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Are you having difficulty deciding whether to attend a community college or a university? What is the difference in a university versus a community college? This article will help you compare community college and university benefits.

Going to a university can mean different things in different situations. For some people it’s a four-year stint in the context of a university setting far from their home with an eye to even more education afterwards. For others, its two years spent at a local community college. Why choose a university program over a community college program or vice versa? Keep reading to find out the draws of each option.

Differences After High School

Just as children differ when they start school, with some already able to say the alphabet or even read, tie their shoes, count to 25, and write their names while others haven’t yet attained these milestones, high school graduates differ as well. High school graduates differ in their accomplishments during their education, in their goals for their futures, and in their economic resources. All of these three items can affect their choice of whether a university degree or community college attendance is the best choice for them.

Accomplishments and Next Steps

Not everyone does equally well in high school, and there are a number of reasons for this. Some people just don’t function well in an academic setting: their strengths are elsewhere. Others may not have been as developmentally ready for the demands of high school. And some may have had the events of life interrupt their high school careers, for one reason or another, diminishing their performance.

While their peers may be prepared for the rigors and responsibilities of a college degree, these students may not feel that they have a firm enough grasp of high school material or possibly the grades to allow them to gain admission to a university program and doing well in it. For students such as these, a community college may offer a way to continue their education and strengthen their educational foundations. For those who wish to go on, community college can form an important transition between high school and a university setting.

There are also people who are returning to education a good while after their high school graduation. Although they may have done well enough when they were teenagers, they may feel that a gentler reintroduction to academic life is more their style, and so rather than plunging into a university degree, they may choose to enroll at or perhaps just sample courses at a community college by way of reintroduction to life in school.

On the other hand, high school graduates who had the emotional maturity and academic skills to perform well in high school may be raring to go on to a university degree right away. Besides having a good enough track record to gain admission, such students may also have a clear enough idea of their personal strengths that they already have an idea about what their vocational choice is likely to be.

Looking at One’s Goals

There are other reasons why the choice of a community college over a university might make sense. One of these is being uncertain of one’s future direction. This could happen for several reasons. A person could be choosing between a technical degree and a liberal arts degree and not be sure of what kind of four-year institution he or she wished to attend.

Or a person might be drawn to multiple career choices and wish to find out more about them all by taking preliminary courses. In this case, sampling at a community college could be done at less cost and the person could then choose to apply to a university that would support his or her considered career decision.

Because one can take courses inexpensively at community colleges and because attaining a community college degree and then transferring is a well-worn path to a B.A., a community college can be a good transitional program. On the other hand, some high school graduates simply want a career that is best served by a community college degree. The associates degree that they need in their field may not even be offered at a university. In this case, the choice of a community college is abundantly clear. For others, their occupational goals dictate attendance at a university program, and that’s the path they choose to pursue.

Money and Choices

People who cannot afford to go to school full time and therefore need an institution with a flexible schedule so that they can work may find that a community college is better adapted to their needs. With a student population that is typically less traditional than a university, a community college is more likely to schedule classes with students’ other commitments in mind. Not only are 59% of community college students enrolled part time, but distance learning and off-campus courses may be possibilities.

If university costs are just too much, even with scholarship, grant, and other assistance, then community college can also offer an alternative that allows full-time attendance (if that’s what’s wanted) for far less cost.  Those who need a university education to meet their career goals may be able to attend a community college part time while they work and save up. Then, when they transfer to a university for their final two years, they may have saved enough that with financial aid, they can pursue their four-year degree.

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Why is phonemic awareness important?

If children cannot hear and manipulate the sounds (phonemes) in spoken words, they will have a very difficult time in learning how to attach these sounds to letters and letter combinations. The lack of phonemic awareness is the most important causal factor contributing to children with reading disabilities. (Adams, 1990)

Phomemic awareness is the most powerful predictor of reading success. It is more highly correlated with reading success than socio-economic status, general intelligence, or listening comprehension. (Stanovich, 1986, 1994; Goldstein, 1976; Zifcak, 1977)

How is phonemic awareness related to learning to read, and can it be taught with measurable success?

Phoneme awareness is related to reading in two ways: (1) phonemic awareness is prerequisite of learning to read (Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Yopp, 1985), and (2) phonemic awareness is a consequence of learning to read. (Ehri, 1979; Read, Yun-Fei, Hong-Yin, & Bao-Qing, 1986)

Several studies have demonstrated that children can be successfully trained in phonemic awareness. (Cunningham, 1990; Ball & Blachman, 1991; Yopp & Troyer, 1992)

Phonemic awareness training was shown to positively affect both reading and spelling achievement in kindergarten and first grade children. (Lundberg, 1988; Bradley & Bryant, 1983)

Who needs phonemic awareness training?

