felzx002: October 2011 Archives

http://www.hookedonphonics.com/our-approach

As a kid, whenever I would turn on the TV, I would inevitably see a commercial for hooked on phonics. When I was seven, all that I saw was kids having fun and reading books; and the fact that they were on television instantly caused me to ask my parents if we could buy it. Unfortunately, I never got to experience hooked on phonics, but now, looking back on how phonics is crucial to learning how to read, I wonder whether there would have been any difference in my reading development if I had focused more on phonics at an earlier age. Phonics, or phonetic decomposition, is the strategy that involves sounding out words by drawing correspondences between printed letters and sounds. Phonics along with whole word recognition are crucial to reading and it becoming an automatic response. Along with sounding out words, one of the additional aspects of phonics that makes it so successful is that there is repetition. This is an aspect of classical conditioning because they are constantly reinforcing the elements of reading so that children get conditioned to read. The concept of phonics played a very important role in my development as a reader, and I am sure many others as well. Whenever I was stumped by a word I was always told to "sound it out", and in most instances it worked. As years went on, I became familiar with more words and was able to recognize them more readily and using phonics became second nature to me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/health/23brod.html?pagewanted=2&ref=biologicalclocks

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/opinion/14kalish.html?ref=biologicalclocks

As humans we develop many habits over the course of our lives. Many of the things that we do as children stick with us for the majority of our lives, but to what extent is that a good thing? Sleep patterns tend to develop at an early age and bad ones can stick with you for a long time. Many individuals are afflicted with sleep deprivation and many are unaware that they are sleep deprived or the affects that it is having on their body.
The critical age range for when sleep patterns become altered is when a child reaches puberty because that is when their internal clocks shift. As we get older, the amount of sleep we need decreases, but also makes the sleep we actually get more important. Sleep habits are influenced by age and accessibility to things that keep you up such as television and video games.
Sleep deprivation can have many ramifications, both mentally and physically. Some of these being decreased reaction time, moodiness, poor concentration, diabetes, obesity, and increased risky behavior to name a few.
Few realize the benefit that an hour more of sleep can have on an individual. There have been studies in schools, where they have changed the start time from 7:30am to 8:40 am and there was a positive and noticeable difference in attendance and test scores
Many students, myself included, tend to stay up way past when they should and wake up before their body has had the appropriate amount of time to rest and recuperate from the previous day's activities. On nights when I don't get enough sleep, throughout the next day, I tend to get progressively more irritable and unable to get all of my thoughts together and concentrate. This comes at a cost to my education because it makes it harder to focus and retain the information I learn. Therefore, getting more sleep is ultimately more beneficial and will have more lasting and beneficial effects. This makes me realize how important it is to get enough sleep and has made me more cognizant of the affects of sleep patterns on multiple aspect of everyday life.

links-
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/15/health/20080915-brain-development.html
http://www.edinformatics.com/news/teenage_brains.htm

Have you ever pulled out an old photo album, or looked back on an old memory, and wondered, "what was I thinking?" or "why on earth would I do this?" When you reflect on these memories and question what was going through your mind, you can reflect on how much you have grown and matured. It takes around 21 years, or about 7,665 days for your brain to reach full maturity; and a lot happens in that time.
With each passing year, your brain gains an increased sense of maturity. You begin to gain the ability to make your own decisions, analyze situations, and increase your self control; and this is all due to the development of different regions of your brain; the most significant to the process being the frontal lobe, especially the prefrontal cortex. The frontal lobes carry out executive functioning, meaning they oversee and organize many of the other brain functions; therefore giving it a crucial role in development.
Many teenagers can relate to this because they are going through the process right now. It can help explain why they made the decision to go into an unsafe area alone, or dress a certain way. I can speak from first hand experience, that sometimes my parents question why I have done something that seems very rational to me, but completely irrational to them. I can attribute this to the lack of development in my frontal lobes. Although these experiences are very subjective and dependent on the individual, the brain is nonetheless still developing until an individual is in their early twenties, and is therefore a major factor in their everyday decisions. Also, knowing that such development occurs at this time, we can possibly elaborate or expand on our knowledge in those crucial years to make us more high functioning adults.
The process through which our brain develops is the biological equivalent of "growing up" and should therefore be embraced and nurtured. It makes us think twice about the impact the decisions we make now can have on the rest of our lives.