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From:
Valerie Sutton Date: Tue Apr 18, 2000 5:06 am Subject: Re: Writing skills develop after reading skills | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Valerie wrote: >>That is wonderful news! Your students are not behind anyone since >>everyone else is in the "same boat"! Writing skills always develop >>after reading skills... At 8:16 AM -0700 4/15/00, Stefan Woehrmann wrote: >Well, I got the impression, that my students are following a >different path. I got the idea that in Nicaragua, South - Africa, >Albuquerque the students start with reading and writing all at once. SignWriting List April 17, 2000 Thank you for your outstanding message, Stefan. It is a very important message, and a long one, and I would like to post that as feedback on your web page...along with the wonderful photos of your students! Guess what, everyone! I had a nice surprise yesterday! I was working on web design, and it was a lovely Sunday afternoon. But as always, being the workaholic I am, I was working non-stop and barely knew what a beautiful day it was... The phone rang..."Hi Valerie! This is Judy Kegl. I am in La Jolla...Do you have time to see me?"! I was so thrilled to see Judy again! We talked and talked and talked until I drove Judy to the airport to fly back to Maine late last night. And I even got out of the house and walked along La Jolla's beach! It was great! I got a little chance to hear about Judy and James' work in Nicaragua...one new development is that the TV show called "60-Minutes 2" here in the US, may be airing a program about the schools in Nicaragua on national US television, possibly on Tuesday April 25th...The program is about their work with Deaf children in general, so SignWriting is not the focus of the program, but I am secretly hoping there might be some SignWriting on the blackboard! But now...back to reading and writing... It is my understanding that in Nicaragua they started with reading first and then later they started writing, but we should ask James and Judy... In Albuquerque, teacher Cecilia Flood will tell you that when we first met, before she started introducing SignWriting, I told her I thought reading came first and writing second...so she and I did discuss that issue together... Both teachers from Albuquerque, Cecilia and Lorraine, are members of the SW List. The Albuquerque schools are on Spring break right now, but I hope they can share with us when they get back. Both the Albuquerque Public Schools, and your students, Stefan, started at the same time - in September, 1999. So you are equal in the amount of time - 7 months. However, the Albuquerque people are working with ASL, and since our materials are in ASL, they had that advantage. So it is equal in time, but not materials ;-) The South African project is one month old. And they have no materials written in any of their 11 signed languages yet....so that project has barely gotten started. The experiences of students writing in SignWriting that you heard about....I do not believe they were planned experiences.... I believe the students astonished their own teachers. They were spontaneous inspirations from a few very bright students ...so the writing was not necessarily taught, but instead it "just happened". At least, that is my interpretation of what happened - but I hope the teachers will tell us in their own words! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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