Montgomery School

A version of this column, How to Stop the Drop in Verbal Scores, by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., appears in todays editions of the New York Times rp.

The latest bad news from our nation’s schools is that the verbal scores of our top students – college bound 17-year-olds who sign up to take the SAT – have once again declined. This unsurprising result is consistent with verbal scores for 17-year-olds on the more broadly based National Assessment of Educational Progress, which have remained essentially unchanged for 40 years.

How worried should we be? Very. And our concerns should be particularly acute because nearly nothing in our otherwise laudable and energetic education reform efforts takes direct aim at the Great Verbal Decline that took place among 17-year-olds from (roughly) 1970 to 1980.

Cognitive psychologists, who are rarely heeded in the intense rough and tumble of the education wars, agree that early childhood language learning (age two to ten) is critical to later verbal competence because of something they call the “Matthew Effect,” which determines the rate at which new word meanings are learned. The name comes from a passage in the Book of Matthew: “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” Those who are language-poor in early childhood get relatively poorer, and fall further behind, while the verbally rich get richer.

In short, the more words you already know, the faster the rate at which you will acquire new words. This sounds like an invitation to vocabulary study for tots, but that’s been tried, and it’s not effective. Most of the word meanings we know are acquired by indirect means by intuitively guessing new meanings as we understand the overall gist of what we are hearing or reading. The Matthew Effect in language can therefore be restated this way: “To those who understand the gist shall be given new word meanings, but to those who do not understand the gist there shall ensue boredom, frustration and discouragement, but not new words.” Multiply that classroom experience thousands of times over the years, and you get lower vocabularies, lower verbal scores.

But note the first half of the Matthew Effect. “Unto every one that hath shall be given.” Clearly the key is to make sure that from kindergarten on every student is brought along from the first days of preschool to understand the gist of what is heard or read. And that means children need to be offered coherent knowledge about the world around them from the first days of school. This is no mere theoretical notion: a recent article in Science by Professor David Dickenson showed that when children in preschool and kindergarten are taught substantial and coherent content concerning the human and natural worlds, the results show up five or six years later in significantly improved verbal scores. (Five years is the time span by which this kind of educational intervention needs to be judged.) By systematically staying on a subject long enough to make all pre-school children familiar with it, the gist becomes understood by all and the rate of word learning increases. This is particularly important for low-income children who come to school with smaller vocabularies and rely on school to impart the knowledge base that affluent children take for granted. Research conducted in France showed that if disadvantaged children receive coherent and cumulative content from a very early age, and if that practice is sustained through the early grades, verbal scores are higher for all by the time they reach later grades, and the demographic achievement gap is greatly reduced. Daniel Willingham, a cognitive scientist at the University of Virginia puts it simply: Teaching content is teaching reading.

The insights of the Matthew Effect seem simply absent from the most visible current reform strategies, which focus on testing, improving teacher quality, increasing the number of charter schools and other fast-paced structural issues. Attention to these structural issues is good, but not enoughwe need to pay equal attention to the substance and year-to-year coherence of what teachers teach and children learn, especially in the critical early years. Under the influence of recent reforms our best public schools – both charter and non-charter have certainly improved the verbal scores of their students, but not as much as their math scores, and not nearly enough to overcome the huge gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students.

Our national verbal decline transcends this “achievement gap” between demographic groups. The language competence of our high school graduates fell precipitously in the seventies, and has never recovered. What changed—and what remains largely un-discussed in education reform—is that in the decades prior to the Great Decline, a content-rich elementary school experience evolved into a content-light, skills-based, test-based approach that dominates in our schools today. On the surface, this is a paradox. De-emphasizing history, science, art and music in favor of spending time learning to read, and take reading tests should raise scores on those tests. The Matthew Effect explains why it doesn’t work.

Nonetheless verbal scores on the standardized tests taken by 17-year-olds may be the closest thing we have to a crystal ball or a canary in a coal mine. Some firm correlations of life chances with verbal skills have been established over many years of research on the large data sets of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. Verbal scores of 17-year-olds predict the students’ future and our collective future. An ability to read, write, speak and listen competently correlates with a students’ capacity to learn new things readily, to communicate with others, and to work at a job effectively. It predicts their future income levels. As the verbal competency of each new generation declines or stagnates, so too will our general economic effectiveness. The single most urgent need of our schools is to raise our children’s verbal scores.

The lesson is a simple one for education reform: the administrative structure of a school, and the heroic abilities of the individual teacher, important as they are, matter less than whether a child gradually gains a critical mass of enabling knowledge over thirteen years of schooling. The key to verbal competence is a broad base of knowledge. The best-intentioned reform efforts will not succeed—cannot succeed—without a commitment to ensuring that all children receive such enabling knowledge from the first days of school.

Visit DonorsChoose.org. Projects can be viewed by location, subject or need level and donations can be made in any amount.

