Reflection #1: “Reading Supports for All” and “The Early Catastrophe”:

For this reflection, I will touch on the two article readings. The first article, “Reading Supports for All”, talks about how scaffolding reading is most beneficial for all students and teachers dealing with the challenges and diverse languages being brought into the classroom. Specifically, this scaffolding reading experience (SRE) is most beneficial for the English Language Learners. Throughout the article, it gives examples on the different stages of this experience and how to accommodate SREs into the everyday classroom. I think SREs can be beneficial for the classes that require reading. I see the benefits of the SREs in a history, English, or science class, but as for math, I am unsure since we do not typically read from a text. It is example based. I also, however, feel that the SREs are accredited with support by listing how teachers can realistically support SREs in their own classroom. I believe that this article went the extra step to show SREs are broken into three simple stages, pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading that really can be manageable with students’ and ELL students’ goals in class.

In “The Early Catastrophe,” I learned that the development of children’s vocabularies and word exposure experiences are broadened or dwindle by their socio-economic status (SES). A child’s vocabulary bank increases the higher their parents’ socio-economic status is in the world. In the reading, I feel as if the chart really made the driving point for this particular article. After all the man hours were put in with the 42 families, the hard work and evidence was shown how a child’s vocabulary directly reflects the parents’ vocabulary and how quickly or slowly these young children are learning and being exposed to new words. I think a different point made in the article that went with the overarching theme and title was that how in the bigger picture, students are having larger vocabularies with every higher level of SES. There is not just a couple words difference; it is in the millions! This is incredible, but in the long run, this makes sense. We are the product of our parents, and I think this is obvious that their vocabulary builds the foundation for the child’s vocabulary.