Phonics for Kids
Anyone beginning the journey of teaching their child to read quickly learns how important phonics is for kids. You’d be hard-pressed to find a reading program that doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on the importance of phonics. But what is phonics anyway, and why is it so important in the wider scheme of literacy?
Although the name sounds complex, the idea of phonics is very simple. The main focus of phonics instruction is to help young readers understand how letters relate to small units of sound, called phonemes, in order to form letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns. These letter-sound correspondences are also known as the alphabetic principle. The letters of the English alphabet are directly related to particular sounds, and phonics instruction helps young readers apply their understanding of the alphabetic principle in their reading.
The most effective reading programs offer phonics instruction in a systematic way. There has also been a great deal of debate about which kind of phonics instruction is the most effective. Although there isn’t a full-out war between the different camps of phonics instruction, the most clearly-drawn lines of battle are between the camps of analytic and synthetic phonics.
Analytic phonics moves from looking at a whole word, to then analysing the smaller units of sound in a word. When using analytic phonics, teachers may have kids look at a range of different words, such as ‘pig’, ‘park’, ‘pear’, in order to help kids deduce that all of those words share the same phoneme /p/. This kind of approach has a tendency to dip a bit too often into the area of rote learning. Because kids are expected to tackle whole words head on, they tend to just memorise the words whole, as they would a sight word. However, if the word is not used often they can easily forget it. Approaching words as whole entities doesn’t help kids to learn how to tackle unfamiliar words.
In contrast to an analytic phonics approach, synthetic phonics teaches kids how to break a word down into its individual sounds before moving on to the whole word. Synthetic phonics gets its name because this approach teaches kids to synthesise, or put together the sounds that a word is made up from. Essential to synthetic phonics instruction is a thorough understanding of the alphabetic principle.
This understanding of the alphabetic principle helps kids as they learn to read unfamiliar words. Instead of approaching the word head-on and then being daunted by its unfamiliarity, young readers learn to approach the word bit-by-bit, sounding it out and running the sounds together until they are able to read the entire word.
Phonics instruction is very important, but its aim should always be to help children read real texts. Reading real texts reinforces all the phonics instruction previously learned and secures it in the mind.
The ABC Reading Eggs program uses a synthetic phonics approach throughout all of its lessons. The program offers instruction in all five of the key literacy skill areas: phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension. Early lessons map individual letters, or letter combinations, linking them with their appropriate sound. This helps to build thorough knowledge of the alphabetic principle in young readers. Children then use that knowledge when they read real books, which they get to do as early as Lesson 9 in the Reading Eggs program. All of the Reading Eggs books are written to provide young readers with ample opportunities to practise their letter-sound correspondences and sight words. ABC Reading Eggs is committed to providing high-quality phonics instruction for kids; all within the larger framework of comprehensive reading instruction.
My son is four. I really didn’t think he was old enough to start a phonics program but I figured it was fun and engaging for him it couldn’t hurt. I didn’t have very high expectations. He went from having no phonics knowledge to reading in about a month! The ‘game’ is so fun for him, he asks to do it nearly every day. He loves the egg reward system too; when he completes enough lessons he gets to go ‘shopping’ in the ‘store’ for game items…I highly recommend this program to all my friends with young children. This is the best online program we have found for phonics! J. Thornburg
Hi there, I’m a Learning Support teacher and I think this program is the best computer program I have seen for teaching phonics. Thanks for such a great resource! Natalie


Students chewing gum, cutting in line and bullying others were some of the "severe" problems American schools faced during the 1940s.
But children of the 1990s are turning to guns and violence as the nation's schools refuse to effectively instill "character values" in them, said Edward J. Earley, a professor of elementary education at Kutztown University.
Character values include knowing what is right, respecting authority and obeying laws, he said.
"You hear about kids having attention deficit disorder," Earley told 20 Lehigh Valley residents Tuesday at a panel discussion on school violence, "but we have a lot of children in this country who have a moral deficit disorder."
The Citizens for Traditional Values organization sponsored the forum, which took place at Cedar Crest Bible Fellowship Church in Salisbury Township.
In the wake of school shootings throughout the nation, Earley and three other panelists representing academic, religious and law enforcement organizations agreed that children are becoming more violent.
But the violence is not directly caused by the media or video games, said Mark Dobil, a Whitehall Township police officer.
Rather, he said, a lack of consequences for bad behavior encourages children to act out through drugs or violence.
"What I see a lot of times with parents is that they try to be friends with their children instead of parents," Dobil said. "If we are going to make any inroads with violence or underage drinking, you have to get to the parents."
Frank J. McVeigh, a retired Muhlenberg College sociology professor, suggested there is no single solution to ending school violence.
Since there are nearly 15 million children attending high school in the United States, it is statistically impossible that violence, in some form, will not occur.
What is vital, however, is instilling values in children so that violence is reduced to an "indivisible minimum," McVeigh said.
"Most problems do, in fact, start at home," he said. "These several shootings are a wake-up call to that."
They may also be a wake-up call that America is collectively moving away from God, said the Rev. Tim Young, pastor of the Presbyterian Living Hope Community Church in Salisbury.
The very state of humankind, Young said, is contributing to the increased violence. Without the presence of God, there is nothing restraining evil, he said.
"Humans enter the world with a tendency to do evil, to be selfish," Young said. "People have said, `I will live without God,' and he said `all right.' This is what happens."
But through community-level discussion on up, citizens can combat violence through awareness, said Daniel Waterman, executive director of Citizens for Traditional Values.
Politicians are secondary to the power of grass-roots initiatives, he added.
"We realize that no one person has the answers. There are a lot of factors why children shoot other children," Waterman said. "But by pulling together, we can all address the various causes."


A Compelling Reason to Finish High School?by Sudip Ghosh, MD | October 22, 2007
A new Finnish study published in Neurology, the official journal of the American Academy of Neurology, concludes that not finishing high school is an independent risk factor for developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) later on in life, compared to those who entered higher education. The study carried out on 1,388 participants, followed them up for an average of 21 years through middle-life and beyond. Participants were categorized according to whether they finished elementary school, middle school or high school, and it was found that compared to those with elementary education only, middle school leavers had a 40 percent lower risk of developing dementia. For those with high school education and beyond, the comparative reduction of risk was 80 percent.
Alzheimer’s disease is often characterized by deposits of abnormal proteins (plaques), changes the structure within brain cells (tangles), amidst widespread loss of brain cells and connections between them. Recent research has suggested that intellectual pursuits, socializing and regular physical exercise are three lifestyle choices that can reduce the risk if development of AD, although how it does so is generally unknown.
Higher education does lead to a vastly enhanced amount of connections (synapses) between brain cells, which might be a regulatory factor controlling our brain’s chemistry as we get older. We are far from understanding what exactly brings on AD, but it might be due to a combination of factors. We also know that a variety of other conditions are linked to it – some genetic mutations (ApoE is the most well-known), damage to the brain’s blood supply by fatty atherosclerotic plaques, smoking or head injury. Education, possibly builds up a huge reserve of specialized and functioning brain cells, which can withstand the damaging factors mentioned above, better and for much longer. Currently this is the best insurance again AD we have got – to fire those brain cells through complex brain skills. This might potentially be a good reason to finish high school and venture beyond, if it is not solely for the pleasures of the intellect.
Ngandu T, von Strauss E et al. Education and dementia: what lies behind the association?Neurology (2007) October; 69:14 pages 1442-50.
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One-room schools were commonplace throughout rural portions of various countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom and Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In most rural (country) and small town schools, all of the students met in a single room. There, a single teacher taught academic basics to five to eight grade levels of elementary-age boys and girls.
The quality of facilities at one-room schools varied with local economic conditions, but generally, the number of children at each grade level would vary with local populations. Most buildings were of simple frame construction, some with the school bell on a cupola. In Midwestern states, sod construction was also used, as well as stone in areas such as portions of the southwest where trees were scarce. In some locations, the schoolhouse was painted red, but most seem to have been white.
The blackboard really is a black board, made of wide boards painted black. It was not until much later that slate was used for chalkboards, although students often had individual slates for writing practice.
Teachers in one-room schools were often former students themselves. During the winter months they would get to the school early to get a fire started in the potbelly stove, so the building would be warm for the students. On many occasions they would prepare a hot, noon meal on top of the stove, usually consisting of soup or stew of some kind.
A typical school day was 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with morning and afternoon recesses of 15 minutes each and an hour period for lunch. “The older students were given the responsibility of bringing in water, carrying in coal or wood for the stove. The younger students would be given responsibilities according to their size and gender such as cleaning the black board (chalkboard), taking the erasers outside for dusting plus other duties that they were capable of doing.
Transportation for children who lived too far to walk was often provided by horse-drawn kid hack or sulky, which could only travel a limited distance in a reasonable amount of time each morning and evening, or students might ride a horse, these being put out to pasture in an adjoining paddock during the day. In more recent times, students rode bicycles.
The school house was the center and focus for thousands of rural communities, hamlets and small towns. Often, town meetings and picnics were also held there.
The vast majority of one-room schools in the United States are no longer used as schools and have either been torn down or converted for other purposes. However, in some rural communities, including among the Amish, one-room or two-room schools are still used, primarily for elementary education, with students graduating to local or regional middle and high schools.