Donations also can be made at classwish.org, through which teachers post wish lists of supplies for their classrooms. Search for schools by typing in a ZIP code and donations to make a donation in any amount.

Collier County teachers also rely on donations from the county’s Education Foundation. To donate to the Collier County Education Foundation, visit / and click “Give.”

For Lee County schools, donations can be made to a similar organization, the Foundation for Lee County Public Schools. To donate, visit / and click “Donate.”

— With her classroom needs high and her school’s funding down, second-grade teacher Stephanie Irish made a wish list of classroom supplies — microscopes and magnifying glasses, compasses, measuring tape, an interactive calendar — that would help her students learn.

Three weeks later, boxes containing the supplies were at her classroom door, provided by donors through a website called DonorsChoose.org.

“The kids were so excited even when the materials were delivered. They were just like, ‘Open the boxes, let’s see!’” said Irish, who teaches at Avalon Elementary, a Title I school in East Naples where 95 percent of students are economically disadvantaged.

Increasingly, local teachers like Irish are turning to DonorsChoose.org, which connects donors to classrooms in need, to pay for materials and projects not covered by school budgets.

The teacher writes a grant request, which is validated by the site. If a donor comes forward, the materials are purchased by DonorsChoose.org and then delivered to the teacher. In return, donors receive photos, updates and thank-you notes from the classroom.

At Avalon Elementary, teachers were introduced to the site through a professional development session held at the start of the school year. Word of it spread through the district and in Lee County schools as well.

There now are 38 requests from Collier County teachers and 24 from Lee County teachers, who teach grades ranging from kindergarten through high school, posted on the site.

Nationwide, there are 25,265 requests from teachers who need overhead projectors, white boards, atlases, science experiment kits, bookshelves and rugs for reading corners. They need jump ropes and basketballs, copy paper and notebooks.

And they need books — books that teach human rights or get kids excited about reading or give them more reading choices. Some teachers include pictures of half-empty book shelves with their requests.

Projects and additional supplies have become especially difficult to pay for following years of cuts to district and school budgets that have forced administrators to be more cautious with spending.

“We’ve all taken a hit on all our budgets, taken a hit because of the state of the economy,” said Suzette Nolan, principal of Avalon Elementary. “There’s just not as much money.”

Lexey Swall/Staff Second-grade teacher Stephanie Irish goes over a reading exercise in class Friday at Avalon Elementary School in East Naples. Irish has used DonorsChoose.org to apply for grants to purchase various teaching tools in her classroom. Teachers in Naples and elsewhere are turning to websites like DonorsChoose.org and classwish.org to raise money for projects and classroom supplies. At some schools, they also list the supplies they need online and ask for donations.

There now are 38 requests from Collier County teachers and 24 from Lee County teachers, who teach grades ranging from kindergarten through high school, posted on the site.

Nationwide, there are 25,265 requests from teachers who need overhead projectors, white boards, atlases, science experiment kits, bookshelves and rugs for reading corners. They need jump ropes and basketballs, copy paper and notebooks.

Teachers in the past spent their own money — research by the National School Supply and Equipment Association found 92 percent of teachers spent as much as $1,000 on supplies in the 2009-10 school year. Now, teachers are using the site to raise money for projects that weren’t possible in the past.

“We’re so used to, ‘Well, that’d be nice but we don’t have that kind of money,’” said Jennifer Moskall, a kindergarten teacher at Lehigh Elementary, a Title I school. “Those kind of things are now possible with DonorsChoose.”

Since its launch, the site has affected more than 5 million students and raised money for more than 205,000 projects, including two of Moskall’s. Moskall received about $400 last spring for a project that allowed her to mail students two books every other week throughout the summer.

The year before, she’d purchased the books herself, wanting to ensure her students continued to read.

“It’s every teacher’s dream — we all spend a fortune out of our pockets as it is — to have somebody willingly donate the funds,” Moskall said.

Many projects get the financial support they need within a couple of months, with donations coming from people who post messages saying they want to support local students or make sure they have up-to-date materials.

Some donations come from other teachers.

Mary Mootispaw was looking through projects recently as she shaped her own request for a portable audio lab cassette and headphones to help her kindergarten students learn to read. The Avalon Elementary teacher stumbled on a request from another Collier County teacher and ended up contributing to it.

“It broke my heart just reading about it,” Mootispaw said. “All he was asking for was basketballs — something so simple. He was hosting a tournament and he didn’t even have basketballs.”

Mootispaw’s own project still is awaiting full funding, as are projects posted by many other area teachers, including Golden Gate High School biology teacher Patty Mermer, who requested materials for a bacteria experiment.

Additional projects are posted each day, and local teachers say they plan to continue using it for funding.

Irish, the second-grade teacher who received donations for a calendar, microscopes and measuring tools, already has posted new requests and helped other teachers with theirs. She said she uses the new supplies almost daily in her classroom.

“It made a huge difference,” she said. “Instead of just explaining to the kids and showing them a picture of a microscope, they can actually put their hands on it and touch it and see how it works.”

