The Dora experience

*sorry for the late posting--first chance I've had to sit down and write it (I didn't get back until Sunday at 7 P.M. and didn't have access to a computer all weekend--the woods tend to limit access).

I didn't really have a hard time understanding the Dora reading, it seemed to make sense to me, even if my expereince was very different. I don't remember ever placing periods between every word. When I did write sentences, it was usually copying them down. But then again, I only attended Kindergarten for about 6 months before my family moved and I began homeschooling. After that I remember focusing on reading in a book called "My First Step," which was about a family with two siblings and their adventures (I continued reading this series of books, which became more advanced as I went from grade to grade). Aside from learning to write words (correct spelling and vocab meaning), I didn't write until later in my eduaction and by then I had a grasp of how a sentence was structured.

What I found interesting and wish there had been more of a discussion on was how closely related family talk and writing were. I've read research on how closely related reading and writing are (and know it from experience), but I've never heard about how tied together talk and writing are beyond knowing that people tend to write like they talk. But I have heard that vocabulary and social interaction are pretty dependent on family. I think it's interesting how the two are related, but I wanted to know more about how they are tied together.

As to what I disagreed with, it would have to be how intense the teacher was in the learning process. I liked how the teacher allowed her students to explore, but the fact that her students were exhausted showed that the level of learning she was requiring was probably a little too high for her students. The point is to stretch what they know, not tear expanding muscles by making them exhausted. I feel the teacher could have eased a little more into their learning process but carrying it out over a slightly longer stretch of time, as well as providing a little more scaffolding to ease on the building tension between what the students know and what they are learning.

Question: Did anyone's learning experience align with Dora's? In what ways?