homework performance” (p. 163).  A second purpose was to see if the treatment would affect students of different ability levels.  Next, I read Bailey et al. (2004) which although clearly stated, had a much different focus: “determine if reading homework, designed to be interactive between children and parents, would increase parental involvement and improve students' abilities to draw inferences from reading material” (p. 173). 
    The third article I encountered, Murray et al. (2006), did not state its purpose quite as clearly.  Generally, it explored how depression in parents affected their ability to help their children with homework, but this was not stated explicitly anywhere in the article.  What was stated were four areas that would be investigated: “promotion of positive mastery motivation, the promotion of independent representational understanding, the provision of general emotional support, and the presence of coercive control” (p. 128).  Then many predictions, or hypotheses, were given, some of which applied directly to the four focus areas; they included: depression would interfere with mothers' ability to support homework,  parents' behavior would associate with child outcomes, promoting positive mastery motivation and independent representational thinking would associate with positive child performance, general emotional support and lack of coercion would associate with high self-esteem and good behavioral adjustment, and lastly, that maternal behavior would have greater affect than paternal (p. 128-9).
    Alber et al. (2002) had a much more straightforward purpose.  This study included two experiments using the same three research questions: “what are the comparative effects of two types of homework assignments on students' (a) accuracy of homework assignments, (b) acquisition of social studies content as measured by next day quizzes, and (c) maintenance of social studies content as measured by unit or chapter tests?” (p. 174). 
    The last two studies I read went together.  Munk et al. (2001) had two purposes: “First, the perceptions of a nationally drawn sample of special and general education parents towards types of homework communication problems will be reported ... Second, the perceptions of both special and general education parents regarding the homework communication problems reported by Jayanthi et al. (1995a) will be described and compared” (p. 191).  The second study, Harniss et al. (2001), was very similar in many aspects which will be described later, but the purpose worked off of the data collected in Munk et al. (2001).  The first study worked to identify the problems with communications while Harniss et al. (2001) had primary purpose to “validate the recommendations reported by the focus groups” and specifically to “identify what recommendations for improving homework communication they perceive as most important and whether there is a difference between” special and general education parents (p. 208). 
    The strongest connection between these studies was they expanded on or verified other published research and thus they all used directional hypotheses.  The experiments described in Alber et al. (2002) were “designed to replicate the study by Hippler et al. (1998)” (p. 174).  Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001) both worked to validate and expand on Jayanthi et al. (1995), and some of the researches worked on all three of those studies.  Bailey et al. (2004) appears to expand on a list of studies listed before the purpose (p. 173), but does not state that it is replicating the studies like the previously mentioned articles did.  Even the Murray et al. (2006) study expanded the previous findings of this longitudinal study. 
    Additionally, researchers investigated how we communicate about homework in four of the studies.  Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001) both explored how communication problems between parents and teachers.  Meanwhile, Elawar and Corno (1985) investigated at how teachers communicate feedback to students.  Another two studies,  Bailey et al. (2004) and Murray et al. (2006), both looked at how parents and their children communicate about homework. 
    A final connection between the topics of study was that the studies were interested in what was most effective.  Alber et al. (2002)  investigated which out of two types of homework was most effective for students. Elawar and Corno (1985) found a more effective form of teacher feedback.  Bailey et al. (2004) looked at effective ways to get parental involvement in homework.  Lastly,  Harniss et al. (2001) gathered parents' views on the most effective ways to solve homework communication problems. 

Type of Research:
    Three of my studies were quasi experiments, which makes them also inferential quantitative research.  All three used convenience samples, which prevented them from being full experiments.  Elawar and Corno (1985) and Bailey et al. (2004) both used treatment and control groups. Elawar and Corno (1985) used a factorial design which resulted in two treatment groups and one control group.  The full treatment group received a specific type of teacher feed back on homework while the control group received only the number of answers that were correct.  A half treatment group was also used where half of the students in the group received the feedback and the other half received just scores.  This was a strength to the experiment because not only were the roles in the half group given at random, but it helped to exclude other factors such as teaching style affecting the results of the experiment. 
    Bailey et al. (2004) also used a factorial design and had two treatment groups, each with a different level of treatment to compare to the control group.  The teachers assigned one treatment group  only homework assignments designed to be interactive between a parent and student.  Meanwhile, the second treatment group received those homework assignments, and the parents attended a workshop about parental involvement in homework.  The control group had neither of these treatments and instead “simply continued their program of instruction and homework with no specific intervention” (p.  175).  In this case, the factorial design was not as beneficial because the roles were assigned by school instead of randomly assigned to a half group like Elawar and Corno (1985).  Thus, even though the extra level of treatment adds to the content of the study, it does not add to its generalizability. 
    Alber et al. (2002) used a much different design than the other two quasi experiments.  This study used an intact group design, a variation of the quasi experiment.  This study used post tests, had no control group, and used a repeated measures design.  A single small group of students switched back and forth between two different treatments, either a SRQ or SRWS homework assignment, and then quizzed after each one.  Alber et al. (2002) could have been improved with a control group because one can not say that using the SRWS method was better than the SRQ method without more control over the variables, such as the difference in difficulty of the material the homework covered. 
    Two studies, Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al, were descriptive quantitative studies and had no control or treatment groups and did not use random sampling.  After all our work in this course, I found that the descriptive studies left something to be desired.  I now know that cause and effect can not be determined from this type of study alone.  Yet, that does not mean that descriptive quantitative studies are all poor.  Some research needs to be a starting point that leads to topics for studies that have more generalizable results.  Harniss et al. (2001) even states under limitations that the findings were “not the results of carefully controlled experimental studies” (p. 223) and recommends that type of research as a step for future research. 
    The remaining study, Murray et al. (2006) was a longitudinal correlational study.  The focus of the overall study was to see how postnatal depressed mothers verses non-depressed mothers affect their children.  Yet, in this study, the researchers also decided to pull in the fathers.  This created many factors to be compared across the four focus areas dealing with homework.  The correlational design  fit the purpose of this study well because the researchers were able to compare depressed and non-depressed mothers to their children's performance in various areas. 

Sample:
    The samples of my studies were extremely varied.  I had samples as small as twelve students (Alber et al) to as large 504 (Elawar and Corno (1985)).  There were samples from Venezuela and Brittan, as well as national United States samples and ones which focused on small sections of America.  The ages of the students were from first grade through high school, and they represented all different backgrounds in race, economics, etc. 
    All but two of my articles gave details about the participants.  Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001) both used the same sampling method, snowball sampling.  The researchers asked teacher participants in previous studies to participate again by recommending parents for the studies.  A major weakness is the article does not provide information about if those originally participants were randomly selected or not and does not tell how the teachers chose what parents to give the surveys to.  Also, the features of the parents selected were not described other than to say the ages of the students, the percentage that had special education services, and that they were from all over the United States.  This would be the weakest description of sampling strategy I encountered because readers of these studies do not know if that sample represents the population and using a non-probability sample hinders generalizability. 
    Three of the studies used convenience samples.  Alber et al. (2002) used a convenience sample because the two modified quasi experiments preformed in this study were done in two different classrooms, but this sample was very small; one class had twelve students and the other twenty.  Bailey et al. (2004) had a larger small of eighty-four participants and did its quasi experiment in a classroom as well so its control and treatment participants were not randomly assigned.  Likewise, Elawar and Corno (1985) also used several classes of students as control and treatment groups so roles could not be assigned randomly, yet this sample was the largest with 504 participants.  In all three cases, the convenience samples were appropriate to the purpose and design of the research. 
    My correlational study, Murray et al. (2006), used a characteristic, postnatal depression, as its “treatment,” which could not be random; however, the participants who formed the control group were randomly selected from those who did not have postnatal depression.  So, the  researchers used randomly choosing participants from large group where it was applicable, which improved the generalizability of the results.  Although the sample selection was appropriate to the study, the description of how participants were selected did not fit any of the types of samples we discussed. 