From the Milwaukee Public Schools web site.
In March, Roosevelt Middle School of the Arts teamed up with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Art Education program to integrate art education in a variety of classes. Three groups of UWM students visited Roosevelt to work in social studies, science and language arts classrooms. The goal was to integrate what was being taught in the classroom with the discipline of art, using a life-centered theme and essential questions.
One of the classrooms that participated in this program was Ms. Macchia's third-hour language arts class. The art education students from UWM, Ms. Gonyer, Ms. Stoewe and Ms. Dahlen worked with Ms. Macchia to support her lessons on persuasive and creative writing through art. Roosevelt students were introduced to and encouraged to explore the theme of identity. Students investigated contemporary artworks by Hank Willis Thomas, Banksy and advertisements to investigate how identity is formed and displayed to convey cultural understandings about people and groups. During lessons, students used writing to further explore the topic and describe their own identities. Once students had their own stories and messages to share, they created their own poster advertisements about their narratives, using printmaking techniques. Narratives spoke to how they could shape the world, making a positive impact on others.


Don't toss out those old tortillas! Your child can use them to create her own tortilla chips in any flavor she can imagine. And, she’ll hone her culinary skills along the way.
What You Do:
- Start by helping your third grader preheat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Now she can get out a sheet pan and measure and add the vegetable oil to the pan.
- Have your child stack the tortillas together and use a knife to create several triangles out of the circles. Not only is she honing her cutting skills, she’s learning more about shapes and math concepts.
- Now she can position the cut triangles of tortilla onto the oil coated sheet pan along with turning the triangles so they have oil on both sides, which will help them toast up nicely.
- Invite your child to place the tortilla chips in the hot oven and let bake for a couple of minutes and then remove using oven mitts, and flip the triangles using a spatula. Once the tortilla chips are toasted on both sides, she can remove them from the oven.
Now your child can sprinkle the warm tortilla chips with salt and pepper and enjoy with her favorite salsa! Or, for a special treat, your child can experiment with different flavors by sprinkling with cinnamon and sugar, or one of her other favorite seasonings.
Sarah Lipoff has a K-12 Art Education degree and enjoys working with kids of all ages.


Sick of the same old arts and crafts projects? Try a new kind of art—string art! Kids make a simple geometric design while they learn how to use a hammer and nails. Along the way, they get lots of practice with fine motor skills and hand eye coordination, too.
What You Do:
- Help your child position the larger plate so that it's centered on the wood board, and have him use a pencil to lightly trace around the outside.
- Now, have him position the smaller plate inside the larger circle and trace around the outside, creating a smaller circle inside the larger one.
- Have your child use a ruler to measure and mark every half inch around each circle. As he works, he's also getting great practice with his math skills and concentration!
- Now its time for some hammering! Place a magazine under the wood base to ensure his nails won't pound through the work table. Then, help him use the ball peen hammer to hammer a nail into each mark on both circles.
- When the nails are all in, its time for some colorful string! Have him cut a length of string and tie it around a nail on the outside circle. Then, have him loop the string around the nails, first on the inside and then outside circle, creating a zigzagged design around the circle.
- Next, he can use the other color of string to tie, loop, and zigzag on the nails that haven’t been looped with string.
- Have him continue tying and looping lengths of string until each nail has been looped with a piece of string.
When he's all done, help him find a special spot to display finished geometric string art for the whole family to enjoy!
Sarah Lipoff has a K-12 Art Education degree and enjoys working with kids of all ages.


When art comes into any classroom, it enhances learning in unexpected, positive ways.
When third- and fourth-graders at Muhlenberg Elementary School in Allentown studied life in China and Japan recently, they drew pictures of dragons, made kites in the shape of colorful carp and, in math class, assembled little Japanese counting books.
To learn about Asian literature, they wrote poems in traditional styles, including haiku and a form in which the poem's words are arranged to resemble the poem's theme -- a poem about a dragon that looks like a dragon, for example.
"Both the gifted children, as well as those children who do not normally shine in language arts, responded in new ways that pleased their teachers," says Marilyn Hazelton, Allentown poet and creative writing teacher who collaborated with Muhlenberg art teacher Mary Ellen Lehman as part of an arts-in-education residency sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Arts Council.
The importance of the arts to children's learning will be the topic of a keynote address by Dr. Judith Burton at the Lehigh Valley Arts Council's annual arts-in-education conference 6-9 p.m. Thursday in the Cecil Lipkin Theater in Northampton Hall at Northampton Community College.
Burton, co-founder of The Center for Arts Education Research at Teachers College in New York City, co-wrote a study that found that students at schools with strong arts programs were better able to express thoughts, have original ideas, be flexible in thinking and take risks in learning. The study also found that students were able to apply learning abilities gained in art classes to other subjects.
It is time for a serious re-evaluation of curriculums based on understanding how the mind works, she says. "If verbal language is the language of thought, then visual language and musical language are symbol systems through which we can also construct and make meaning for ourselves," she says.
According to her research, she says, one art class a week is not enough.
Burton also chairs Columbia University's Department of Arts and Humanities and directs the Program in Art and Art Education at Teachers College. She is an internationally respected scholar, lecturer and author.
The conference, "Teaching and Reaching Children: The Arts as a Springboard to Student Success," will present information about how the arts can improve academic performance, energize teachers and transform learning environments.
The Lehigh Valley Arts Council has a strong emphasis on developing opportunities for schools and artists of all kinds to work together. The conference, which is open to the public, is an opportunity for artists, educators, administrators and parents to learn more about some successful in-school arts projects, including:
"Let's Pretend -- The Role of Storytelling in the Classroom," with storyteller Eva Grayzel;
"Linking Learning, Dance and Culture," with dancer Trish MacCubbin, aka "Tahya;"
"Poetry and the Study of Asian Cultures," with poet Marilyn Hazelton;
"Using Art to Build Community Among At-Risk Populations," with clay artist Tomas Wolff;
"Integrating Historical Bethlehem Resources into Curriculum," with Karen Huetter, Lyn Curtis and Barbara Schafer of the Historic Bethlehem Partnership;
"Allentown Art Museum Education Initiatives in the Schools," with museum Education Director Lynn Berkowitz;
"Exploring Links Between Design, Storytelling, Drumming and Dance," with storyteller Lisa Facciponti and art specialist Kerri Griffin;
"Making Local History Come Alive -- How the Reading Mural Project Grew," with art educator Judith Krieger and retired teacher Betty Mraz;
"Linking Simple Machines and Art," with artist Liz Mango and enrichment specialist Dr. Phyllis Finger;
"How an Artist Helps Plan a Residency" with artist George Shortess, dance educators Margo Ging and Barbara Pearson and storyteller Mary Wright.
The conference is supported by Binney & Smith Inc., Lehigh County, the Samuels Family Foundation, Summit Bank and The Century Fund.
The registration fee is $8 for the public, and $5 for LVAC members and students. Call 610-437-5915.


Contact: science press package
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Tool use by wild monkeys
A male capuchin.
Image courtesy of A. Moura.
Click here for a high resolution photograph.
Researchers have spotted wild capuchin monkeys using stones to dig up edible roots -- a type of tool use that hasn't been seen before in any other wild animals.
Capuchins are intelligent little monkeys that are sometimes kept as pets. In old stories and pictures, organ grinders often had capuchins that would pass a hat around for money while the organ grinder played. These days, the most popular capuchin may be Ross' pet monkey on the television show, Friends.
Researchers used to think that only humans used tools, but now they know that some other animals, like chimpanzees, do too. But typically chimps use sticks, for example, to poke into termite mounds. No one has reported seeing wild animals use stones for digging before, according to Science authors Antonio C. de A. Moura and Phyllis C. Lee of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, U.K
Scientists know that capuchins use tools in captivity but have only occasionally observed them doing this in the wild. Moura and Lee watched capuchins in a region of northeastern Brazil known as the Caatinga dry forest. They saw the monkeys using tools almost daily to collect food.
The monkeys used rocks and sticks as tools for digging, for cracking seeds, hollow branches and tubers, and for probing tree holes or rock crevices. Digging was the most frequent type of tool use. The monkeys typically held a stone with one hand and hit the ground quickly several times while scooping away the soil with the other hand.
The researchers report their discovery in the 10 December issue of the journal, Science. They propose that the monkeys may only use tools under certain conditions, such as the long dry seasons of the Brazilian Caatinga, when food is relatively hard to find.
Back to Science for kids
Science is published by AAAS, the non-profit science society.


