Choice Words Quotes

“Much more important is noticing—and helping the students notice—what they are doing well, particularly the leading edge of what is going well. This leading edge is where the student has reached beyond herself, stretching what she knows just beyond its limit, producing something that is partly correct. This is the launching pad for new learning.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“Marie Clay (1993) refers to this as attending to the “partially correct.” Its significance cannot be overstated.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“The most important piece is to confirm what has been successful (so it will be repeated) and simultaneously assert the learner’s competence so she will have the confidence to consider new”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“Feelings, too, are socialized—we learn what they are, or rather, we acquire meanings for them.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“There is no question that “discourse penetrates a fair way into the perceptual system” (Harre and Gillet 1994, p. 169).”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“asking myself from time to time if it might be possible to teach English in such a way that people would stop killing each other”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“We can keep the tests and other potentially distracting elements in mind, but we have to keep our heads up further than that as we deal with the moment-to-moment interactions with students.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“Yet, pressures of testing and overstuffed curricula easily make us abandon meaningfulness and reduce our view of our work to mere individual cognitive skill building. It is easy to forget the need to engage the whole person in joint community activities that are socially and personally meaningful and emotionally satisfying.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“To be meaningful, teaching children to become literate is about the here and now, and what children can do with literacy to serve their interests.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“Focusing on the positive is hardly a new idea. It is just hard to remember to do it sometimes, particularly when the child’s response is nowhere near what you expected. Indeed, the more we rely on expectations and standards, the harder it is to focus on what is going well.”
― Peter H. Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning

“...no learner can afford to be dependent on the teacher for everything that needs to be noticed, so teachers have to teach children to look for possibilities.”
― Peter Johnston, Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children's Learning