Data Collection Methods:
    Three of my studies used pre- and post-tests: Elawar and Corno (1985), Murray et al. (2006), and Bailey et al. (2004)  In contrast, Alber et al. (2002) did only post tests after each treatment, which was either a SRQ or SRWS homework assignment.  This design was similar to a repeated measures design.  There were no pretests or control group for the researchers to compare the scores of the post tests.  Instead, the post tests of the different treatments were compared to each other to determine which was more effective.  I found that the results from the studies that used pre- and post-tests showed more clearly that the results were due to the treatments. 
    Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001) used surveys as their major way of collecting data.  The surveys used measure scales to collect data.  There were questions that nominal scales (questions about the background of the student), ordinal scales (questions asking participants to rank items), and interval scales (questions asking participants to say how serious a problem they though each item was).  As similar as the designs of these two studies were, there was a big different in the amount of data they were able to collect.  Both studies used snowball sampling to contact the participants.  All the participants received a survey with a cover letter explaining the directions and telling them of an incentive for completing the survey.  However, Munk et al. (2001) sent the surveys directly to the participants and Harniss et al. (2001) gave the surveys to the teacher to give to parents.  Then, both sets of researchers mailed an extra copy of the survey to the participants later in hopes of more returned surveys.  Munk et al. (2001) had a 63% return rate and Harniss et al. (2001) only had a 26% return rate.  I found this marked difference very interesting, but there was no explanation in the studies explaining reasons for the return rates.  This difference left me wondering if reasons would be clearer if the sample were described for each study. 

Data Analysis:   
    I expected to see all sorts of fancy data analysis methods and complicated charts which would confuse me, but I did not.  Various data analysis tests such as t- tests, ANOVA, Chi squares, or f – tests were mentioned, but only the discussion and charts of uni- and multi-variable regressions in the correlational study overwhelmed me.  The charts gave low p values for several factors, which indicated high probability.  I also could determine the results of t-tests and beta-weights, but I was unsure what factors were included in the R2 scores that were listed.  It appeared that the charts were labeled as “models” and that the total R2 score was determined for the factors listed in each model, but I was unsure how that showed how much the individual factors correlated.  Luckily, the text that described the findings of the statics were clear so I could understand the results. 
    All of my other studies discussed mean and standard deviation.  In fact, in Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001), mean and standard deviation were the primary data analysis.  These two studies did not even contain sections labeled “data analysis,” which surprised me.  However, when I reviewed our materials, I saw that the measured scales they used actual lent itself to this type of analysis.  Plus, the analysis of this data fit the purpose of the studies.  The researchers wanted to know the perspectives of parents on homework issues and finding means for their answers to survey questions fit that purpose.  However, I left wondering about the ends of the articles.  Under limitations, Munk et al. (2001) states that the surveys were done by “self reporters” and “the accuracy of the perceptions cannot be validated”  (p. 201).  Also, they explain that the ranking method is a limitation because “the study indicated only the mean ranking for each problem; this method does not provide absolute meaning of seriousness (p. 201).  Meanwhile, Harniss et all states: “The fact that parents ranked a strategy as more effective than another is no guarantee that it would in fact be the most effective in practice.  Lower ranked items may be equally effective though less desirable from a parent's perspective” (p. 222).  At first I thought this was a weakness, but when I reviewed that interval scales are meant to give values that measure “central tendency,” I realized that this was why the researchers chose this type of data collection and analysis.  Yet, I did question the purpose of obtaining the parent perspective and I wondered if the researchers could have done more analysis that showed statically the similarities and differences between the focus groups in Jayanthi et al. (1995) and the current studies, since part of the purpose of both studies was to extend Jayanthi et al. (1995). 

Results and Outcomes:
    Since all of the studies used directional hypotheses, the results of the studies were not shocking.  Results from four of the studies matched what the researchers predicted and all studies that were meant to replicate a published study confirmed the previously found results.  It was only Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001) that found some differences between the original study they expanded upon and the new results.  These two studies worked to match their findings with the results of focus groups described in Jayanthi et al. (1995).  Unlike their sample which contained only teachers, the focus groups contained teachers, so it was interesting to see the differences in how parents and teachers looked at homework communication problems.  Most notable was that teachers and parents had differing perspectives on blame for homework communication problems, yet agreed on effective interventions for solving the problems. 
    Only two of the studies over concluded.  Although the experiment presented in Elawar and Corno (1985) was superior, the researchers jump too quickly to recommending that all Venezuela schools try this form of feedback on homework.  Alber et al. (2002) over concluded more drastically by recommending that teachers start to convert homework to SRWS format when the study did not show cause and effect.  The other four studies did not over conclude; in fact, they all listed limitations to their research, such as design or sample problems, or suggested data they found which could be further researched. 
    Some of the information I learned from the six studies blended well together even with such a broad the topic.  The findings in Murray et al. (2006) and Bailey et al. (2004) agreed that parents influence students achievement on homework. This also went with some of the findings from Harniss et al. (2001), in which one section of questions on the survey asked parents to rank effectiveness the interventions parents can take with homework.  The parents' answers show that they also saw a connection between their involvement and student achievement.  Yet, the Munk et al. (2001) survey did not shed light on the issue of parents and homework because the parents only commented on teachers; this limitation was stated in the study. 
    I found this information on parents and homework the most applicable to me personally due to the amount of homework I assign.  Knowing how much parents affect homework, I am curious how involved parents are with my students' homework, since I teach older students and many of the participants in these studies were not in high school.   Also, I am also curious about their thoughts on how I communicate with them about homework because I rarely discuss daily assignments with parents since my students are teenagers.  These concerns about parents and homework are possible areas I could investigate when I take Teacher Research in the future.

Generalizability:
    The lack of discussion on validity and reliability surprised me.  The worst studies were Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001), which stated “items for [the surveys] were obtained from previous explorative research that was conduced to identify communication problems related to homework among parents and teachers” (Munk et al, p. 193; Harniss et al, p. 209), but did not explain if those were valid or reliable.  They did describe that they used a “group mind process” to revise the survey twice and did a pilot group, but the group that revised the survey was not described as a panel of experts and no data on what the pilot group's reaction to the survey was given.  Moreover, the problems with the sample, discussed above, also affected the generalizability.  Thus, this research, as good the results sounded, has little generalizability. 
    The best study for generalizability was Elawar and Corno (1985).  This study showed the statistics for reliability of all eight instruments they used for data collection.  These ranged from .68 to .95, all of which were within an acceptable range.  Validity was also mentioned when instruments were described as criterion referenced or standardized, but the descriptions were not as specific as the reliability.  Finally, this study contained the largest sample and included randomly assigned roles when possible, including the half-treatment group.  Thus, the sampling and assignment of roles also helped to make this the strongest study in terms of generalizability. 