September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month
The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society.
About National Hispanic Heritage Month
Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.
The observation started in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15 and ending on October 15. It was enacted into law on August 17, 1988, on the approval of Public Law 100-402.
The day of September 15 is significant because it is the anniversary of independence for Latin American countries Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on September 16 and September18, respectively. Also, Columbus Day or Día de la Raza, which is October 12, falls within this 30 day period.
Pablo Cano: The Toy Box Revival
September 28 @ 7 pm
October 13 and 14 @ 12 pm & 2 pm
November 3 @ 2 pm
MOCA will present a revival of Pablo Cano’s 2004 musical marionette production, The Toy Box with five public performances September to November. Featuring marionettes and a stage set created from found objects by Miami performance artist Pablo Cano, The Toy Box is based on Claude Debussy’s 1913 children’s ballet La Boite a Joujoux, a solo piano piece that was intended for marionettes, but never realized during the French composer’s lifetime.
Latina Women and the Body
October 3, October 10, October 17 @ 7 pm
Presented by MOCA’s Women on the Rise! program in partnership with
Florida International University’s Women Studies Center
Wednesday October @ 7 pm
Ni Pardo, Ni Prieto: Presentations of Skin Color Influencing Hispanic Women’s Self Identity
Dr. Dionne Stephens, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, Affiliated Faculty member of Women’s Studies Program and Latin America & Caribbean Studies Center, Florida International University
Wednesday October 10 @ 7 pm
Panel Discussion: Making Art Out of Excess: Exploring Latina Styles and Sexualities.
- A Chonga Manifesto: Thinking, Embodying, and Re-Imagining Latina Girlhood – Jillian Hernandez, MOCA Education Outreach Coordinator and Ph.D. Candidate in Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University
- Cuban Beauties: Assets in Excess – Crystal Pearl, Visual artist and MOCA educator
- Moderated by Anya Wallace, Ph.D. student in Women’s Studies and Art Education at Penn State and MOCA educator
Wednesday October 17 @ 7 pm
Latinas in Hollywood: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Dr. Myra Mendible, Professor in the Language and Literature department, Florida Gulf Coast University
(This lecture will be followed by a book signing with Dr. Mandible in the MOCA Shop of From Bananas to Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture, University of Texas Press, 2007).
Latina Women and the Body is made possible through sponsorships from FIU’s Women’s Studies Center, Department of English, and Latin American and Caribbean Center.
MOCA by Moonlight: Arts for All: Frida Kahlo
Wednesday, October 24 @ 7 pm
Members $10, Non-members $15
Hands on art project inspired by Frida Kahlo
ART TALK: Claudia Calirman Brazilian Art under Dictatorship
Tuesday, November 2 @ 7 pm
Latin American Art historian Claudia Calirman will discuss the strategies and achievements of three Brazils most important contemporary artists—Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles – who flourished in that country in the late 1960’s and 70’s by devising new and subtle modes of artistic intervention to express themselves and disguise political protest
Image: Jorge Pardo, Six Lamps (multiple), 2010-2011 , Mixed media, Various dimensions , Gift of Barbara, David and Casey Herzberg. In memory of Sophie Miller


WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – New research shows that the special training of music conductors seems to enhance the way their senses work together – enabling them to quickly tell who played a wrong note, for example. Scientists hope the research will lead to new discoveries about how music training may change the brain.
“Studies have shown that while students who get music training may sometimes do better academically, no research has explored whether this training actually causes changes in the brain,” said Jonathan Burdette, M.D., associate professor of radiology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
The research, conducted by Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNC-G) Music Research Institute, was presented today at the 35th annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C. The study focused on multisensory processing, which is the brain’s ability to combine information from several senses, such as seeing an ambulance and hearing its siren.
“Multisensory processing has been shown to speed our reactions, help us identify objects and heighten our awareness,” said Burdette. “We hope to learn which brain areas are involved in this ability and how they can be enhanced by training.”
The researchers’ goal was to scientifically examine whether music conductors’ intensive training gives them special skills at locating sounds. For example, conductors must be very adept at not only identifying errors, but also in precisely identifying the errant sound both in time and space. This was one of the first studies to examine multisensory processing in this unique population.
“Our research suggests that conductors are better able to combine and use auditory and visual cues than the musically untrained,” said Donald A. Hodges, Ph.D, Covington Distinguished Professor of Music Education at UNC-G. “The conductors were also significantly better at locating sounds in space and using sound to locate objects.”
The study involved 20 conductors and 20 musically untrained subjects. Conductors were between the ages of 28-40 and had an average of more than 10 years’ experience as a band or orchestra director in middle or high school.
All participants were seated in a dark room and were asked to locate a briefly flashed light, a short beep, or a target that combined both light and sound at the same time and location. Targets were presented in random order from a variety of locations, and participants used a laser pointer to locate the target. The speed and precision of their responses were measured.
While subjects in both groups performed equally well in locating visual targets, conductors were significantly better at locating auditory targets than the musically untrained. They also performed much better when the light and sound were combined than they did on tasks using visual targets alone. This improvement was not seen in the musically untrained subjects and is typically not observed in the general population.
These results suggest fundamental differences in the ability of music conductors to use cues from multiple senses to locate objects in space. The next step in the research will be to have some of the subjects undergo brain scans with functional magnetic resonance imaging, which shows which areas of the brain are active during a task. The goal is to identify areas of the brain that may be involved in these differences in spatial abilities – and that may be capable of improved processing with training.
David Hairston from the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center was a co-researcher. Hodges and Burdette presented preliminary results of this work at the Neurosciences of Music II conference in Leipzig, Germany, in May 2005.
Media Contacts: Karen Richardson, firstname.lastname@example.org; Shannon Koontz, email@example.com; at 336-716-4587.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine. The system comprises 1,187 acute care, psychiatric, rehabilitation and long-term care beds and is consistently ranked as one of “America’s Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report.


Goodbye reading, writing and arithmetic. Hello reading, writing and algorithms.
The British Columbia government has just announced groundbreaking plans to integrate computer coding into the school curriculum. Starting in kindergarten, children will learn the foundational skills to solve coding problems, while high school students will eventually be able to specialize in specific types of coding.
Behind the change is a push to capitalize on the province’s newest job wave: technology. The tech sector currently employs an estimated 86,000 people, more than forestry, mining and oil and gas together, according to the Globe and Mail. And tech is one of the few industries that’s rapidly expanding.
In fact, there’s a significant shortage of qualified job candidates. Vancouver companies are already forced to look outside the province for engineering talent. Across Canada, it’s expected that there will be a shortfall of 180,000 communications and technology workers by 2019.
B.C.’s new coding curriculum is intended to reverse that trend. Over the next three years, the curriculum will be introduced across all grades. Its centrepiece will be a new applied design, skills and technology program (ADST) focused on the problem-solving and creative-thinking skills essential in the tech world.
Starting in kindergarten, children will engage in strategic play to develop ADST skills. In middle school, they’ll learn the basics of how to code, as well as how to debug algorithms. In high school, students will be able to hone in on particular aspects of programming.
The new curriculum is part of a broader strategy to support the province’s burgeoning tech sector. Last month, the province unveiled a new $100-million venture capital fund designed to help tech businesses get off the ground. International tech successes already headquartered in Vancouver include social-media company Hootsuite and e-commerce giant BuildDirect, among others.
B.C. isn’t the first province to formally integrate computer coding into its school curriculum. Nova Scotia initiated its own program in 2015.


The Amount and Effect of Recreational Reading in Selected Fifth Grade Classes
Date of Award
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Reading and Language Arts
William D. Sheldon
Elementary education, Accessibility, Recommendation, Reading achievement, Vocabulary, Reading comprehension
Education | Reading and Language
In this investigation, the recreational reading of 190 fifth grade children in suburban schools was studies. Children were trained to record all books read outside of school. Certain conditions were controlled to foster honesty and accuracy in the children's records of their readings. The purposes of the investigation were a) to collect data concerning the amount of reading done by the children, b) to observe the effects of two factors --- accessibility and recommendation -- upon the number of books read by the children, and c) to determine whether the number of books could be shown to be correlated with gain in reading achievement test scores in vocabulary comprehension.
Surface provides description only. Full text is available to ProQuest subscribers. Ask your Librarian for assistance.
Bissett, Donald J., "The Amount and Effect of Recreational Reading in Selected Fifth Grade Classes" (1969). Reading and Language Arts - Dissertations. Paper 18.


