As I started the second half of the reading, I was surprised to see it talked about what is literacy, which is something I never really thought about before. It didn’t occur to me until recently I realized that throughout my life, I was under elite culture. In China, the education system serves well for elite culture. And when I came to the States, both my undergrad and graduate program were with private Christian colleges. Therefore, I seldom encountered people who didn’t have any sort of literacy background. In the book, it talked about literacy has a broader meaning, which is “the ability to read and socially approved ways.” Moreover, we have to tie that within culture settings as well. A point that’s being made by the author was that even teaching elementary literacy is teaching culture. Sometimes, the meaning of literacy can change over time and space.
Through out the reading, I enjoyed when the author pointed out both the advantages and disadvantages of bottom-up and top-down method. I felt in China, we put so many emphasis on bottom-up method and it really discourages students’ motivation in learning English. In China, most cases are like this: students do reading because they need to. But according to the author’s opinion, reading is thinking. We as future educators need to think about what makes sense to students and why students decode the text the way they do. Only in this way, we can provide quality education.
Through out the reading, I enjoyed when the author pointed out both the advantages and disadvantages of bottom-up and top-down method. I felt in China, we put so many emphasis on bottom-up method and it really discourages students’ motivation in learning English. In China, most cases are like this: students do reading because they need to. But according to the author’s opinion, reading is thinking. We as future educators need to think about what makes sense to students and why students decode the text the way they do. Only in this way, we can provide quality education.