[NLA] building policy vision

[Awilderast@aol.com]

Dear Eileen:

You are putting some of these advocacy issues into either/or categories and 
I'm not sure why.  Does either/or characterize the field?  For example, Art 
has gone on record several times, most recently last week, saying that 
low-level learners are often traumatized learners.  I'm not saying they are 
that "all the time" because I don't think Art went that far.  Also, I'm not 
sure that phonics teachers are necessarily cold fish.  Is this your 
experience in the field?  Maybe it is and I haven't understood that.

Sitting on the sidelines, I should think that learning about some of the 
structure of English is crucial to becoming a good literacy teacher.  I come 
to this conclusion because of my study of phonemic awareness, and also my own 
teaching experience.