Experimental Education Programme
The objective of the education programme of the Urban Majorities Project 1900-2025 is to integrate the approach to artistic, cultural, and political research, expressions, and representations within the melting pot of the great cities, which are considered essential actors and crucial spaces for interaction in the 21st-century world. The historic establishment of a global society will depend to a large extent on how the paths of people who meet in the great cities are woven together. The first initiatives under the programme are aimed principally at secondary school pupils.
Artistic representations. The programme seeks to pose questions that can give works meaning and to do at school what is best done at school (such as combating prejudice and providing relevant information), so that afterwards, pupils will visit museums and art institutions with a perspective allowing explanations to be as free as possible, which will in turn encourage a more direct and personal appreciation of the works. The museum goes to school (and give classes), and then the school goes to the museum (and the experience is much different when the class actually comes face-to-face with the works).
This is the format described in the initiative Interior Worlds and Public Commitment, which was completed over a full school year. The exhibition Barcelona, A Right for All, presented at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in May 2007 and including 480 posters, was the culmination of a work aimed at building perspective and encouraging creative experimentation among nearly one thousand pupils at twenty-one schools. These pupils began the school year by viewing the exhibition Forms for the 21st Century, Recent Works by Antoni Tàpies and then making it their own. After that they undertook an in-depth exploration of the show The Posters of Tàpies and the Public Sphere. The format adopted by the art education initiative under the Urban Majorities Project 1900-2025 also inspired experimentation by other Barcelona museum institutions that since have updated their education programmes.
Urban representations. The initiatives involving secondary schools and universities (including the Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst of Zurich), which had already given place to the trajectories of the project Tourismes. The Defeat of Dissent produced by the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in 2004, have begun to take shape in different Journeys through Barcelona, of which the route From La Mina to Pedralbes through the Heart of the City is already operational. This trajectory takes the form of an itinerary with different stop-overs, and is conceived as a tool for developing a cognitive and aesthetic approach which will then weave personal narratives and imaginaries into the historic studies and systematic analyses of the complexities of large cities.
In cooperation with other institutions forming part of the Urban Majorities Project 1900-2025 network, a seminar will soon be held to draw conclusions from the experience. This process is expected to articulate new lines of action in the same field, thus affecting the metropolitan city as a whole.
Political representations. The objective of the Besòs Youth Parliament is to help test new ways of providing education in democracy by teaching participants about the culture of assembly, political representation, and negotiation; by distinguishing and making social use of the different forms of discourse (analysing, questioning, evaluating, wishing, proposing, etc.); and in ascertaining limits to action such as the effective meeting point between ethics and politics, because the microcosm of youth is no less complex than the world of adults.
As part of the education programme of the Urban Majorities Project 1900-2025, the Besòs Youth Parliament initiative is closely linked to others which focus on the arts and the urban experience. In future, the experience will continue to be promoted in other parts of the metropolitan area through dialogue with programmes sharing the same objective, even if some of them adopt a different format, such as the public audiences for children from Barcelona and the youth councils in other townships have done.


Yokohama College of Art and Design
Faculty of Art and Design, Department of Art and Design
Art education that cultivates the root of human’s creative activity is education in its most essential form.
To cultivate a wonderful humanity and creativity among students and to raise future leaders who can contribute to the society, the college practices these 3 educational purposes.
- The acquisition of specialized expressive skills in art and design.
- The acquisition of theoretical knowledge of art and design.
- The acquisition of general liberal arts skills necessary for contribution towards society.
- We encourage our students to acquire general knowledge and expressive skills with the help of enhanced education during the first year.
- Students are able to choose between several specialized fields flexibly through our cross-curriculum.
- We encourage our students to acquire a wide range of knowledge including general and specialized education in order to maintain a well-balanced education.
- The educational support program is available to aid each student by providing them with educational support.
- With the help of our enhanced career support programs each student is able to be provided with help and support needed for any job-hunting and career-related problems.
Yokohama College of Art and Design awards diplomas to students who satisfy designated course credits, and acquire 3 of the following skills,
- Specialized expressive skills in art and design.
- Theoretical knowledge of art and design.
- General liberal arts skills necessary for contributing to society.
To accomplish our educational purposes, we organized a curriculum based on the following basic policies.
- 3 different cross-curriculum models are designed; A type (painting, sculpture), C type (craft design) and V type (visual design) for students to acquire general knowledge and expressive skills of arts and design during the first year.
- Students are required to take academic literacy, English I, Basic Digital Representation, Digital Presentation and Basic Visual Expression class during the first and second year in order for them to be able to study well and acquire certain results.
- 8 course models; paintings, sculpture, craft, product design, textile design, visual communication design, visual media design and illustration are provided for students to choose from during the second and third year for acquisition of specialized knowledge and expressive skills of arts and design.
- Context Art subject group is designed as specialized subject in the curriculum of second year in order to help students with the learning of practical skills of the specialized field mentioned in the course models above.
- In the 4th year, students are required to produce art projects as their graduation work as a compilation of the studies done in respective fields.
- General education and specialized education are designed in order for students to acquire a wide range of education and theoretical knowledge of arts and design from the first year through the fourth year.
- Course to assist in acquisition of license for the position of a web master is provided from the first year through the fourth year.
- Courses to assist in the acquisition of teaching licenses for middle school or high school art education are provided from the first year through the fourth year.
In order to accomplish all of our educational purposes, Yokohama College of Art and Design seeks students who will strive to attain the following traits and use them to extensively contribute to society.
- Students who attempt to acquire general and specialized expressive skills in art and design.
- Students who strive to master a wide range of education.
- Students who aim to make use of the knowledge and skills gained to contribute to society.


This practical book examines research and theory about children from birth to age 18. The concepts are solidly based around the activities of schools, agencies, and other settings in which the day-to-day lives of children play out. A wealth of case studies, along with a new Observation CD-ROM with video clips for each chapter, provide understanding into how children develop. By using real-life case studies and genuine feedback from children of all ages, this book provides complete coverage of the following topics: methods of inquiry in child development; physical development; cognitive development; intelligence; language development; literacy development; personal and emotional development; social understanding and moral development; development of motivation and self-regulation; a study of the family; interpersonal relationships; and growing up. An excellent resource for caregivers, child care center directors and employees, social workers, teachers, and parents.
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The early years of a child’s life are crucial when it comes to education, and this is a time at which information can most effectively be absorbed. In order to ensure that our children – the future of our society – get the best education possible, it is vital that appropriately qualified, skilled, and knowledgeable educators are available to provide this knowledge and development and deliver it in the most effective way.
An Early Childhood Education Degree offers the ideal solution for those wanting to get into a career in childhood teaching. This can be a very rewarding and enjoyable career, but it is essential that you have the necessary skills and qualifications to enter this career. You will help youngsters to learn and develop skills and knowledge, helping them to succeed and shaping their future. An Early Childhood Education degree will give you the skills and knowledge required to enable you to do this effectively.
Early childhood learning is a specialist area of education requiring specialist skills, which is what you can develop through an Early Childhood Education program. These degrees are ideal for those that want to work with younger children and provide a valuable service in education. With an Early Childhood Education degree you can look forward to a rewarding career in this area and you can improve your chances of progression within childhood education.
You can get different levels of Early Childhood Education degree programs, and the one you take will depend upon your current qualifications and eligibility. You will find a range of institutions offering Early Childhood Education degree programs, and you can also take an Early Childhood Education degree program online.
You will find that these degrees cover a wide range of issues relating to childhood education, from development and growth to learning methods and communication.


Dyspraxia – officially known as Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) – is a motor speech disorder, which means children with CAS have problems saying sounds, syllables, and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis, but rather because the brain has problems planning to move the body parts needed for speech. The child knows what he or she wants to say, but has difficulty coordinating the tongue, lip and jaw movements necessary to say those words.
Symptoms of Dyspraxia/CAS
A child with CAS find it hard to pronounce words correctly, but this will appear differently depending on the child’s age. Also note that not all children with CAS are the same, so it may be that only a selection of the signs and symptoms listed below are present in every child. That said, a Speech-Language Therapist will look for certain common symptoms in younger children, which include the following:
The issues an older child with CAS faces may be subtler, such as inconsistent speech sound errors, trouble imitating speech, or visible struggles in the coordination of lip, tongue and jaw movements. The older child may sound monotonous or place stress on the wrong syllable in a word, and these difficulties may be at their worst when the child is anxious or fatigued.
At any age, children with CAS may experience delayed language development, and/or sensitivity in their mouths, such as a dislike for tooth-brushing or crunchy foods. Furthermore, they are more likely have problems when learning to read, spell, and write, meaning that issues tend to arise in the classroom for school-aged CAS kids. Thanks to a recent inquiry by the NZ Government, our education system is becoming more aware of the presence of Dyspraxia in schools. With that in mind, if your child’s teacher reports frequent difficulties with literacy, social interaction, speech production or general word-retrieval, it is worth considering diagnosis for Dyspraxia/CAS.
Diagnosis of Dyspraxia/CAS
To diagnose Dyspraxia, a Speech-Language Therapist (SLT) will assess the child’s oral-motor abilities, melody of speech, and overall speech sound development. It’s crucial at the early stages for the SLT to also spend time ruling out other speech disorders too. The SLT may utilise a range of techniques to assess a child for CAS, including the following:
A Therapist may also examine the child’s literacy, comprehension and expressive language skills to see if there are co-existing problems in these areas.
Research shows that children with CAS have more success when they receive frequent support in the early stages of treatment. Whether that means they work one-on-one with a SLT or with their parents, practicing as often as four times per week will best help to strengthen the child’s muscles of speech and improve their neuromuscular coordination. Some kids, for whom Dyspraxia makes speech especially difficult, need a short-term aid to communication such as sign language or tablet-based text-to-speech software. Technology is becoming more common at all stages of treatment, with applications designed to assist fine motor skill development becoming an affordable approach that both parents and professionals can put to use.
To summarise, Dyspraxia/CAS is a disorder affecting the coordination of a child’s muscles of speech, and which is treated by a Speech-Language Therapist working alongside parents and teachers to strengthen the kid’s speech muscles. Treatment is all about persistence; with frequent practice, CAS children can enjoy eloquent speech, academic success and a full social life.