Overall Ratings:
    Elawar and Corno (1985), Bailey et al. (2004)  and Murray et al. (2006) were all medium high studies.  A strength for all three of these studies was a clearly described sample.  Additionally, Elawar and Corno (1985) and Bailey et al. (2004) were both quasi experiments that used  treatment and control groups and then analyzed the data to see if the treatment caused the outcomes.  This design was a strength for these two studies because cause and effect could be determined, which was absent in the other studies.  Yet, Elawar and Corno (1985) is the highest rated over all because it used a half treatment group and it listed statically the reliability of every measure, which none of the other studies I looked at did. 
    Meanwhile, Murray et al. (2006) I would rate as a medium study.  Murray et al. (2006) covered many areas that could affect parents and how they interact with their children when working on homework.  This was a strength because uni- and multi- variance regressions were then used to determine which correlations were significant and which factors were not.  The study was solid, but lacked superior elements such as information about instrument validity. 
    Alber et al. (2002) is a medium low study. The samples groups were very small.  The experiment was conducted twice for this study with one sample of twelve and the other twenty.  This small of a sample, which is also a convenience sample, really hurt the generalizability of the study.  Also, the lack of treatment and control groups was a weakness.  Without the use of controls, cause and effect can not be determined.  If this study had contained a control group it could have said that the SRWS was the most effective instead of that there was “powerful evidence of a functional relationship between the SRWS condition and  increased academic achievement” (p. 193). 
    Lastly, the Munk et al. (2001) and Harniss et al. (2001) are low studies.  The lack of description of the sample hurts this study, but it is the lack of information about instrument that really makes these studies lowest to me.  It is possible that the sample reflected the population and that the instrument was valid and reliable, but the researchers did not discuss these areas on the article.  


Works Cited
Alber et al.  (2002).  A comparative analysis of two homework study methods on elementary and
     secondary school students' acquisition and maintenance of social studies content.  Education
     and Treatment of Children.  25, 172-196. 
Bailey et al.  (2004).  The effects of interactive reading homework and parent involvement on children's
     inference responses.  Early Childhood Education Journal.  32, 173 – 178. 
Elawar, M. C. & Corno, L.  (1985).  A factorial experiment in teachers' written feedback on student
     homework: Changing teacher behavior a little rather than a lot.  Journal of Educational
     Psychology.  77, 162 -173.
Harniss et al.  (2001).  Resolving homework-related communication problems: Recommendations of
     parents of children with and without disabilities.  Reading and Writing Quarterly.  17,
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Munk et al.  (2001).  Homework communication problems: Perspectives of special and general
     education parents.  Reading and Writing Quarterly.  17, 189 – 203. 
Murray et al.  (2006).  Conversations around homework: Links to parental mental health, family
     characteristics and child psychological functioning.  British Journal of Developmental
     Psychology.  24, 125 – 149. 

A Pleasant Morning

This morning was the kind of morning I envisioned having when I first became a parent. A morning full of errands and activity, but also including just pleasant moments enjoying each other's company. The only thing that could have been better would have been some hugs and kisses or hysterical giggling, but I'm not being picky!

After breakfast, Natalie and I played for about half an hour. This included Natalie going to her craft table and saying “Nana card.” So, we picked out a pink piece of paper and some stickers to make Nana a card. She also did lots of great scribbling with a green piece of side walk chalk. She chose Blue’s Clues stickers, so after we were finished with the card, she asked to watch the show. We watched an episode as we got ready to go out.

We left at 815 for our 830 doctor’s appointment. The only news at the doctor’s office was that Dr Lewis (Dr Collard is on vacation; Dr Lewis is the woman I saw when in the hospital) asked if anyone had said about how big William is. I said no, and I hadn’t thought to ask. Somehow the conversation veered before she made a prediction, but she was very surprised to hear that Natalie was 8 lbs. After the appointment, I wanted to kill a little time, so we went downstairs to Dunkin Donuts where we shared some OJ and Natalie had one jelly Munchkin. Next, we went to look in the gift shop since we’d never done that before, but it is so small and cramped that lasted about a minute, so we did a diaper change and left. But, to kill a few more minutes, we left through the main entrance and walked around to the car. It was very nice out for a short little walk. (I hate the Maine winters as much as the next person, but I really wish that it never got much warmer than 75).

By this point, it was a little after 9, and we headed over to Sunnyside Park. We were the only people there not part of the day camp program. Natalie immediately wanted to get on a swing, this time the red baby swing. I pushed her in that for at least 20 minutes. She listened and watched the two big kids next to her. When they said numbers, she counted. When one of them said she was getting a kitten, Natalie laughed. She leaned back and looked at me and enjoyed looking at the sky.

When she saw me go in our bad to check the time, she wanted a snack. We went over to a bench and shared a banana, but I had to throw half of it away because it got a little crushed in our bag. Natalie also had a juice box, which she is really starting to get the hang of. It was very nice just stilling on a shady bench with her holding her juice box as she drank. Next, Natalie wanted to see what the big kids were doing, which was getting ready to play a rowdy game on the hard top. Luckily, I talked her out of hanging around and she went on the yellow swing for a while. She didn’t want to leave the park and whined a little, but didn’t put up a big fight.

We got back into the car and drove to the library. On the walk to the door, a loud German Shepherd scared her from inside a parked car and she cowarded against my leg. I don't blame her one bit! I scooped her up before she got upset and we went inside. She went up all of both flights of stairs without holding my hand! She used either the wall or the banister on the first set, and then her hands on the steps on the second set. At the top of each flight she said “I did it!” She wanted to go into story time right away, but the door was locked because we were a few minutes early. So, we went to the bathroom and she washed her hands. She stayed in the story room for at least ten minutes even though the door was open. She pointed out that the girl sitting next to use had glasses (very cool purple ones, in fact) and worked on making friends with a smaller toddler across the room. Then, she wandered around the children's room. Near the end of story time, she started saying “diapee change” over and over and went to the bath room door, so we did that. After a few more minutes of playing, we walked back down the stairs (holding my hand this time) and checked out. She stayed right by me in line without me having to pick her up! Then we walked back to the car and came home for lunch.

The Hurried Child by David Elkind

As a note before I start, I'd like to say that I really struggled writing this review. I had taken notes while reading, but didn't want to reread and compile them. Once I was through reading, I was ready to be done with this book. I kept putting off working on this review. The bulk of the review I wrote from my overall impression of the book, not referencing the text or my notes at all. It was later that I forced myself to go back through the notes to tidy up my ideas. But, then my inability to renew the book and mounting late fees further caused me to speed through the review. Overall, this one isn't my best work, but it was hard to put in the effort and time when I didn't love the book. A good teaching lesson right there.

The Hurried Child: 25th Anniversary Edition by David Elkind (2006)

David Elkind's overall premise is that our society forces children to grow up to fast in many, many different ways. He calls this hurrying. Basically, all hurrying leads to stress, and that stress has many different ways it can affect a child. The bulk of the book discusses how different aspects of family life and culture create these hurried situations and how children respond. Very little time is spend on how to work against hurrying in comparison to the length of the book.

