Early afternoon. You have been cleaning
house most of the morning. Looking at what postings people are reading you
discovered one from 2010 in which you were asking me about what I am. At least
you are consistent with your questions. - Amorella
1301
hours. I am. I don’t know any more about you than I did then. It is interesting
to read this after so much time. The rest of this particular posting is about UFO’s.
Doug had sent some photos, and from there it popped into mind that you are
unidentified also. This lead to the questions below.
** **
Selected from
08 NOVEMBER 2010 post.
. . . The
problem with an open mind is one of the usual options is ‘wonder’. Wondering
leads to questions and the more questions that are unanswered leads to more
wondering. – [Amorella]
I see that myself. Yesterday I asked about your sense of ‘self’.
I thought about it overnight. One hypothesis I came up with is that somewhere
along the line I felt I needed to ‘measure up better’ and I invented an
imaginary friend to help me with that. An alter ego of sorts. From this you
evolved as an inner twin consciousness that is two dimensional in that mostly
affects thinking and writing. That is your setting in my head. What do you
think, is that what you really are?
No. It is not. More later, you and Carol are off for a walk and errands. –
Amorella.
I am surprised by your
response. Indeed, we are off for an hour or so.
Carol is still on her walk but then she walks three times
further than you do. It took you a bit of courage to ask me directly. One of
the reasons you don’t ask questions. Your inner fear is that I would say, ‘Yes,
I have been playing the role of your alter ego for most of your life.’ You
would not be satisfied though and assume I was telling a white lie so you would
feel better about yourself. I do have an agenda, orndorff. Mainly it is to keep
your mind working. I am needed more now that you are retired. I am not a ghost
nor am I an alien as you would think of one. – [Amorella]
Twenty-one hundred hours. You are sitting at the dining room table after a late
supper and you're both watching last night’s Sherlock Holmes on Masterpiece
Theatre. – [Amorella]
You are not an alter ego. I don’t know what that means. It
is like saying, “a UFO is not an abnormality, a UFO is not a space ship,
a UFO is not a rainbow.” It does no good to know what something is not.
I am not a something. – Amorella.
Well, Amorella, are you my
imagination then?
I am not yours at all, boy.
That statement brings a pause. What do you want from
me?
It is the other way around, boy, What are these questions for, what do you
want from me beside writing these books for you? – Amorella.
Nothing. Good point. I want
nothing. I feel it is necessary for my mental health to unload these words in
my head.
Yes. Never be fearful of asking questions that are from within. If you had
wanted something more I would have not responded, but I would not leave these
circumstances. Post. Tomorrow, boy, we shall talk more. – Amorella.
From
Encounters in Mind blog – November, 2010:
** **
You
left off the part about PBS and Sherlock Holmes. We can reason through some
matters here three years later. However, Carol is readying for lunch out, you
assume either Penn Station or Cracker Barrel. You need a new perspective of
what personal reality is and what it isn’t. Post. - Amorella
Late
afternoon. You had lunch at Cracker Barrel, dropped off a letter at the post
office and came home. Carol has begun sweeping upstairs and wrapping more
presents for Owen and Brennan. You dusted the living and dining rooms and
cleaned your mother’s old leather chair in the TV room. You still have to dust
around the fireplace and throughout the TV room and the office. Plus you have
to clean the class in the living room as well as do the floors in the upstairs
bathrooms and the kitchen. – Amorella
1630 hours. I should probably
finish the TV room and office then have the material for the floors to take
upstairs before I think about a ‘new perspective’. I don’t know why I need a
new one. The Merlyn stories give me an imaginary perspective of being Dead.
True.
Imagination. But when it comes to discussing what I am neither of us see it as
completely imagination nor am I an alternate reality either. – Amorella
I agree. I was going to say you
are an ‘alternate reality induced by self-hypnosis’ but I am willing to let
that ride because otherwise I would be almost always under continual self-hypnosis
which I am not. I know the difference because I have experienced both under
laboratory conditions, i.e. at the psychologist’s office at the University of
Cincinnati where I was taught how to use self-hypnosis in the 1980’s. Before I
get back to the housework I will say that you might have a connection with my
reading and writing automaticity. Particularly when I have been told at Miami
University that the reading automaticity (that I used for grading expository
essay and research papers) is akin to how the mind works when someone is
conducting a simultaneous translation between two individuals, let’s say in
German and English. I do not know another language well enough. I could
superficially get by in Brazilian Portuguese and in Italian, but that’s it. Actually,
no, I don’t think I could even do that anymore.
I
have nothing to do with automaticity in reading or writing other than I can tap
into it through the unconscious and subconscious mind. I am not a product of
your consciousness. I am not your unconscious or subconscious mind either. I am
not thought nor am I memory. Let’s stop here. Post. – Amorella
I will listen, but I do not
have to agree.