The study also offers evidence that activities such as reading, storytelling and singing in early childhood help strengthen students' literacy skills in school.
Sweden, The Netherlands, England, Bulgaria and Latvia had the highest average achievement among the 35 countries surveyed, with Canada, Lithuania, Hungary, the United States and Italy rounding out the top 10 countries, according to the report from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). Sweden and England had the highest achievement in reading for literary purposes; in reading for informational purposes, Sweden, The Netherlands and Bulgaria were the top performers.
Additionally, PIRLS collected extensive information about home, school and national influences on how well students learn to read, and queried parents and caregivers about their children's early literacy activities.
Among the key findings, fourth-grade girls had significantly higher average achievement than boys in all countries, and reading was emphasized more than any other area of the primary-school curriculum. Within all countries, students' attitudes toward reading were generally positive, and students with the most positive attitudes had the highest reading achievement. About half the students, on average, enjoyed reading and expressed an appreciation for books.
"The PIRLS report provides reliable and timely data within an international context," said PIRLS International Study directors Michael O. Martin and Ina V.S. Mullis in a statement accompanying the report. "The reading achievement results present each country with an opportunity to examine educational policies and practices against a globally-defined benchmark, while the report also contains rich information about children's early literacy experiences and reading instruction.
"The PIRLS findings underscore that time devoted to literacy-related activities, access to reading material, and a supportive atmosphere all are key," the researchers added.
With approximately 150,000 students surveyed, PIRLS is one of the largest international assessments of reading literacy. Directed by the International Study Center at BC's Lynch School of Education, which also conducts the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the largest international study of student achievement ever undertaken, PIRLS assessed a range of reading comprehension strategies for two major reading purposes: literary and informational.
In every country, according to the study, better readers had engaged in early literacy activities before starting school, such as reading books, telling stories, singing songs, playing with alphabet toys, and playing word games. According to their parents, more than half the students (54 percent), on average, across countries could do these early literacy activities when they began school.
Also, fourth-grade students from homes with many children's books (more than 100) had higher reading achievement than those from homes with few children's books (10 or less).
Students with highest reading achievement had parents who liked reading. These parents had favorable attitudes toward reading and spent on average more than six hours per week reading.
Teachers reported spending seven hours per week on language instruction, and as much as nine hours per week in Canada, Colombia, Cyprus, France, Greece, New Zealand, and the United States. More than one quarter of students had teachers reporting more than six hours each week specifically on reading instruction.
Both students and teachers reported that reading was a regular classroom activity. Better readers reported frequent independent reading and less frequent reading aloud (monthly). On average internationally, two-thirds of fourth-grade students (66 percent) reported reading silently on their own daily, and a further 27 percent at least weekly.
The full PIRLS 2001 report is available on-line at the International Study Center's Web site at pirls.bc.edu.
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GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MUSIC LEARNER
MUSC 352. Growth and Development of the Music Learner
Three hours lecture; one hour laboratory (3).
A study of the musical, mental, physical, behavioral, emotional and social growth characteristics of students and of individual differences among students. Course focuses on the relationship between human development and the music curriculum. Students will address state and national standards through peer instruction. Laboratory includes at least 9 hours observation in schools, exercises in peer teaching, and uses of technology in music education.
Detailed Description of Content of Course
A. The music curriculum
1. Professional standards
a. National Standards for Music Education
b. Virginia Standards of Learning for Music
2. Music courses in American schools
a. General music
c. Instrumental ensembles
B. Psychological foundations
1. The child-study movement
a. G. Stanley Hall
b. John Dewey
c. James Mursell
2. Developmental psychology
a. Sigmund Freud
b. Erik Erikson
3. Learning theories
a. Gestalt and field theories
b. Cognitive theories
c. Metacognition theory
d. Behavioral theories
1) Ivan Pavlov
2) B.F. Skinner
e. Developmental theories
1) Jean Piaget
2) Lev Vygotsky
3) Jerome Bruner
4) Edwin Gordon
4. Learning styles
a. Multiple intelligences: Howard Gardner
b. Learning modalities
c. Meyers-Briggs type indicator
d. Special learners
1) physical disabilities
2) mental disabilities
3) emotional disabilities
e. Cultural influences
2) racial, ethnic
5. Types of learning (domains)
a. Cognitive (Understanding music)
b. Affective (Valuing music)
c. Psychomotor (Making music)
C. Human growth and development
1. Physical growth and development
2. Vocal development
3. Stages of cognitive development
4. Behavioral, emotional and social development
Objectives and assessment
1. Authentic assessment
3. Behavioral objectives
4. Standardized music tests
E. Legal issues in education
1. Copyright laws
2. Laws regarding inclusion
1. Scheduling of music classes
2. Facilities and equipment
3. Classroom management
4. Instructional hardware and software for music instruction
5. Use of educational technologies for data collection, communication, and presentation
6. Virginia Standards of Learning (non-music)
A. Group observation of music classes in a variety of PreK - 12 schools settings (9 hours)
B. Peer teaching
C. Email observation journal
D. Four hours of professional development workshops
E. Collegiate MENC membership
Detailed Description of Conduct of Course
The course includes lecture, demonstration, cooperative learning projects, peer teaching exercises and observations at all school levels and in a variety of music classroom settings (general music, choral, instrumental).
Goals and Objectives of the Course
At the conclusion of the course, the student will
1. describe the content of the National Standards for Music and the Virginia Standards of Learning for Music.
2. identify the structure of a school music curriculum.
3. identify major learning theories and psychologists in education and music education.
4. identify and describe the major stages of human development in physical, vocal, mental and psychological contexts.
5. understand the relationship between human development and the music curriculum.
6. identify causes and results of individual differences among children (economic, social, racial, ethnic, religious, physical, and mental) and how those differences can be accomodated in music classrooms.
7. have demonstrated the ability to utilize technology for data collection, communication and presentation.
8. have at least nine hours of observation in school music classes at all levels (preK-12) and in the three major.
9. demonstrate teaching competency through peer teaching exercises.
10. participate in cooperative learning projects.
11. demonstrate a commitment to professional growth through participation in four hours of professional development workshops, in addition to active membership in collegiate MENC.
12. students will write a personal philosophy that applies philosophical foundations for the teaching of music in public schools: musical reasons, nonmusical reasons.
1. Class attendance and participation
2. Reviews of books, articles (print and on-line) and other materials
3. Observation journal reports
4. Peer teaching exercises
5. Cooperative learning projects
6. MENC membership and participation
8. Completion of professional development requirements
9. Production of teaching materials using technological resources
10. Research projects utilizing internet resources
Other Course Information
Approval and Subsequent Reviews
DATE ACTION REVIEWED BY
Revised April, 2009


Judith Kaplan Eisenstein
Before she was thirteen years old, author, composer, and musicologist Judith Kaplan Eisenstein was already a significant figure in Jewish history. The eldest of four daughters born to Lena (Rubin) and Rabbi Mordecai Menachem Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, Judith Kaplan was the first young woman to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah publicly in an American congregation on March 18, 1922.
Neither of her parents was American-born. Mordecai Kaplan, born on September 10, 1881, in Sventzian, Lithuania (near Kovno), arrived in the United States at age eight, after a year in Paris. In addition to rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary, he earned a degree from City College (New York City) and received graduate training at Columbia University in philosophy and sociology. Lena Rubin, born in Friedrichshaven, Germany (near the Polish border), was brought to New York as a three-year-old child.
Their daughter Judith was precocious intellectually—she learned to read English at age two and a half and began studying Hebrew at age three—and musically—between the ages of seven and eighteen, she studied at the Institute of Musical Art (now the Juilliard School) in New York. She also attended the Jewish Theological Seminary Teachers Institute and Columbia University’s Teachers College, where she received her B.S. (1928) and M.A. (1932) in music education. A brief marriage to Albert Addelston, on June 28, 1932, ended in divorce in Reno, Nevada, in September 1933. On June 10, 1934, she married Ira Eisenstein, then assistant rabbi at her father’s synagogue, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.
From 1929 until 1954, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein taught music pedagogy and the history of Jewish music at Jewish Theological Seminary Teachers Institute. Where teaching and performing materials did not exist, she created them. Her publications include the first Jewish songbook for children, Gateway to Jewish Song (1937), Festival Songs (1943), Songs of Childhood (with Frieda Prensky, 1955), Heritage of Music: The Music of the Jewish People (1972), as well as five cantatas on Jewish themes written with Ira and two song cycles, all written between 1942 and 1974. In 1987, she created and broadcast a thirteen-hour radio series on the history of Jewish music.
In 1959, at age fifty, Eisenstein entered the School of Sacred Music of Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC–JIR), where she received her Ph.D. (1966) with a dissertation on “The Liturgical Chant of Provencal and West Sephardic Jews in Comparison to the Song of the Troubadours and the Cantigas.” She then taught at HUC–JIR (1966 to 1979) and at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia (1978 to 1981).
The Eisensteins retired to Woodstock, New York, in 1981, and to Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1995. They had two daughters, Miriam Rachel Eisenstein, a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, and Ann Nehama Eisenstein, a therapist in private practice in New York, and one grandson. A son, Ethan Jacob, was institutionalized very young with severe mental retardation.
Judith Kaplan Eisenstein began her adult life as an important figure in Jewish history. Talented and superbly literate in both Jewish and musical tradition, she expanded the understanding, enjoyment, and dissemination of the music of the Jewish people. She died on February 14, 1996.
Festival Songs (1943); Gateway to Jewish Song (1937); Heritage of Music: The Music of the Jewish People (1972, 1990); The Music of the Jewish People. Set of thirteen audiotapes (1987); Our Bialik, with Ira Eisenstein (1945); Reborn: An Episode with Music, with Ira Eisenstein (1952); The Sacrifice of Isaac: A Liturgical Drama (1972); The Seven Golden Buttons: A Legend with Music, with Ira Eisenstein (1947); Shir ha-shahar [Song of the Dawn] (1974); Songs of Childhood, with Frieda Prensky (1955); Thy Children Shall Return, with Ira Eisenstein (1954); What Is Torah, with Ira Eisenstein (1942).
Obituary. NYTimes, February 15, 1996.
How to cite this page
Baker, Paula Eisenstein. "Judith Kaplan Eisenstein." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on June 29, 2016) <http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/eisenstein-judith-kaplan>.