I was disappointed by this book. Jim Trelease's book The Read-Aloud Handbook was the root of that disappointment. I came to trust Trelease's opinions, so his mentioning The Hurried Child equated a recommendation to me, but I found this book lacking. However, I can't be too hard on Trelease. I believe he mentions The Hurried Child in the third edition of his book, which was published in 1995, so its possible that the edition of Elkind's book he read was better than the one I read. See, one of my biggest problems with The Hurried Child was that it didn't seem fully revised. There was dated research (we're talking the 70's), but at least the information on research gave dates. In other places, it was unclear if I was reading a section that had been revised for the new edition published in 2006 or something originally drafted in 1981. Elkind would share rather old fashion practices such as nylon stockings and long pants as a rite of passage, but then discuss American Beauty and Dawson's Creek a few pages later. Another example is that just a few pages into the book, Elkind discusses Kindergarden in all states as if it were a new phenomenon, yet then mentions homework for these students in the same breathe. This lack of clarity was particularly troubling when he discussed broad societal institutions and practices, like education, sports, and day care. For example, when he discusses lengthening the school day and year, cutting recess, and increasing homework as current education trends to combat our poor standing internationally, it is unclear if these are trends from 2006 or years before.

Here are some other examples of dated material still in the 2006 edition:

• Elkind cites that one in three American women lack "the basic skills needed to earn a reasonable leaving." In 2006? No year was given for this statistic.
  
• One paragraph discusses singles, LPs, CDs and tapes and then downloading music in the next.
• The info about the internet is now like internet 101. Pretty much only those who have not kept up with new technology, such as some senior citizens, would not know what he is talking about already.
• NEA survey from 1979 about physical violence in schools.
  
• Students being diagnosed as retarded or disabled when they are ELL or hearing or vision impaired. Seriously? Does this still go on? I can't believe it. I had hearing and vision screening every year from like 1985 - 1995. And the fact that most schools, or at least districts, now employ an ELL teacher, I find it hard to believe that a language barrier would misplace many children

Early on, it was clear that Elkind's text was at least partly guided by his personal political and religious beliefs. After already denouncing modern fashion, Elkind then quotes another man stating that it is the removal of fear surrounding sex that has increased young women becoming sexual active. I find this offensive, since it suggests that we were better off when girls were left in the dark about their sexuality due to societal fears. Later on the same page, Elkind drives home his moral and political point of view by stating that the number of teen pregnancies in the last hundred years hasn't really changed, but the percentage of abortions and children born out of wedlock has increased. Only thirteen pages into the text, it was now extremely clear to me I was reading a book authored by someone who held much more conservative moral / religious and political views than myself. Especially in the first half of the book, I found Elkind's personal views on marriage and sex distracting to his larger topic of childhood stress. I found myself disagreeing with his points about sexual education course quite a bit. I felt he was just not being realistic about when sexual feelings start, let alone when sexual identity begins to form. He says that we should wait until 17 to talk about condoms, abortion, and sexual orientation even though it is just nature causing students much younger, say middle school, to need to think about some of these topics much earlier. In fact, he quotes one expert as saying that sex ed is bad because it teaches that sex is natural and pleasurable for most people, thus resulting in more teen sex. Again, I dislike the hiding of the truth about sex from young people, especailly how this comment hints that it is better if we pretend sex is wrong, sinful, and dirty.

When half way through the text he claims he isn't recommending that the only way to not stress children if for one parent to stay home with the children, I couldn't buy it. It was very obvious to me that he did feel that this return to a former family structure would reduce childhood stress. His statements clearly showed he felt we would all be better if mom and dad stayed married for the kids, even if they had married do to an unexpected teen pregnancy, and that mom should stay home with the kids to prevent the stress of various day care situations. I did find many of the ideas in his chapter on parents interesting (though I often questioned how universal), but I felt too much time was devoted to all possible negative aspects of divorce. In particular, I questioned how he constantly came back to divorced / single parents involving their children in important decisions. First of all, he made no age distinctions. Is he talking 5 year olds or 15 year olds? Secondly, while I don't think it is right for a parent to really confide about resentments about the other parent or their new sex lives, I don't think that it is wrong to talk to a child some about other issues affecting the parent and family. And to add insult to injury, he later claims that teachers expect children going through a divorce to have problems, which I never did. To be honest, at the high school level, most kids kept that information to themselves. In fact, this harping on divorce brings up thoroughness. In general, I like it when an author is thorough, but Elkind seemed to be thorough by discussing every possible negative outcome imaginable, rather than thoroughly backing up his ideas with relevant, recent research or rebutting counterarguments.

Another reason for my disappointment in The Hurried Child was that it didn't focus on the types of topics I thought it would. Elkind spends a lot of time discussing parents, particularly two income and / or divorced families. I admit that being a stay at home mom is a luxury these days and I am glad I am able to do it for at least a few years. In fact, I'll admit, that I often feel pride, sometimes to a sinful degree, that I am able to stay home and provide my daughter (and soon my son) with my personal care all day long. But, like I said, this is a luxury. After a while, I felt Elkind was coming down too hard on these families. While I believe some divorces are due to taking marriage too lightly or other immaturities and that some working families could survive quite comfortably with one income, that is not the case for many. In fact, I don't really know any two income families that have both parents working because both parents are dedicated to their career's or their high class lifestyle. All the families I know have both parent's working to be able to some day pay for college, braces, or teen car insurance if not to afford immediate cost of a mortgage.

As the text progressed, another problem I often had was telling how old the children Elkind was discussing were. This was particularly true in the parenting chapter when debunking group sports. I had come into this text expecting that hurrying by definition dealt with just children before school age. So, it was confusing for me at times. While I am not a huge fan of group sports, I was still surprised at the amount of time of spent on this topic and some of the reasons why parents feel they must enroll their children in such programs at a young age. The most ludicrous on to me was that there are no places that are safe to take your child to play outdoors. Maybe this is true in the inner city, but can't you just accompany your children to the park? True, I life in Maine, where the city isn't the quite the same, but I know of five parks all within ten minutes driving distance. All of them places I feel safe accompanying my child during normal playing hours. Is this really so rare that many parents feel they must enroll their children in sports programs as young as three? It was ideas like these that I wasn't sure were my naivety or Elkind's attempt at thoroughness gone array to over thinking the circumstances of a few and presenting them of the many.

Elkind's tone when discussing education was also hard to swallow. He started off completely on the wrong foot with me by equating teacher unions to standardized tests and textbooks. (I'll admit to my limited experience, but my union fought for over a year to get me fair pay, which otherwise would have meant my fifth year of teaching equal in pay to a first year teacher due to a state mandated minimum salary. My union fought to end such ridiculousness to keep good teachers in my district and I just can't see that as a negative to education). I can't recall a single positive idea about public American education. Instead, his comments were generalizations about all teachers and schools. I consistently found myself offended thinking, "I didn't do / feel that as a teacher." He particularly criticized two current education fads that I'm against: Over testing and moving curriculum to lower and lower elementary grades. In fact, it was my belief that Elkind and I would agree on many points such as these that inspired me to read his book. A list of bad practices made by teachers that increase stress included the ineffective class size for real learning, activities interrupted constantly claiming that teachers rarely do one thing for longer than two minutes, distractions such as behavior management and transitioning eat up all instructional time, and teachers ignore the majority of students labeling them early on as failures. He claims that school forces children into the same situation as a repetitious, boring, and meaningless job. One of the most insulting comments to me was "but soon the endless demands for learning in a non-supportive environment and the competition force the young person to call upon energy reserves that are no always replenished." He at least finished the chapter by saying that from what we've learned about stress in general, teachers under pressure to improve test scores can become egocentric and unappreciative of other people's needs, thus making it an unfavorable position for teaching. At least he gave teachers some slack for being human.