As some of you will know I am a firm believer of eBooks and their place in future of learning and learning materials, as well as popular fiction. This is why I though I would post the link to this Infographic on eBooks and textbooks of tomorrow:

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Via: OnlineEducation.net

Interesting facts that the graphic contains:

• Digital textbooks are (on average) 53% cheaper than traditionally printed versions
• Dont invest in whiz-bang highlighter pens, invest in a tablet and use your finger to highlight instead
• Included video and graphics bring the subject to the fore and in an interactive and engaging manner
• New media will complement rather than distract from the original textbook message (depending on the authors use of the media surely?)

What is your view of eBooks and their place in academia? Please leave a comment below and share your views.

Source: merriam-webster.com

The Merriam-Webster online dictionarys definition for literally now includes a note on the incorrect usage of the word:

2. : in effect : virtually

Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.

I know people who will literally start foaming at the mouth (hah) when people confuse the word literally with figuratively. However, this is English, and common usage dictates dictionary definitions even if common usage is wrong. That being said, Im surprised that the reason the definition was changed is claimed as use of pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis people say Im starving if theyre very hungry, but the dictionary definition remains untouched for that word.

In the spirit of the English language, here are three more common words that used to have very the opposite meanings from their 21st century versions:

Terrific used to mean horrible or frightful (from the Latin verb terrere, to frighten. Nowadays it means the exact opposite great or wonderful.

Manufactured used to mean made by hand explicitly. Again, from Latin manus (hand) and facere (to make). Nowadays it just means made, whether by hand or by machinery.

Awful used to mean, as the word itself implies, full of awe as in, inspiring awe in a good way. Nowadays the word has a purely bad connotation at some point, the words meaning remained the same but the connotation changed. The only way it has preserved its original meaning is mostly used in British English, as in he has an awful lot of money.

So, it just goes to show sometimes English likes to mess with you.

In a definitional analogy, one of the words is often the essential quality or characteristic of the other word. Your relationship between the stem words will vary with these analogies, but generally it will sound like “x is essentially y,” “x is defined by being y,” or “x, by definition, is a y.” Let’s take a look at some examples of the most common definitional analogies.

1. MISER : STINGINESS ::
   1. advocate : disapproval
   2. catalyst : completion
   3. tyro : experience
   4. bigot : intolerance
   5. instigator : curiosity

Here, it helps to know that a “miser” is defined as a “stingy person,” that is, someone who hoards wealth and spends as little money as possible. Thus, your relationship can be something like “a miser is characterized by stinginess.” If the second word does not essentially characterize the first, then it should be eliminated. Out of the choices, only a “bigot is essentially characterized by intolerance” (it should be noted here that “intolerance,” in this case, means the unwillingness to accept different opinions or beliefs).

1. FULMINATE : THUNDER ::
   1. rumble : sleep
   2. wail : siren
   3. distance : train
   4. jump : high
   5. sing : songs

Here, the stem words give us a little bit tougher vocabulary. If we are not sure what fulminate means, we may able to deduce its meaning by examining the answer choices. Notice that most of the choices have verbs in the first column and nouns in the second column. First, let’s eliminate the non-relationship pairs. I cannot form a relationship between rumble and sleep (the only relationship I can think of has to do with the fact that snoring, which occurs during sleep, is a kind of rumbling sound, but this is just too vague to justify). The same non-relationship goes for trains and distance (it also does not fit my parts of speech formula). D is also a specious relationship, since high—an adjective—does not match thunder—a noun. We are down to two: b and e. A siren, by definition, wails, whereas songs must be sung (by people). My two relationship choices are as follows: does thunder fulminate (does thunder perform the action of fulminating), or is thunder fulminated (by something else). I can’t imagine how the second option would work since, after all, thunder produces itself, so I’ll go with B. Indeed, fulminate means to explode with loud sound: thunder fulminates just as a siren wails.

The above examples are the simplest and most common type of definitional analogy. Unfortunately, though, definitional analogies tend to get more complex. There are some definitional analogies that do not use the direct equation relationship that I just described.

1. GENEALOGIST : ANCESTRY
   1. meteorologist : rain
   2. chemist : science
   3. geneticist : people
   4. botanist : plants
   5. paleontologist : palindromes

Here, the two stem words and linked by definition, but I cannot say that “x is y” or that “x is characterized by y.” This analogy requires you to use more specific language to define the relationship. The best relationship is “a genealogist is someone who studies ancestry.” Notice some of the traps in the answer choices. One could argue that a meteorologist studies rain, but I cannot say “by definition, a meteorologist studies rain” because rain is just one minor aspect of what a meteorologist essentially studies—weather. A similar argument could be made for choices B and C, but note that a chemist essentially studies chemistry (not just science) and a geneticist essentially studies genes (not just people). D, however, exhibits an essential definition: a botanist, by definition, studies plants.