Brian Cambourne (1988) proposed that children acquire early facility with oral and written language most easily when certain conditions are present in their environments, both at home and school. How can families and teachers use Cambournes’s eight conditions of literacy development to help children develop language and literacy in pleasurable and meaningful ways?
- Immersion—Children need to be surrounded by interesting, high-quality children’s books and different kinds of text (e.g., charts, labels, newspapers, magazines). Read aloud every day to children, sing to them, play word games, and use movement and dance to generate lively engagement in language, literacy, and stories.
- Demonstration— Model reading and writing for children. Let them see you writing notes, letters, stories, recipes, and lists. Make sure they notice you reading to yourself, for pleasure, for information, for directions, and for other purposes. Show them how to hold a book, turn the pages, and read aloud.
- Engagement—Help children become active learners who see themselves as potential readers and writers. Set up a risk-free environment so they can experiment with language and literacy. Provide easy access to paper, pencils, crayons, markers, books, and other literacy materials.
- Expectation—Set realistic expectations for language and literacy development. Become familiar with the developmental stages of emergent literacy, and support children in appropriate tasks. Expect that they will become accomplished readers and writers in their own time.
- Responsibility—Give children choices about books to read. Set up the environment to promote self-direction. Provide easy access to books and literacy materials on low shelves and in baskets and show children how to take care of them.
- Approximation—Accept children’s mistakes when they are learning to talk, read, and write. Congratulate them on their accomplishments. Guide them gently into accuracy and soon they will begin to self-correct.
- Use—Create a climate for functional and meaningful uses of oral and written language. Encourage children to read along with you; help you write notes, letters, and lists; and engage in lots of conversations.
- Response—Listen to children, welcome their comments and questions, and extend their use of oral and written language. Celebrate the enormous language and literacy learning that is occurring daily!
© ______ 2004, Merrill, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The reproduction, duplication, or distribution of this material by any means including but not limited to email and blogs is strictly prohibited without the explicit permission of the publisher.


Elon’s music education program prepares graduates with the essential knowledge, skills, and cultural awareness to teach in the diverse 21st century classroom. The music education program instills and nurtures a commitment to first-rate teaching, lifelong creative expression, and the willingness to be enriched by and value the many and varied musical cultures found in the communities in which they will serve.
Students earn the Bachelor of Science Degree in Music Education by taking courses in both the Music Department and the School of Education. The music education program has several outstanding attributes that make it very attractive for the prospective music teacher:
Music education offers a comprehensive curriculum wherein skills and knowledge gained in one course continue tobe utilized and refined as students move through theory, conducting, and methods courses. This integrated approach, in addition to providing tremendous confidence, is the foundation on which our students are prepared to be excellent educators, creative musicians that continue to perform, and practitioners that will honor the cultural diversity found in the communities that they will serve.
In our primary goal of preparing our students to be excellent teachers the curriculum is devised to engage students in activities, discussions, and other forms of reflection and inquiry providing educational experiences that advance students toward moments of discovery and greater clarity of course content, self, and others.
Our students thrive in an environment that fosters high levels of musicianship and performance ability. In addition they develop critical thinking skills that advance their perceptions, sensitivities, and beliefs while enhancing their awareness and understanding of others, who they are, and what they have to offer in a classroom. We believe that this kind of educator can design and implement experiences that demand the highest standards in the classroom while honoring every student and the life experiences they bring to the process of learning.
In the spring of 2013 the Coordinator of Music Education founded a new and exciting program called "Music in the Village". This program evolved out of the “Village Project”, a program created in the School of Education designed to strengthen literacy skills for elementary and middle school children. Music in the Village is a service-learning community outreach program designed for elementary to middle school aged children and their parents that teaches musical literacy and supports the literacy mandate of the “Village Project”. Music education students can participate and teach in this program in each semester of residency except the semester of student teaching. This Village experience provides the opportunity for prospective teachers to not only develop teaching skills and strategies, but it gives them invaluable insight into how to foster meaningful relationships with parents. Parents are a crucial component of Music in the Village as they attend classes with their children.
Elon's collegiate chapter of the National Association for Music Educators earns the "Chapter of Excellence" awarded by the National Association for Music Educators. The chapter received the "Chapter of Excellence" award from the North Carolina Music Educator's Association last year.
--Gerald R. Knight,
Coordinator for Music Education and Director of Music in the Village
*Auditions are required for admission to the music education program and for scholarship consideration.


Be sure to ask about physical play, as well. There is a direct correlation between gross motor skill development and the overall health of a preschooler. When you go on your tour, ask whether outside play is a part of the daily routine, and look at the play area for yourself. Is there plenty of room for the kids to run around? Are there climbing structures, riding toys, balls for the kids to throw? All of these teach important motor skills.
Ask whether the children are given free time each day to choose their own activities.
It’s important to encourage independence, and this is one way that preschools can help children to learn to make good choices. When you take your tour, you want to keep an eye out for materials and toys that teach reading, math, science, time and space, but you also want to make sure that there is some time built into each day when the children get to choose their own activities. Look at the daily schedule. See if there are blocks of time devoted to “free play” or “center time.” This is usually when more independent learning takes place.
Make sure that the school’s philosophies mirror your family’s values.
Ask questions about how the school handles social and emotional issues. These should closely align to what you do at home. Not only will this make you feel more comfortable with the preschool, but your child will learn better with consistency. One way to get a good sense of a school’s approach to these issues is to ask how a teacher would handle a the following situation: Two children always play together, but one day one of the two decides to play with a different child and the other one feels left out. What steps would the teacher take? Then think about whether the school’s approach is the same one that you would use.
Look for a positive, nurturing relationship between the teachers and the children.
This is what parents know to look for by instinct. In many cases, preschool is the first time that a child will be away from his or her parents for an extended period of time, and it’s important that the new relationships a child builds with grown-ups are kind and thoughtful ones. When you visit the school, look at the faces of the teachers. Are they smiling? Are they encouraging the little ones in their care? These are also good questions to ask of other parents whose children attend the school. Use your network – most parents are thrilled to have the opportunity to brag about their preschools.


Framed photographs (4), newspaper clippings (3), a mounted photograph and a photograph album, relating to Mme Juliette Henry, albumen / paper / wood / glass / ink / pencil, photographer unknown, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 1867-1920
Lucien Felix Henry was born in 1850 in Provence, in the south of France. He arrived in Paris to study art in 1867 and was accepted into Gerome's studio at the Ecoles des Beaux Arts. His studies were disrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris. He played a leading role in the popular movement to defend the Paris Commune in 1871 as Chef de la Legion, responsible for the defence of the 14th arrondissement. After their defeat Henry, with some 4000 other Communards, was incarcerated in the French penal colony of New Caledonia for seven years. In 1879 the Communards were amnestied and Henry arrived in Sydney.
This coincided with the International Exhibition held in Sydney, which ushered in a decade of prosperous growth within the colony. Henry successfully argued for state involvement in art education and by the end of the decade he had become a widely respected teacher and artist at Sydney Technical College. His Parisian art education had encouraged interdisciplinary work between the arts & industry which he sought to foster locally. His major project was to be a book entitled 'Australian Decorative Arts' for which he made some one hundred watercolour designs between 1889-91. He returned to Paris to seek a publisher although the accompanying text remained largely unwritten. Unfortunately the severe economic depression of the 1890s made publication of such a lavish work impossible. Henry died in France in 1896.
Few of Henry's oil paintings survive. 'La Baie du Mirroir, New Caledonia' is the only known painting to represent his experience of seven years incarceration as a political prisoner. He painted it soon after he arrived in Australia in 1879. It was first shown at the Garden Palace when the Sydney International Exhibition was in its final month, in December 1880.
The painting appears to have been used as an exercise in teaching. Its composition reflects the legacy of Henry's Parisian training in mid nineteenth century neo-classical landscape painting. The work does not depict a specific place in New Caledonia but is a more generalised memory of the Pacific island landscape and the Kanak people. Members of a Kanak family gaze to the sea, contemplating their world at sunset - a melancholic metaphor for their imminent colonisation. The depiction of indigenous people was a popular theme for colonial landscapes, offering an exotic flavour for metropolitan viewers.
In 1911 the museum acquired Lucien Henry's unpublished book illustrations, a series of elegant and fanciful watercolour designs. His time in New Caledonia was crucial to these works, with several illustrations showing references to the South Pacific. The museum also has objects in its collection attributed to Henry, most notably a water bottle elaborately carved from a coconut shell depicting the heads of four Kanak clan leaders, one identifiable as Atai.
Henry was important as an artist and teacher in shaping visual arts ideas in Sydney in the 1880s and 1890s. His utopian vision of an Australasian 'civilisation' in the Pacific was conceived while the federation of the Australian colonies was being planned. His public stand on many issues and his strong desire to see the development of an 'Australian style' coincided with the movement towards federation.
Ann Stephen, 2002
Donor acquired various Henry family effects from Mme Henry's descendents in New South Wales in the 1970s when he purchased several of Lucien Henry's paintings.