Even though I genearally was annoyed by his negative tone about American public education, he did have several interesting points. I did agree with some of his ideas on rotation and retention for early grades. I was glad that Elkind recognized that learning requires a certain amount of stress. Too often people forget that learning must be stressful or even painful. Many times, Elkind mentions "developmentally appropriate early childhood education programs," but he never defines one clearly. He states it is not hurrying if your child is enrolled in one of these, but doesn't clearly give parents guidelines on how to identify one. One thing intersting was his discussion of how students fear, and are thus stressed by, other students in their schools that they perceive as dangerous. One way off base comment in my mind was the idea that it is not beneficial for teachers in the early grades to be specialists in reading and math. Aren't these the early years when you want your child's teacher to be most knowledgeable to start reading and math off well? I thought it interesting that he mentions the physical symptoms of students always facing failure, but not those of children overwhelmed by parental (and peer) pressure to constantly preform.

Meanwhile, most of Elkind's points about inappropriate media, be it TV, print, movies, or music, really came down to parents monitoring what their children watch. Why would you let a child watch Roseanne or NYPD Blue? Seriously, that isn't the media; that's poor parenting. True, we don't watch many commercials these days, but I don't see kid's advertising during adult shows. Adult shows are marketed towards adults, and to allow a young child to watch one is the parent's fault. One point I agreed with was that children characters on TV are often unrealistic, which is why I think they are so often off screen. Given his seemingly straitlaced opinions, I found it funny that he defended raunchy MAD magazine, yet was rough on girl magazines. He was also rough on the low quality sci fi and romance series. In fact, he pretty much states that girl books are more shallow than boy books, saying that books like Lord of the Flies and A Separate Peace have become classics. One point I found particularly sobering was a quotation from Walter Dean Meyers stating that only 1 in a 100 children's books focus on the black experience. But, Elkind's discussion of music in general seemed dated and off base. He states that all rock is too sexual, but doesn't even mention rap music. In fact, Tiffany was one of his artist examples. The pressure of peers to listen to the right music is one of his points, but this seemed to contradict his ideas later about how important peer relationships are. In general, I think music is an escape for teens, as he mentions, but doesn't focus on.

The chapter on lapware, brain research and the internet seemed to put unrelated topics together, and he wasn't clear on how the internet in particular caused hurrying or related to the other two topics. I expected to agree with most of Elkind's thoughts on lapware, which was one of the reasons I was interested in this book in the first place. These types of programs did not sound very helpful and did seem to just prey on vulnerable parents who want the best for their children. I believe that a little computer exposure is fine for a baby or toddler. For Natalie, we've read books on line a few times and watched videos, but most of her time with the computer now that she is a toddler is imitating what we do - typing, clicking the mouse, and such. I see no issue with allowing a toddler to use a computer to view media you would otherwise see in print or on TV or in imitative play. I really agreed with the point that young children learn best through real objects and people, thus debunking the whole idea of using lapware (or videos) with babies and toddlers. Furthermore, he gives very interesting research about at what ages children acquire the ability to differentiate letters and phonic sounds, all of which is after two, which is far older than the children for whom these products are made.

I also disliked Elkind's tendency to jump to the worse case scenario. Here are a few examples:

• Divorced parents asking their young children who they love more.
• When young adults have inconsistent or discrepant information to help them form their personal identity, they can adopt a negative role, like a criminal or prostitute. Or they may loose their identity in a cult or religious organization.
• Discussing that a larger number of children are kidnapped by noncustodial parent and gives a detailed example in section on free floating anxiety caused by separation.
• Examples of Lilit GAmpel and Christian Kriens who were children prodigies in music who respectively fell of the music map and committed suicide.

Instead of discussing the trouble the average hurried child might encounter, he spends time on these extreme examples. I felt discussing hurrying in these terms was like scare tactics. Most children won't become hard core drug addicts or criminals, even with rough patches growing up.

Several pet peeves of mine about non-fiction texts Elkind commits. First, the formatting is inconsistent in places. There are headings that are italicized in some places, but not in others. It also appeared at least twice that their were inaccuracies in the text. Colette Dowling's book is entitled The Cinderella Complex, not syndrome. And he refers to a band as Destiny's Girls, which I'm pretty sure should be Destiny's Child. I felt that in a third edition, such issues should be ironed out, not created. Furthermore, Elkind block quotes long sections of text from other authors frequently. I would accept that in my freshmen research papers, so I don't respect it much in a professional's writing. I'd say at least half of these long quotations could have been summarized or paraphrased without hurting validity or creditability of the source.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy anything about this text. I did agree with many of Elkind's ideas about standardized testing. In particular, I agreed with his point that over testing or overemphasis on scores causes us to stop focusing on actual learning. He continues on to say that we focus too much on grades, de-emphasizing what the grade truly means about learning, which I also agree with. I also enjoyed his point about how parents hurry their children by pushing them into gifted and talented programs (or, I believe, even honors programs) when they are not right for them. I found some of the information about how humans deal with stress interesting as well as the review of Piaget's ideas about development. But, neither of these topics were why I read this book. I found a few points in the book enlightening. One that particularly sticks with me was about play. I agreed with the author that play is how young children learn and also how they work through emotions and social constructs. He mentions how adults interrupt play with educational questions because we don't realize which type of play is occurring. We see teachable moments and try to seize them, but sometimes a child just needs to play. This really made me think of how I interact with Natalie. I need to broaden the way I talk to her as she plays; we need to not only ask her factual questions about the world around her, but we need to just get engrossed in her play. I also found some of the information about hurrying true for students I've had in the past. Elkind discusses that when children hit adolescence, they tend start to realize the hurrying they were put through as children, and that this can result in all sorts of problems. I've seen many students who are very bright shut down academically, quite possibly in rebellion to parental pushing earlier in school. I've also seen students reacting poorly to the stress of hurrying, some of them struggling to attain perfection while not fully understanding the purpose reaching their goals.

Here are some other interesting points from throughout the text:

• "In sum, needing to support children financially and emotionally, without herself enjoying those kinds of support, is perhaps the most severe stress encountered by a female in our society."
• "Our problems in American education arise because we are not sufficiently American, not because we are insufficiently British or Japanese. Our classrooms are not as individualized, and our curriculums are not as flexible, as our values of individualism and self-reliance demand. True educational reform will only come about when we make our education truly democratic, appropriate to children's individual growth rates and levels of mental development."
• Learning to say thank you isn't about memory, but about reasoning.
• "Cognitive conceit," which is what causes kids to think they know everything. He actually says this is why kids favor stories that "put adults in a derogatory or stupid role," which explains all those Nickelodeon shows my brother and sister-in-law hate.
  
• A child needs to be in formal operation period to understand grammar, algebra, metaphor and meta-cognition. All too complex to teach directly before about age 11.
• Children learn about social contracts more through friendship, which are mutual, rather than unilateral relationships with parents. This is seen through learning rules to games as well as being on a team.
• The low class child is hurried by working parents because of material need, while the middle class two working parent child is hurried by the parents' emotional needs.
  
• The concept of children who are invulnerable to high stress situations.
  

Lastly, here are a few ideas Elkind left me hanging on. They were only mentioned briefly, and I wanted to know more.

• When he discusses women torn between career and staying at home with their children, it would have been nice to hear information about other countries where maternity leave is considerably longer.
  