Percentages of children requiring specific training in phonemic awareness vary slightly according to different research studies, but the amount is still a significant percentage of early readers. Ehri (1984) found 20% lacked requisite phonological awareness, Lyon (1996) cited a figure of 17%, and Adams (1990) concluded that 25% of middle class kindergartners lacked this ability.

Fletcher et al., (1994) found that poor readers most always had poor phonemic awareness. The National Institute of Child, Health, and Human Development (NICHD) longitudinal studies support this conclusion, stating that the major problem predisposing children to having reading disabilities is lack of phonological processing ability. (Lyon, 1997)

When should phonemic awareness training take place, and how should it be introduced?

Children should be diagnosed by mid-kindergarten to see if they are able to identify and manipulate phonemes. If early learners do not have this ability, they should be given more intensive phonemic awareness training (Ehri, 1984)

Research shows that if schools delay intervention until age seven for children experiencing reading difficulty, 75% will continue having difficulties. If caught in first or second grade, reading difficulties may be remediated 82% of the time. Those caught in third to fifth grades may be improved 46% of the time, while those identified later may only be treated successfully 10-15% of the time. (Foorman, 1996)

There appears to be a consensus in the research that a specific sequence of instruction in phonemic awareness is most effective for early learners. Treiman (1992) found that children learned to be consciously aware of and were able to manipulate onsets and rimes more easily than individual phonemes.

Eye movements in reading should have the same kind of automatic response as driving a car or word processing an e-mail. Training students to read faster helps build this automaticity by reducing line fixations and the amount of time spent on each fixation.

So, how do our eye movements affect our reading ability? Most people would probably say that their eyes follow the print, left to right, at a consistent rate across the page. However, this is far from the truth. Using sophisticated cameras and computer analysis, scientists have found that our eyes fixate on several places in the line in a rather herky-jerky motion.

In fact, when our eyes move, they aren’t even looking at the words, but are just moving from one fixation to the next. Eye movement accounts for only about one-tenth of the time spent on each line of reading text. In other words, reading consists of a series of individual glances at each line of text and the corresponding meaning-making of each glance.

The greater the number of fixations per line and the more time it takes to make sense of each fixation, the slower the meaning-making will be. Better readers have less fixations per line and rapid processing of each word. This is what Marilyn Adams (1995) refers to as “automaticity” and is the necessary prerequisite for reading well. This automatic processing develops as the reader becomes able to quickly and effectively apply the semantic, graphophonic, and syntactic cueing systems to the text.

Of course, the number of fixations per line and the duration of each fixation should depend on the degree of reading difficulty. Reading unfamiliar material or subject-specific vocabulary requires slower processing. Also, the purpose of the reader should determine reading speed. Reading a biology text for a test is quite different from reading a Goosebumps mystery for fun. The problem is that poor readers tend to read everything in the same way, that is with too many fixations and taking too much time to process the words.

Specific speed reading techniques have been developed to vary the reading rate according to the degree of text difficulty. Speed reading will also help call attention to, and even break, many poor reading habits. Effective speed reading will also maintain or improve reading comprehension as students increase their silent fluency rates.

Trying to understand autism is a bit like fighting the Hydra. For those with only vague memories of those illuminating ancient history classes back in high school, the Hydra is a creature from Greek mythology with a hundred heads, each of which would grow back after being severed in battle. One would think that upon encountering this monster, the first question posed by an Odysseus-like figure might be: “Hmm, where do I begin?”

Autism is the syndrome with a hundred features. Not only that, it has a hundred degrees of severity along a spectrum that includes people who are not toilet trained to people with husbands, wives, jobs, and relatively normal life styles. By analogy the modern researcher is modern day Odysseus, trying to figure out where to begin in solving this complex puzzle. He or she is undoubtedly daunted by the sheer volume of symptoms, which include (among others) language deficits, cognitive deficits, stereotypy, social deficits, (eye) gaze aversion, explosive behavior, sleep problems, sensory integration problems, self abusive behavior, fine motor deficits, gross motor deficits and eating problems.

Since conjuring up a research design involves isolation of independent (causal and dependent (effected) variables implementation of research must be a rather iffy proposition. In point of fact the researcher must begin with the notion that it appears every system of the brain and body are involved in autistic symptomatology. Extremely frustrating.

For that reason it might help to begin with a neurological concept that explains how these varied characteristics could emanate from a single or narrow set of sources. This writer believes that can be done, but before doing so, some discussion of the functions of the central nervous system is required.

The human brain is complex only in terms of its cellular make-up and sheer volume. That is deceptive, because while it would appear that the task of figuring out how billions of neurons (nerve cells) arre orchestrated to produce language, cognition, emotion and other faculties is nearly impossible, there is a flip side to this problem. It is called simplicity. In the biological world homeostasis and systemic stability for both mind and body are paramount. All complex systems must have a simple code so that each component can communicate with the others and whitle down the various signals into understandable messages. Tte value of this inter-communications mechanism is obvious. Without it the components would interfere with one another. That would turn complexity into chaos and in the case of humans, mitigate the advantages of having a large brain. Perhaps a simpler of looking at this is to say that our brains operate in the same way as our politics.. With lots of people, all of whom might clash, compete and disrupt the goals of one another, we need laws. The fact that humans create laws to regulate populations is not surprising, because at the cellular level our brains do the very same thing. In other words culture emanates from the systemic functions of the brain.