Gibbs, Graham R. (2007) Mathematics and statistics skills in the Social Sciences: dealing with deficits. In: Addressing the Quantitative Skills Gap: Establishing and Sustaining Cross-Curricular Mathematical Support in Higher Education, 25th – 27th June 2007, University of St. Andrews, Scotland. (Unpublished)
- Published Version
Restricted to Repository staff only
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives.
- Accepted Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.
The quantitative/numeracy skills issues for social scientists are somewhat different from those affecting many of the natural sciences and technology. In general students do not need a facility with abstractionism and symbolic systems (the equations) but they do need a good sense of number (scale, size etc) and an understanding of some of the logical principles and thinking that underlie mathematical proofs. The main area of application of these skills is in research methods and statistics.
Dealing with the quantitative part of research methods is always a struggle for teachers, but there is a range of different approaches that have been adopted: teach statistics with formulae; teach statistics using step-by-step instructions and teach statistics use without calculations and formulae.
QAA benchmarks, the BPS and the ESRC Training Guidelines for postgraduates are very clear about the importance of methods and statistics in the subjects. These guidelines will be outlined and their implications for student teaching and student recruitment examined.
Such numeric and statistical skills are important for work after graduation. A survey of recent graduates in sociology and psychology undertaken at Huddersfield in the 1990s showed that the topic from their degree that they found most valuable after graduating and in work was the research methods and statistics.
The paper will conclude with a look to the future, first in terms of possible impacts on the nature of the disciplines and secondly on some of the ways that students may be supported to overcome the hurdle of poor maths and statistics skills.
|Item Type:||Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)|
|Subjects:||H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Q Science > QA Mathematics
H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
|Schools:||School of Human and Health Sciences|
|Depositing User:||Graham Gibbs|
|Date Deposited:||19 Oct 2009 09:36|
|Last Modified:||04 Nov 2015 16:33|
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Jo-Ann VanReeuwyk is chairwoman of the Department of Art, Art History and Art Education and director of art education at Calvin College.
By Jo-Ann VanReeuwyk
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- I’m writing about recent school board proposals for extensive cuts, particularly in the visual arts for the elementary level.
I believe I can speak for the general community as well as for the higher education community when I say that without the arts, we suffer deeply.
1. To participate in the arts is to be fully human.
2. Art is a way of knowing and a form of communication.
3. The arts teach problem-solving, risk-taking, creative thinking, collaborative thinking, innovative thinking. Indeed all of the higher level thinking skills.
4. Art helps form multiple perspectives. It gives voice. It helps us identify and express issues that are global, common to all people groups.
5. The arts emphasize value.
6. To participant in the arts is to live in culture and in history.
7. The arts help make sense of the world. The arts help us pay attention.
8. Art nourishes our emotive side.
9. Art develops our cognitive abilities.
10. Art can and often is healing and supportive.
11. Art teaches limitations, boundaries, yet encourages and promotes creativity and innovation.
12. Art teaches about how parts belong to a whole; that all parts matter.
13. The arts incorporate Big Ideas, and cutting-edge curriculum.
14. Art teaches and reinforces community.
15. Art celebrates thinking, creating, doing, and living.
16. Art teaches us how to pay attention to detail as part of a broader spectrum and world.
17. Art helps keep students in school, motivates, and increases math, science, social studies and language scores.
18. Schools that incorporate the arts show longevity in teachers and enthusiasm on the part of the students.
These are not in any hierarchy. They are equal in importance and give ample reason for including the arts in all of life and especially in education.
With all this in mind, and with the knowledge of how critical our education system is to our future and to our health as a city, a state, and a nation, can we afford to exist with even less artistic opportunities?
As a city and a state, we aim to meet needs of diversity, to teach all children to live complete and full lives and yet we continue to propose that the arts be cut back or even eliminated when finances are an issue.
Can we afford to do this? No, we cannot face the future without the arts.
RELATED: Guest column archive
School boards need to help their communities foster the arts and find ways to introduce and maintain the arts in every facet of living.
If we do, we also foster growth, dynamism, and wholeness, not just for this community now but for our future.
Guest columns can be submitted to Dave Murray, the Grand Rapids community engagement specialist. Email him at email@example.com and follow him on Twitter @ReporterDMurray or on Facebook or on Google + .


School-based music education programs are a great introduction into
the musical arts. But more often than not, the school environment has
its limitations. There simply isn’t enough time during the course of a
single class to provide the kind of in-depth instruction that some
children need. In addition, a child with true musical potential might
face a glass ceiling if they don’t have exposure to musical education
outside of the school setting. So it’s time to get kids extra music lessons at home.
Finding alternatives to school-based musical education can be a
challenge, but here are some of the possibilities you can consider for
* Private music lessons.
Private music lessons are the ideal alternative to school-based music
education. Private lessons give the student lots of quality time with
the instructor. Not only that, in a school setting the instructor is
often a “jack of all trades, master of none.” A private teacher, on
the other hand, will be well-versed in both teaching and playing the
There are many places to find private music instructors, both in the
print world and online. One such resource is TakeLessons.com, a site
that allows you to locate a private instructor based on your
instrument and location.
* Multimedia instruction.
There are more options out there today than ever before when it comes
to music education without an in-person instructor. Instructional DVDs
and books can help a student to master the basics of playing a given
If you choose multimedia instruction for your child, there are a few
points you need to keep in mind when selecting which programs to use:
* Always check the program’s reviews.
Some are better than others, and there’s no one better than a former customer to tell you how this
* Make sure you don’t put all of your instructional eggs in one
basket. Just because you find a stellar DVD series to help your
daughter with her flute playing doesn’t mean she doesn’t need
instruction in music theory. Consider supplementing instrument
instruction with materials that teach things like music theory and
* Home-based music instruction.
If you play an instrument or sing, there’s no reason you can’t work with your child to help him hone his
skills. Keep in mind that there are a number of different dynamics at
For example, try not to bring any relationship baggage you or your
child might have into the practice room. When you’re there, focus on
the task at hand and leave normal parent-child relations aside.
* Group musical education.
Your child may have the opportunity to participate in a community
group or another organization that has a musical component. Playing at
church is a great example of this. Other community groups may have a
marching band that attends local parades or festivities. Opportunities
like these reinforce the teamwork aspect of music and help your child
learn to work with others.
* Virtual instructors.
One of the newer movements in education is the idea of the virtual
classroom. If your local school doesn’t offer orchestra and your child
wants to play the violin, he may still be able to participate in an
online “classroom” with other students. The technology to support
these kinds of scenarios is fairly new, but will become more
commonplace in the next few years.
What your child learns about music at school is useful and makes for
a solid foundation. Loot at some of these alternatives today, and see
just how much more effective your child’s music education can be.
Suzy St. George is a blog writer at TakeLessons. Since 2006, TakeLessons has provided affordable, hassle-free music
lessons to students of all ages. With certified instructors in cities
nationwide, students can learn to play the guitar,
the piano, drums and more.


How Children Learn Visual Art, Grades 58
In grades five to eight, students visual expressions become more individualistic and imaginative.
The problem-solving activities inherent in making art help them develop cognitive, affective, and psychomotor skills. They select and transform ideas; discriminate, synthesize, and appraise; and apply these skills to their expanding knowledge of the visual arts and their own creative work.
Students understand that making and responding to works of visual art are inextricably interwoven and that perception, analysis, and critical judgment are inherent to both.
Their own art-making becomes infused with a variety of images and approaches. They learn that preferences of others may differ from their own. Students refine the questions that they ask in response to works of art. This leads them to an appreciation of multiple artistic solutions and interpretations.
Study of historical and cultural contexts gives students insights into the role played by the visual arts in human achievement.
As they consider examples of visual works of art within historical contexts, students gain a deeper appreciation of their own values; the values of other people; and the connection of the visual arts to universal human needs, values, and beliefs. They understand that the art of a culture is influenced by aesthetic ideas as well as by social, political, economic, and other factors.
Through these efforts, students develop an understanding of the meaning and import of the visual world in which they live.
Source: National Standards for Arts Education, published by Music Educators National Conference (MENC). Copyright © 1994 by MENC. Used by permission. The complete National Arts Standards and additional materials relating to the standards are available from MENC, The National Association for Music Education, 1806 Robert Fulton Drive, Reston, VA 20191, telephone: 800-336-3768.