• How does one identify a "developmentally appropriate early childhood education program"? Give us some criteria, a checklist or something.
• When discussing school burnout, I thought it would be interesting to hear more details about how the stress affects the different types of students he identified. For example, how is the stress of high school different for the valedictorian versus the student forced to stay there even though he wants to be a mechanic.
  

Glad to Not be Teaching Today

Today is a collection of reasons I'm glad I'm not currently teaching.

If I was teaching today, it would be the most stressful and busy time of year: A couple days before finals start. I most likely would be swamped with essays and dreading the in flux of final exams, which would most likely be essays. I'd be considering when I could go without sleep, if necessary, and dealing with concerns about final grades.

If I was teaching today, I would have had to get up at least at 530, if not early to get in some grading. This morning, Natalie slept until 6, allowing me a nice reprieve from her early awaking the last two days.

If I was teaching today, I would have been stuck inside a classroom instead of going out for a nice walk this morning enjoying the 65 - 70 degree weather, slight humidity, birdsong, and smell of flowers. In my classroom, it could have still been stifling from the day before and it would smell like pencil shavings, sweaty kids, and possibly spoiled milk from locker clean out.

If I was teaching today, I would be dreading the foretasted 90 degree weather this afternoon (and almost 100 tomorrow!). Forever ingrained in my mind is DC's sweat dripping off his face on to his final exam on one of these unseasonably hot days during the last week of school. I'd be fielding complaints about the heat from kids wearing hoodies and dealing with begging for me to have fans in the room, though they do not cool the room, only create noise. Here at home, thanks to Mike's awesomeness last night, we now have AC in the living room, where Natalie and I can hide and watch TV all afternoon if need be.

In general, I'm glad to be home so that I can spend time with Natalie. So that I can see her blossum first hand all day long, instead of trying to squeeze all our interactions (plus grading and chores) into a few hours at night and on weekends. Thought today hasn't been anything magical - no huge skills mastered or showers of spontaneous kisses - its still nice to be home with Natalie caring for her myself. If I was teaching, I would be wondering what Natalie was doing right now. But, since I am home, I know she is standing 6 inches from the TV watching Kai-lan and chewing on her stuffed kitty. Since I've been home, I know that she's stacked play-doh balls, shared stickers and toast with her toys, and been sad when her dandelion broke.

The Read-Aloud Handbook

Note: This still needs some editing, but with all the effort I've put into this post (four hours just today!), I really just wanted the satisfaction of publication. I'll be back to polish it up!

The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease
3rd and 6th editions

General Review:
Trelease's general premise: Read to your children 15 - 20 minutes a day from birth. He spends a whole chapter explaining why reading is important, why reading aloud to a child is important, and why reading now is so important. A sampling of his support includes:

• Since humans are pleasure centered and reading takes practice to be done well, reading must be pleasurable for us to want to put in the practice. Being read to from a good book is pleasurable right from birth. Babies enjoy the sound of your voice, toddlers are curious about everything, and the older we get the more we love the conflict, emotion, hope, and escape offered by fiction. Reading is pleasurable, unlike the 1,000 worksheets your child is likely to encounter annually in elementary school.
  
• Reading to your children (as well as traveling with them) builds background knowledge. A huge part of background knowledge is knowing our collective culture. We encounter such references as the Trojan Horse, Noah's Ark, Paul Revere, and countless others daily. Without this knowledge, we don't get the point, or often, the joke.
  
• Adults, parents in particular, are role models. If a child sees and hears adults reading daily, he will expect that reading is part of adult life. Reading aloud is the perfect advertising for the product of reading.
  
• The cost is very low: Some time, a library card, some second hand books, and a basket or shelf for the child to keep the books. A bed side reading lamp is a plus if you can swing it.
  
• Reading aloud to a child starting at young age prepares your child for school by exposing him to rich, formal language not used in every day conversation and by increasing his attention span.
  
• Experts believe that the amount of exercise the speech centers of the brain receive between 12 to 18 months directly affects the lifetime potential of that person in that area. Parents are therefore most important in providing that stimulation.
  

He uses all manner of statistics to support his premise as well. The rest of the book gives information on what to read, how to get it, and when to read it, as well as discussing some of the obstacles that get in the way of reading.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the stages of read-aloud, which discussed topics like bonding with your children over stories, why its good for toddlers to hear the same book a million times, how to move to chapter books, and more. (Though, the reader more intent on getting to the heart of the matter quickly, might want to skip right to the Do's and Don't chapter). The libraries and Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) chapters also contained a lot of interesting points.

Trelease discussed home, school, and public libraries. Of course, he mentioned that its been discovered that the number of books in the home is said to directly correlate with student success. But, I'm still left wondering why that is. I personally think it is not because of the books themselves, though wide access to print is important; I believe that it is the values and attidutes connected with reading in homes with many books that makes the difference. And what about those who are poor who use the library so well but own few books? Are they a rare minority and thus don't affect the numbers? Even still, with $1 books available at The Dollar Store and Target, and even cheaper or free books available through other charitable sourses, there isn't much reason for a child not to receive at least book or two a year. Even with the youngest children, Trelease states that ownership is important. Not only does the child get to mangle the book with love, but under the age of two it is important to build a relationship with the same few books versus the constant flood of different books one might get from a library.

For classroom libraries, there is also a connection between numbers of books and achievement. Most notably, classrooms with libraries report 50% more books read. Yet, sadly, the older students get, the less likely it is for them to have access to classroom library. But, as my personal experience can support, its not enough to just have the books. Teachers must advertise them. Book talks, reading aloud, and cover forward shelving are some of the methods presented. All these books aren't cheap though. In a time where school funds are cut in all areas, Trelease takes a strong stance I'm completely behind. He says to cut sports funding. A community will not allow its sports to be underfunded. But, if the library funding is cut, no one rallies enough to make a change. (As he states about the funding of public libraries later in the chapter, we don't miss what we don't use, and less than ten percent of Americans are regular library patrons. Thus, its not a huge leap that these same adults would allow a school library to be underfunded). I'd add that the school library benefits all students. Not only is the best opportunity for independent reading then present for all students, but all students use the school library in connection with their classes. Meanwhile, sports are not designed for all students, just based on the number of students. Furthermore, I was shocked by the statement that the higher a communities sports scores, the lower their reading scores.

While I have fond memories of teachers reading aloud to me, I don't have any postive memories of SSR. I don't believe I disliked it, but the power of aloud reading left more of a lasting impression. However, I agree with Trelease that SSR goes hand in hand with aloud reading, and I was very impressed with the results I saw implementing daily it in my high school level classes my last year of teaching. (Though I did disagree that reading in class should come before writing in class, because students are more likely to read at home than write at home and writing is a more social process needing the classroom environment to flourish. Ideally, it would all fit, but a secondary teacher can't lengthen the period). I would have loved for SSR to have been daily and school wide, but once students move to a schedule where they have many teachers, SSR starts to become more about policing the students, and only English language arts teachers are left on board. But, how can we expect students to spend time on something academic that we won't spend time on in school? The studies cited state that 90% of students spend only 1% of their free time on reading. Additionally, 90% of students read for less than four minutes a day. (And this is not even mentioning the summer loses children make. I was surprised to hear that it is the summers that widen the gaps in the highest and lowerst studnets).

