"Decoding does not mean Reading."

Hi everyone,

An issue that I have with many teachers is that when they hear a student decode well, they believe that a student knows how to read. 

This is far from the truth, yes decoding is essential but if there is little to no comprehension, it is not reading.  A student needs to be able to understand what he/she is reading and be able to discuss the text and write about what they read.To read entails taking in the sense or interpret of what is decoded. 

I have listened to students read with excellent fluency, expression and were first –rate decoder but unfortunately did not understand what they read. I have also had the experience of having new immigrant students with no English knowledge read beautifully as if they were professional radio announcers in their native language and have no comprehension of what they read. This is because Spanish is considered a "transparent language." On another occasion I had students reading at a 2^nd grade level in English decode a leveled text at their appropriate level, nevertheless, these students did not know the meaning of the text they read. 

My point with these two examples is that decoding does not mean reading with comprehension. However, some teachers focus on teaching  fluency and they believe that the student has learned once he/she decodes. Reading entails comprehension of the material. Interpreting, evaluating and using information from written text, is really the predominant purpose of learning to read.

My Take on Tech in Classrooms

Hello everyone!

Technology can have great benefits in the classroom. Why is it that it is not easily adopted by some educators in the classrooms? Why should we care?  These questions may seem biased and aligning with people that may be technologically savvy, while inconsiderate of those who resist change. Nevertheless, I understand the challenges of learning something new and also the harm of not keeping up with the changing trends.

Why is it that it is not easily adopted by some educators? Technology can be intimidating to many educators, it is a set of skills that not everyone possesses. I have personally experienced being taught a lesson by highly qualified instructors who make the subject interesting, relevant and up to date. I would have not noticed that they were not comfortable with technology until they attempted to use it in class, with much effort and cooperation from all present... they blamed it on technological malfunctions and finally...they gave up.

Some reasons why we should care about integrating technology in the classrooms are that technology  is not an innovation, it has been part of society at large. It keeps on developing and becoming more mainstream and part of out daily lives. It has infiltrated our daily routine and become the normal way of doing things in ways we never dreamed possible. We would not think of looking in the dictionary for a meaning, nor going to our public library to find information that we can access in seconds on all sorts of devices. It is part of our personal and professional lives. Technology defines the way we interact and connect with each other. It reinvents the way we meet and even date. It contributes to our modern language in any language new vocabulary words. Technology presents us with a surmountable amount of data, with which we could no longer think its possible to make decisions or survive and our students need to become very comfortable searching, selecting and using this information.