Teaching Twitter could become a class act
British school students may soon be learning about William Shakespeare and Ashton Kutcher.
British schoolchildren may soon be studying the tweets of Ashton Kutcher along with the sonnets of Shakespeare.
A leaked Government report due to be released shortly, recommends that British primary school teachers be given much more flexibility in deciding what lessons to teach.
And while it emphasises the continued necessity of teaching traditional subjects such as spelling, history and arithmetic, it also recommends that students be taught about online media and instructed about web-based skills including how to use a spell checker.
The report, which was cited by The Guardian newspaper, is part of a Government initiative to radically overhaul the primary school curriculum.
One of the key proposals recommends that students be taught about online phenomena such as the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The report would require "children to leave primary school familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter as sources of information and forms of communication. They must gain 'fluency' in handwriting and keyboard skills, and learn how to use a spell checker alongside how to spell".
Twitter is a two-year-old service that allows you to broadcast - or "tweet" - 140-character text messages to the world. Among its many devotees are politicians and entertainers, including actor Ashton Kutcher, who is ranked as the world's fifth most "followed" Twitterer.
The plans were condemned by John Bangs of the National Union of Teachers.
"It seems to jump on the latest trends such as Wikipedia and Twitter," he told the newspaper.
In Australia, NSW HSC students were this year able to opt to take a course in studying Wikipedia - marking the first time in this country that the study of the online encyclopedia had been formally included in a syllabus.
Wikipedia, which ranks among the world's most visited sites, was listed by the NSW Board of Studies as a prescribed text for an elective course in the English syllabus for 2009-2012.
The website is one of a number of "texts" - a choice that also includes a book and a movie - that students can choose to study in an elective called the Global Village, a course examining how the world's communities communicate and interact.
Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is now available in more than 260 languages and attracts about 700 million visitors annually. The English editon alone contains more than 2.8 million articles.
Wikipedia is maintained by volunteers from all over the world and anyone with an internet connection can create and edit articles and publish them on the site.
However, because the site allows authors and editors to use pseudonyms, the system is open to abuse, vandalism and a selective telling of history that reflects an author's bias.
send photos, videos & tip-offs to 0424 SMS SMH (+61 424 767 764), or us.


One of the most common goals music therapists address are attention goals. For example:
- Goal: To increase attention span.
- Goal: To promote on-task behavior.
- Goal: To improve attention to task.
- …and so on.
Attention. It’s a basic yet foundational skill. The ability to focus and pay attention is a precursor to a host of other cognitive skills (another foundational skills is crossing the midline, which I wrote about here).
We are constantly being bombarded by stimulation: sights, sounds, smells, feels, touches, etc. In order to function, we need to be able to pay attention to certain stimuli of our choosing and ignore the rest of what’s going on. Most of us have this skills developed (some better than others!) but for various reasons, our clients struggle.
But did you know there are four different types of attention? Each has it’s own function and purpose. And as a therapist, it’s important to understand the four different types of attention so we know what is most appropriate to address with our clients.
The 4 types of attention are:
- Sustained Attention, or the ability to focus on a specific task for a continual amount of time. My favorite way to work on this is by using a basic start-stop experience. The clients play when I play and stop when I stop. The beauty of this intervention is that there are SO MANY variations to simplify or increase the difficulty of this task. Group participants can take turns being the “leader.” The MT-BC can make the “stop” locations easy (e.g. at the end of a phrase) or more difficult (e.g. in the middle of the phrase). You can make it a movement-based experience, not just an instrument-playing one. There are no limits to the variations you create.
- Selective Attention, or the ability to focus on certain stimuli while ignoring distractions. The classic example is being able to focus on a conversation in the middle of a loud party. It can be a difficult skill to develop. This is one I do not often address with my clients. They are so easily distracted that I am just trying to get them to focus, period. One way to target selective attention is by instructing a group of clients to copy your rhythmic pattern on a drum. Your rhythmic pattern will change, so they have to continue to pay attention and match you (sustained attention). Another therapist or staff member attempts to distract the group by playing a different rhythm or a different instrument. The clients need to maintain their focus on the task while ignoring the distracting stimulation.
- Alternating Attention, or being able to shift your focus between two different tasks with different cognitive demands. For example, a client has a drum and I have a guitar. I alternate between two different accompaniment patterns to a song, one strumming and one finger-picking. The client is instructed to play the drum when I finger-pick and to move to the music when I strum. Alternating attention.
- Divided Attention, or being able to respond simultaneously to multiple tasks. This is the highest level of attention. The classic example? Driving a car. The demands on our attention skills are quite high when driving a car. Why do you think it’s so dangerous to text and drive or talk and drive? Why do you think we wait until someone is 16 before they can have a license? The children I work with are in no way close to working on this type of attention. Some higher-level music-based experiences that target divided attention include learning how to play an instrument. That requires an incredible amount of different skill sets used simultaneously: reading music, interpreting the symbols on a score, muscle memory, respiratory control, oral motor control…all working together as one. Whew!
If you are interested in learning more about attention and the brain structures involved, this book comes highly recommended: Who’s Who of the Brain: A Guide to Its Inhabitants, Where They Live and What They Do
I admit that I have not read it, yet, but it is on my (rather long) reading list. I first learned about this book from Dr. Deanna Hanson-Abromeit at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who uses it with her students to teach clinical neuroscience. It incorporates a very user-friendly approach to understanding the brain and how it works.


We recently stumbled across this great article about parents roles in their children’s development: how parents keying in to their progress in school during this crucial time is “a determining factor in [the child’s] success as an adult.” They stress the importance of actively aiding a child’s progress:
“Parents … should also take the time to learn what’s being covered under the lesson plan and what’s up next on the curricular agenda. Make a point of working on those skills at home, too … Remember, education and learning don’t stop the minute your child walks out the door of her preschool or child development center.”
Keep your kids’ brains active with playful learning games and toys with foundational skills. Melissa and Doug offers great supplements for providing educational fun in the home.
Block play is a great foundational skill for stacking, counting, and sorting.
Plugging in shapes is great for hand-eye-coordination skills.
Whether they are building predetermined patterns or exploring with shapes, they will learn about space


Associate Professor of Cognitive Development
Melissa's research interests center on memory development, particularly memory for personal experiences. She has been exploring how parental verbal support may contribute to children's ability to recall the past.
In addition, she is interested in how emotion may affect reports of past experiences and how parents and children talk about these events.
She is currently examining autobiographical memory from a cross-cultural perspective to study how different socialization experiences may relate to the detail included in memory reports.
How does culture influence child development? How do the values, norms, and expectations of a group shape socialization processes? What is the child's role in contributing to social interactions and how might this vary across cultural and social settings? In this course we will move beyond examining group differences to discussing the implications of cultural practices and values for understanding development. We will explore psychological and anthropological literature to consider different perspectives and methodologies to examine how sociocultural context shapes behaviors and development. We will also consider how views of childhood vary across cultures and are reflected in social interactions and cultural routines and systems. Students will be responsible for facilitating discussions, presenting articles, writing short response papers, and completing an integrative final paper on a topic of their choice. A previous course in psychology or childhood studies is required.
The majority of adults are able to read fluently. However, when children learn to read, the process is dependent on a number of skills and requires a great deal of adult guidance. In this course we will discuss the cultural importance of literacy across societies and throughout childhood. We will focus on the development of the complex skill of reading, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, and higher-order processes that contribute to decoding and text comprehension. Because instruction can play a determining factor in children's acquisition of literacy skills, we will study early reading materials and examine strategies that are employed in the classroom to facilitate the acquisition of these skills. Evaluation will be based on class participation, a series of short papers, and a longer final project.
In this course we will discuss the processes by which children come to acquire, recall, and use knowledge. This course will focus on development from infancy to middle childhood. By reading primary literature, we will examine the emergence and refinement of children's ability to form concepts, recall the past, and extend knowledge to new situations. We will consider methodological challenges and approaches to studying children's abilities, including naturalistic observations, and controlled laboratory studies. We will review literature on findings and theories of development in each area and discuss how changes in children's representational abilities contribute to these abilities. Students will make class presentations based on research articles, write short papers in response to class topics, and develop a research proposal on a topic of interest discussed in the course.
Children's homes and school environments are both valuable contexts to support children's literacy development, and they are most effective when they work together. In this class, we will be partnering with a local school district in their work developing home-school alignment to promote reading skills. Our readings will be drawn from the psychological literature to explore psychological foundations of literacy and family practices around book reading and narrative. We will also explore curricular approaches that cultivate children's skills and engagement with books. We will consult with a school district to support their mission to increase students' reading ability through home-school alignment and examine numerous contexts for learning from living rooms, classrooms, to parks and libraries. As part of the course, we will regularly visit the school to coordinate our efforts. This course satisfies Division I distribution requirements.