When
has your agreeing or disagreeing (on what I am) made any real difference? –
Amorella
Never.
Late
afternoon. You had lunch at Cracker Barrel, dropped off a letter at the post
office and came home. Carol has begun sweeping upstairs and wrapping more
presents for Owen and Brennan. You dusted the living and dining rooms and
cleaned your mother’s old leather chair in the TV room. You still have to dust
around the fireplace and throughout the TV room and the office. Plus you have
to clean the class in the living room as well as do the floors in the upstairs
bathrooms and the kitchen. – Amorella
1630 hours. I should probably
finish the TV room and office then have the material for the floors to take
upstairs before I think about a ‘new perspective’. I don’t know why I need a
new one. The Merlyn stories give me an imaginary perspective of being Dead.
True.
Imagination. But when it comes to discussing what I am neither of us see it as
completely imagination nor am I an alternate reality either. – Amorella
I agree. I was going to say you
are an ‘alternate reality induced by self-hypnosis’ but I am willing to let
that ride because otherwise I would be almost always under continual self-hypnosis
which I am not. I know the difference because I have experienced both under
laboratory conditions, i.e. at the psychologist’s office at the University of
Cincinnati where I was taught how to use self-hypnosis in the 1980’s. Before I
get back to the housework I will say that you might have a connection with my
reading and writing automaticity. Particularly when I have been told at Miami
University that the reading automaticity (that I used for grading expository
essay and research papers) is akin to how the mind works when someone is
conducting a simultaneous translation between two individuals, let’s say in
German and English. I do not know another language well enough. I could
superficially get by in Brazilian Portuguese and in Italian, but that’s it. Actually,
no, I don’t think I could even do that anymore.
** **
Theoretical
Perspectives on Reading Fluency
Automaticity
Automatic word
recognition is central to the construct of fluency and fluency’s role in the
comprehension of text (e.g., Samuels, 2004, 2006). But what are the
qualities that
make for automaticity as it relates to read- ing fluency? According to Logan
(1997; see also Moors and DeHouwer, 2006), processes are considered to be
automatic when they possess four properties: speed, effortlessness, autonomy,
and lack of conscious awareness. These properties can be considered together or
separately when determining whether a skill is automatized (Moors &
DeHouwer, 2006).
The first of
these properties is speed, which is thought to emerge concurrently with
accuracy as learners engage in practice (Logan, 1988). As automaticity
develops, whether in terms of reading, perceptual-motor activities, or another
skilled task, the learner’s performance not only becomes accurate, it gets
faster. However, this increase in speed is not limitless. Rather, the learning
curve for these tasks follows what is known as the power
law;
this “states that reaction time decreases as a function of practice until some
irreducible limit is reached. Speed increases throughout practice, but the
gains are largest early on and diminish with further practice” (Logan, 1997, p.
123).
In terms of
connected text, the power law can be seen in Hasbrouck and Tindal’s (2006) oral
reading fluency norms; for example, between winter and spring of the
first-grade year students at the 50th percentile increase their reading rate
approximately 30 correct words per minute, whereas their peers in the eighth
grade gain only 18 correct words per minute over the entire school year and the
gains for adult skilled readers, who have reached asymptote, are infinitesimal.
The second
attribute of automaticity is effortlessness (Logan, 1997).
This refers to
the sense of ease with which a task is performed and to the ability to carry
out a second task while carrying out the first, automatic one. If a person is
able to accomplish two tasks at once, then at least one of those tasks is, by
necessity, automatic. In terms of fluency, effortlessness can be seen in two
ways. First, fluent readers lack a sense of struggle in recognizing most of the
words they encounter in text. This effortlessness in word recognition is
derived, in part, from unitization, a process that involves collapsing some of
the sequential steps used to identify words (Cunningham, Healy, Kanengiser,
Chizzick, & Willitts, 1988).
Slow,
algorithmic sequential word identification processes are seemingly replaced by
a shift toward direct single-step retrieval of larger units (such as words and
phrases) in long-term memory. These retrieved skills essentially outpace the
slower algorithmic word identification processes and can be completed more
quickly (Logan, 1988). Second, most fluent readers not only decode text, but
also simultaneously comprehend what they are reading. Inefficient word
recognition hampers comprehension and takes up precious cognitive resources
that should be used for understanding. With automatization of lower level
processes, readers can shift their attention from lower level skills to higher
level, integrative aspects of reading such as reading fluently with
comprehension. Disfluent readers, on the other hand, are unable to integrate
these lower level skills with higher level ones, primarily because of the
effort they need to expend on word recognition (e.g., LaBerge & Samuels,
1974; Samuels, 2006).