When SSR is instated in a home or school, there is then a battle about what is acceptable reading. I love Trelease's stance that pretty much anything is allowed. Not only newspapers and magazines of all sorts allowed, but he strongly believes in the value of comic books, series, and even Where's Waldo. In discussing series like Babysitter's Club and The Hardy Boys, which are so often sneered at by many adults and teachers, he states that there is a time when "non-threatening, immediately accessibly reading" is needed. I couldn't agree more. There is a point in most reader's lives where what they need is to read a lot of text to gain fluency and improve on all sorts of basic reading skills. A lite youth series is perfect for this purpose because children and teens are engaged by the plot lines and plow through the texts with huge motivation. My only problem with series like Cirque de Freak and Clique are when a high school freshmen or sophomore still resists trying a book outside their comfort zone. Otherwise, I know their importance. For me it was The Babysitter's Club, closely followed by all of Judy Blume. Another important item in my reading at this important time was Calvin and Hobbes collections. Trelease fully supports comics and comic books, and even explains that their structure and vocabulary can be more complex than other texts. The type of text that Trelease is hard on is the classics. He points out that these books traditionally read in school are not only dated, but often weren't intended for child or teen audiences. He continues on to explain how the cirriculum of only reading the cannon of dead white guys has left generations increasingly more disengaged adult readers. Over the years, I've come to agree with Trelease that the classics aren't the best way to engage all students. But, I have an obligation as an English teacher to expose my students to these texts and teach them how to do my content of literary analysis. My compromise my last year of teaching was to let free choice reading reign most of the year, and then two or three times we read a classic together to practice close reading, thesis writing, and the other English class skills that used to bog down every text.

The information about television in both editions spurred the most conversation between my husband and I. While we both read for recreation, it is not in the same amounts. Recently, I only watch TV if its on for my daughter or if my husband and I are watching a specific show together in the evening; I almost never turn it on for myself anymore. In the past, I used to turn the TV on upon arriving home from school, and I would read and often grade with it on as background noise. My husband is involved in more weekly shows than I, as well as watching the news and sporting events. This means he in general watches more than I do now. But, do either of us feel that Trelease's discussion apply to our home? Are we addicted to television? Are we making a serious mistake by allowing our daughter, who is still under two, to watch about between 2 to 4 hours of TV a day?

At present, we don't feel we are the parents that Trelease reprimands. We do set viewing limits for our daughter. With the exception of a few Disney movies and old cartoons like the Smurfs, Natalie watches only shows directed at preschoolers, all of which have some educational value, even though we know that television only offers passive learning. (I did find the direct quotation implying TV addiction from the president of Nickelodeon shocking, no matter how much I love their subsequently created commercial-free, preschooler channel). Not only are shows monitored, but the times she can watched are set by us, and generally are an hour or so in the the morning and no more than three hours in the evening. However, we wouldn't feel comfortable with these time limits if our daughter just sat and stared the TV the whole time. She stares some, but usually only 10 or 15 minutes at a time before she interacts with us or starts playing with a toy. Additionally, she is still home all day. Even with four hours of a day devoted to TV, she has all the rest of her awake hours to play, socialize, and learn. I'd feel differently is she were away from us at day care for eight hours, or when she starts school. However, I don't claim to be an expert on children and television. The controls we have set in our family have thus far worked. Could she spend more time running and climbing? Yes, but at the time of writing this, we were exiting the winter with me half way through a pregnancy. We all do what we can. And what we've done thus far has given us a well rounded toddler who loves singing, letters, colors, and animals as well as splashing water, climbing stairs, running down ramps and is everywhere commented on about her outgoing personality and verbal abilities. At this point in time, I'm not going to let Trelease's experts scare me into changing our way of life. But ... Trelease expects this reaction from parents; he doesn't believe most parents would attempt or succeed in a TV turn-off project. So, he totes that setting limits, on content and quantity, and teaching critical viewing skills in school is very important, both points I agree with fully.

However, I find myself more educated than the average parent, especially in terms of reading. Some of that comes from teaching high school English for five years and having a Master's degree in Literacy Education, but, surprisingly, my undergrad degree contained absolutely no information on how children learn to read and my master's program, which certifies me K-12, only required one course. Even that one reading development course spent almost no time on babies. So, where did I gain my knowledge of how to develop my daughter's literacy? Two places: 1) my own childhood experiences and 2) doing my own research. Because of these factors, I didn't need Trelease telling me to read aloud to my child from birth or to not let her watch adult television for hours on end. I was excited to read to her the moment she was born and brought her to story time for the first time at 3 weeks old. But, this is not the case for every parent. And after reading this text, I'd say its not even the case for the average parent.

One of my most common wonders while reading this book was are parents uninformed, or do they just not care? More than once Trelease mentions that parents say there isn't time for reading aloud. He sites a study that shows stay-at-home mothers only spend a minute more on one-on-one conversation and educational interactions that working moms. This clearly shows that it isn't a matter of time. Later, Trelease asks parents to think about the amount of time they spend letting their child watch TV or running errands at the mall? The time is there, parents just seem to not know any better. Trelease addresses that a lot of it boils down to how we tend to parent the way we were parented. In my home, reading, books, and education as a whole were highly regarded; father read aloud to us frequently until I was an early teen, all kinds of reading materials were everywhere, and library trips were frequent. Thus, it was natural for my home and my parenting to reflect these values. But, this is not the experience of every child and family, especially those with roots in poverty. The differences in family attitudes on education and reading was the biggest culture shock for me when I began teaching. Thus, this book strives to be a force to educate parents, as well as teachers, librarians, and anyone else who works with parents and children, about the extreme benefits and low time and monetary costs.

Other than TV, father's reading is one of Trelease's big causes. I'm very glad that over the ten years we've been together, Mike has started to read for recreation. (I give Harry Potter full credit; more on the boy wizard below). When Natalie was a newborn, he didn't read to her much. But, within a few months we got into a bed routine that had him as the primary reader. As she got older and grew a strong bond with her Daddy, she now asks him to read to her as often as she asks me. Knowing we have a son on the way, I'm very glad for this positive male role model. Of course, there are many ways for a father to be a strong male influence, but Trelease's book outlines how rarely reading is within the father's arena. So many males aren't recreational readers (because their father's weren't and so on?), so they feel that either the mother's influence is enough, or that it is fine for their sons to not love reading either. The line of thinking "If it was good enough for me, then its good enough for my child," is often valid, but what if you could make things better for your child, and all it took was a library card and 15 minutes of your attention a day? If for so little time and no money you could: improve attention span, enrich language, build world knowledge, share values and morals, teach cultural background, and set the paving stones for independent reading, which is the most important school skill all the way through the grades, why wouldn't you? Again, it leads me to wonder if parents, both fathers and mothers, are ignorant or stubborn.

One of my favorite subjects that came up over and over in this book was Trelease's comments on how literature and reading are about more than the building blocks of academic education. Frequently in his discussions, he comment about how literature helps build our soul as well. For example, he discusses how fairy tales prepare children for the harsh realities of the world. Other times, he mentions how reading teaches us about our culture, both modern and ancient, and is a strong way to teach morality and humanity. Trelease explains how a Havard Business professor teaching ethics had a syllabus full of nothing but literature. Many a time I found myself commenting that these were the real reasons we read. These are the reasons one decides to teach high school English, not to improve test scores or prefect the nation's grammar.

