Meier

Terry Meier                                                                                                                                Megan
"Why can't she remember that?"  The importance of storybook reading  in multilingual, multicultural classrooms.

1.)  "Despite their diverse backgrounds, all children bring to school rich linguistic abilities acquired through social interaction in their home and communities."
        1.  I found this quote helpful because it reminded me of the situation in my Service Learning Project classroom.  When I was in the classroom I found this statement to be true, all the children (of all cultures)  had something to bring to the table when it came to carpet time and they all were able to successfully express their ideas verbally even if they were in different ways.
        2.  This quote means that even though children of different cultures usually get their learning foundations in different ways, they all are able to make learning experiences of their social interactions.
        3.  I thought this quote was the perfect one sentence summary of the article as a whole.  This quote paves the way for the rest of the article to further show this point through research and examples.
2.)  "Despite such culturally influenced differences ... children from every linguistic community learn to use language in ways that are highly complex and that provide a strong linguistic foundation for teachers to build on in literacy instruction."
         1.  I liked this quote because, like the first quote I chose, it's true.  Teachers depend upon kids pre-schooling social experiences to build a foundation for teachers to build upon.
         2.  This quote kind of means the same thing as the first quote. It's saying that no matter where children come from they use their social interactions as learning experiences and they learn how to use language in different situations.
         3.  This quote further adds to the point of the first quote I chose.  It further explains how even though kids come from different backgrounds they learn the same way for the most part.
3.)  "Each of these preschoolers, socialized in very different linguistic and cultural communities, demonstrates the ability to use language in powerful ways to negotiate relationships with other people and to accomplish his or her social purposes."
          1.  This quote was helpful in summarizing the stories of the three preschoolers.  It explains how all three kids, although of very different backgrounds, were able to all use language to manipulate a situation.
          2.  This quote means that even though the kids all came from very different cultures they were all able to use language to negotiate and be charming to get what they want.
          3.  This article, like I mentioned before, helped to summarize the three stories and sum them up.

Overall I liked this article.  It was not hard to read or understand.  It reminded me of all the articles (kind of)  in the aspect that it was different from the other articles we have read.  Rather than focusing on the differences of people it focused on the similarities.  One question I thought of while reading this was, because it reminded me of my experiences in the classroom, if it reminded anyone else of their classroom experiences?