In addition to
rate and effortlessness, automatic processes are also autonomous; that is, they
occur without intention, beginning and running to completion independent of the
direction or intent of the person undertaking the act (Logan, 1997).
In contrast, a
non- autonomous process is deliberate, allowing an individu- al to maintain
control over the act and deciding whether it occurs. In the case of reading,
fluent readers have little choice but to recognize words as they encounter them
whereas beginning readers do not find reading to be an obligatory act. For
example, fluent readers often find themselves inadvertently reading the text
that runs along the bottom of a news program, although they are eventually able
to use their available cognitive resources to inhibit it. Disfluent readers, on
the other hand, are either unable to process the text at all or may find their attentional
resources excessively preoccupied by it (Schwanenflugel & Ruston, 2008).
However,
autonomous processing of words comes early in the development of reading,
perhaps even before children are truly fluent readers (Schwanenflugel, Morris,
Kuhn, Strauss, & Sieczko, 2008; Stanovich, Cunningham, & West, 1981).
Indeed, continued lack of autonomy of lexical processing is an indicator that
the child (or adult) is not yet a fluent reader (Protopapas, Archonti, &
Skaloumbakas, 2007; Schwanenflugel et al., 2006).
The final
characteristic of automaticity is a lack of conscious awareness (Logan, 1997).
Once lower level word recognition skills become automatic, the con- scious
awareness of the subskills that comprise them disappears. This lack of
conscious awareness in word recognition differentiates fluent from disfluent
readers. Disfluent readers tend to be keenly aware of the steps they need to
undertake to determine the words in a text and find the process to be slow and
deliberate (e.g., Chall, 1996). However, because word recognition has become
automatic for fluent readers, they are able to identify nearly every word they
encounter without conscious effort.
Although each
of these four properties can be applied to automatic word recognition, it is
important to remember that these attributes develop on a continuum, as well as
at different rates, so that readers who have had “an intermediate amount of
practice may be somewhat fast, somewhat effortful, somewhat autonomous, and
partially unconscious” (Logan, 1997, p. 128). Further, as readers gain skill
and are exposed to more texts, automaticity may expand not just at the
sublexical
(i.e., phoneme
and rime level) and word level, but also at the phrasal and perhaps even the
sentence level.
From: Aligning
Theory and Assessment of Reading Fluency: Automaticity, Prosody, and
Definitions of Fluency
Melanie
R. Kuhn
Boston University
Paula
J. Schwanenflugel
The University of
Georgia
Elizabeth
B. Meisinger
The University of
Memphis
Consulting
Editors:
Betty Ann Levy,
McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada Timothy V. Rasinski, Kent State
University, Ohio, USA
http://englishunisma
dot com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/11.pdf
** **
I agree with the above observations. What they say about the characteristics of automaticity is the way it is.
I
have nothing to do with automaticity in reading or writing other than I can tap
into it through the unconscious and subconscious mind. I am not a product of
your consciousness. I am not your unconscious or subconscious mind either. I am
not thought nor am I memory. Let’s stop here. Post. – Amorella
I will listen, but I do not
have to agree.
When
has your agreeing or disagreeing (on what I am) made any real difference? –
Amorella
Never.
Carol is sweeping upstairs and you just
finished dusting downstairs. You can do the coffee table glass tomorrow as well
as polishing the dining room table. – Amorella
1723 hours. What is important in this discussion of what you are is that
I ask the right questions, and I need to study the process of a simultaneous
translation works in the brain of the translator. [I have since discovered that
reading automaticity is nothing like conducting a simultaneous translation.] I
need to remember that I am, at least at present, an existential
transcendentalist.
Yes. Although you reverse the two words from
time to time, for this discussion you have to present yourself as an
existential transcendentalist. – Amorella
1734 hours. I do not feel this can be resolved by definition of
‘transcendentalist’ alone.
** **
transcendentalism – noun
1 (Transcendentalism)
an idealistic philosophical and social movement that developed in New England
around 1836 in reaction to rationalism. Influenced by romanticism, Platonism,
and Kantian philosophy, it taught that divinity pervades all nature and
humanity, and its members held progressive views on feminism and communal
living. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were central figures.
2 a
system developed by Immanuel Kant based on the idea that, in order to
understand the nature of reality, one must first examine and analyze the
reasoning process that governs the nature of experience.
From Oxford-American
software
** **
The
key problem is this statement, “[transcendentalism] taught that divinity
pervades all nature and humanity,” when I consider myself to be an agnostic.
Evening. The agnostic consideration appears
to be your problem; however, in the clutch, as some say, you go with the
divinity aspect because, alas, you still have your doubts one way or another.
This is somewhat humorous, but in any case, I am here. – Amorella
2059 hours. What you say in terms of divinity is true; otherwise, I’m wordless here.
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