What about all the other teachers? Trelease makes a very strong agreement for why ALL teachers, even the secondary math and science and art teachers, should read aloud in their classrooms. A love for reading affects a child's view of the whole curriculum, and all subject teachers should seize the opportunity to spread that enthusiasm by sharing good titles about their content. Reading aloud to the students gets them interested, and then they strive to read more to learn more, which then improves their vocabulary, spelling, and writing skills. (Yes, its true, reading is the best way to improve spelling and vocabulary, NOT looking words up in the dictionary!). Furthermore, people tend to love fiction; teaching content through story is a great way to hook students.

Differences between 3rd and 6th Editions:
First, I want to note that I read the bulk of the text out of the 3rd edition because it my library had this edition. But, after reading the chapter on television, I searched for a newer edition and got it through inter-library loan. There were big differences between the two editions, but the general message was still the same. The 6th edition had been completely reformatted. Not only was a new font employed and some photographs added to spice it up, but the headings were all turned into questions. I didn't like the heading change, or maybe it was that it seemed the text was generally parred back (about 60 pages shorter despite the room new photos and charts take up in the newer edition). I believe these changes were made to make the text more parent friendly, but as a teacher as well as a parent, I didn't need those changes. Having question headings like a What to Expect parenting book wasn't a plus for me. A change that I did enjoy was to the treasury of read aloud texts at the end. The slight formatting changes made it much easier to read the titles and ages at a glance.

As far as content changes, there were a few fields: technology, titles, and studies. Since I did not reread all of the 6th edition, I didn't see many of the newer references to studies, but I specifically sought out the new titles and technology info. The third edition was published in 1995, and the 6th in 2006. This is a huge difference in terms of new children's titles and technology changes. The treasury of read aloud texts was completely revamped to include many titles from the 10 years between the editions. But, the technology section's revisions were the most needed. In the 3rd edition, there is no mention of the internet and video games are only mentioned in passing. The technology chapter is about television almost exclusively, which makes sense for 1995. But, in 2011, television is not the lone detractor for reading time. Now, the games, social sites, and streaming video the internet offers pose a stronger threat, in my mind, than television alone. If Trelease is ever to publish a 7th edition, he needs to spend even more time on this topic. But, as it is now, the 6th edition does a much better job addressing the technology that interferes with reading. The 6th edition brings many new statistics about television viewing to the plate. (However, I'm not sure that I believe that there is a connection between young TV viewing and ADHD without some rational). Trelease also offers ideas on controlling TV that are more modern, but nothing as modern as the parental controls built into digital TV boxes.

The sixth edition had a chapter dedicated to three new phenomenon: Oprah's book club, Harry Potter, and the internet. I found the ideas about Oprah and Harry most interesting. He looked at both of these cultural reading rockets and explained why they were so successful, versus the interventions that are often forced in the classroom. The four lessons we've learned from Oprah's book club are:

1. To instill the love of reading, you must be an avid reader yourself. However, most teachers don't read any more than the rest of the population.
   
2. The idea of a book club works better than a class.
   
3. There should be more discussion of books, and less writing about them. Talks about books should be open (again, more like a club than a class).
   
4. Put these all together and you get the final lesson: A love of reading is more caught from others, than taught.
   

So, what did Harry Potter teach us? The six lessons we've learned from Pottermania are:

1. Not all series are created equal. Harry had children highly motivated to read books nine times as long as lite youth series like Goosebumps.
   
2. "Children want page turners, just like grown-ups do."
3. When meeting censorship in the name of religion, remember "Christ came to take away our sings, not our minds."
4. There is no reason to fear series books as trash. Even the ones with less quality than Harry Potter have their place.
   
5. Much research has shown that successful and avid readers enjoyed series books as children, too.
   
6. Use movies to promote sequels or other books by the same author. (It was the marketing for the first Harry Potter movie that got both my husband and I to start the series. After getting the last three books on publication day and reading most of the series aloud to our infant daughter, we are currently planning on celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary by seeing the last movie installment).

Lastly, five lessons from the internet:

1. Giving someone a computer doesn't make them more responsible. Kids will instant message in class and go to all manner of inappropriate cites. Who are we kidding? Adults do to on their jobs! I know for a fact that many of the teachers, myself included, I know would use their computers for non-work related purposes during meetings and master's courses. A computer doesn't make someone instantly engaged in the subject and thus immune to the fun allure of the internet.
   
2. The internet and a good library should work together. When you need an in-depth, reliable answer, you need more than Wikipedia.
   
3. Reading from a computer screen (at least in 2006) was slower than paper due to the quality of the image. Also, the embellishments possible on a computer can hide lack of content or creditability.
   
4. Email does not help writing skills.
   
5. Time on the computer isn't any better than time in front of the TV when that time is detracting from reading, socializing, or exercising.

Another interesting change between the 3rd and 6th editions had to due with commercial reading programs. The 3rd edition discusses Hooked on Phonics pretty exclusively. While reading the 3rd edition 2011, I suddenly realized I hadn't heard anything about Hooked on Phonics in a long time, and Trelease explains why, including information about lawsuits against the company. Trelease then gives the International Reading Associations recommended guidelines for choosing a commercial reading program. Paraphrased, these are: Does the product claim a quick fix?; Does the product profess to be self-teaching?; Does the product have little or no opportunity for reading whole texts?; and Does the product approach reading as isolated skills apart from meaningful text? I was hoping that the 6th edition would address 2011's current miracle reading program, Your Baby Can Read, but it does not address this type of program at all. (Instead, it does address computerized reading programs that quiz students on books and award points. Trelease is against how these programs wind up being used, and I can't agree more because my 6th grade reading experience mirrors his discussion). But, using my own judgment, it appears to me that Your Baby Can Read does not meet all of the IRA's criteria.

So, What Happened?

Well, what happened is that first of all, Tony Danza's show was canceled, so when I got behind on reviewing there wasn't any point in catching up. We really liked that show and wanted to see it through to the end. Second, we found out we are pregnant with our second child Christmas morning, which means that my non-fiction reading is very much centered on parenting books at the moment. I hope to get in a couple more education titles before the chaos of the new baby this fall. I had also hoped to tutor some this semester, but even though my old school's guidance counselor was very enthusiastic, there hasn't been a call.

This morning in the car on the way home from play group, I was thinking about the day that I go to my last play group session. We think that will be in about four years when number 2 starts preschool, though depending on what days it meets, we might still go. Definitely though, in five years, we will no longer go and I will return to work. It was sad thinking of leaving something I'll be doing twice a week for seven years! That's longer than I taught for! As for starting back to teaching while being a mom, I don't think about that too much. Its so far away that it doesn't make sense to envision what my classes will be like or even what school I will be at. I do know that I will have to stay after school much, much less and be more organized about the due dates of essays, and give slightly fewer of them.

The only other teacher news I have currently is that my form to renew my teaching license came in the mail. I didn't think I'd be seeing it for months since it is good until July, but I guess if you hadn't done course work you would like some notice. I'm not looking forward to figuring it all out. When my initial license up after two years, the guidance office took care of all the paper and I just handed them a check. I'm a little worried about messing this up or just be frustrated. Luckily, I'm pretty sure that my friend is renewing hers now, too, and we completed our Master's together, so we should have similar things to take of. I also plan on taking a trip to the high school to speak with the guidance worker who did it for me last time to ask questions and I might need to get paper work from her to, not sure since I can't deal with formal paper work.