In trying to understanding of autism, we are really attempting to figure out what the regulatory code is. More specifically, what mechanism in the brain oversees all its diverse functions and prevents complexity from morphing into chaos? This is not an easy question to answer, for several reasons. To assume one part of the brain monitors all the others also assumes the regulatory network is somehow removed from the others, that is, not influenced by them via neural connections. If not, it would be a bit like having a Supreme Court that is part of the legislature. No juridical regulation could come of that.

With regard to autism, one must consider the possibility that the ultimate cause of the disorder is not necessarily to be found in the inter-relationships among brain circuits and pathways but in a language code that monitors and tells the cells how and where to connect. Some researchers would dispute this claim - and not without good reason. After all, some studies have revealed anomalies in the structure of frontal lobes, midbrain (limbic) systems, the occipital (visual) cortex and the motor-regulatory circuit known as the cerebellum. The problem is that that only complicates matters. If all these brain systems are involved, yet all faciliate different functions, how can any single one be implicated in autism? In other words, the search for a specific brain neuropathy that ostensibly causes autism is like fighting the hydra.

There is an alternative explanation. In order for the brain to be functional it must be, above all else, fluid and rhythmic. Its wave frequencies must provide an impulse code that tells excitatory neurons to proceed and inhibitory neurons to stop - and with the utmost precision. Otherwise all the integrative (ie multi-systemic) faculties like language, cognition, abstract reasoning, etc woul be impossible - or certainly frustrating enough to make the autistic learner avoid any such tasks. A similar wave phenomenon has been observed and discussed at length in the past - perhaps most notably by neurologist Karl Pribram in his work on the “slow potential microstructure” of the brain.

The question is; how does a rhythm code regulate brain communications? It would do so by what is called an algorithm - a kind of mathematical summation of what is going on in each brain system in terms of agreement and conflict (for example, a computation suggesting 2=3 = 6) and averaging it out to closure. For example if the visual cortex picked came upon a stimulus - say a person whose face it could not identify by name, the wave frequency would shift over to the language and memory centers - all the while holding the visual input in toe. The wave frequency would recognize uncertainty and upon shifting to the memory and language centers, it would determine when the various brain centers “agree” - such that the face, and name of the person are assimilated. To avoid arcane clinical terms let’s call this function the “maestro.”

But what if the ‘maestro” is not doing its job? What behavioral features would ensue? First of all, an inability to orchestrate among various brain sites would lead the autistic individual to withdraw from learning, and from any sort of integrative experience where more than one brain function is involved. Second, the autistic individual would not only have difficulty talking (which is a highly integrative activity). He also might be averse to the human voice, not due to its pitch, but due to its adherence to integrative nuances that require muitl-faculty perceptions by the listener. In addition, the autistic individual might be extremely dyspraxic, once again due to a faulty “maestro” in the brain. His capacity to use utensiles, chew, walk, engage in listen-speak alternatesequences would all be disrupted, so th the best he could do would be to repeat exactly what was said to him and engage in rigid, awkward movements.

There are also emotional ramifications of the “bad maestro.” When the brain is not fluidly regulated, its component systems cannot share efficiently the inputs impinging on any one site. One of the seldom-discussed benefits of having an integrative brain is that is provides an emotion-dampening device resulting from that neural sharing (often called lateral inhibition). Without that capacity, any one stimulus, emotional or otherwise will tend to impinge on narrow sets of pathways without any dampening effect. As a result those stimuli will have extraordinary impact on the non regulated brain. The autistic person would tend to spike behaviorally and emotionally. His stimulus reflexes would be in their essence, faster than those of a normal person, making his behavior unpredictable.

According to this line of reasoning, autistic symptomatology can be broken into two categories. One is a deficit category - referring to the inability to integrate and thus develop normal speech, coordination and emotional regulation capacities. The other would be a compensatory category - referring to so-called abnormal behaviors that are in fact adaptive from the autistic individual’s point of view. These would include rhythm compensations helping him overcome the bad maestro. Examples would be stereotypy, sing-song vocal tone, use of movement while talking and thinking and other exaggerated orientation mechanisms.

Whether or not the central problem in autism is a faulty maestro or, in clinical terms, a non fluid interaction between slow potential microstructure wave activiity in the brain and specific lobes and circuits, few would argue that rhythm is a problem with autistic people. To take it one step further simply requires building a conceptiual bridge betwen the various deficits asociated with autism and the dysrhythmia discussed here.

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