However, this often promotes the fragmentation of knowledge. The various subject matter areas should be combined as the learners solve problems related to themes or units. If the program cannot be totally integrated, certainly the language arts themselves can be integrated with other subject matter areas so that students see how language is used as a tool to learning rather than as an end in itself. Integrating subject matter around a central theme or unit of work often grows out of a problem which the students may have selected such as noise pollution, scarcity of water, conflict on the playground, land use, vanishing species, changes in family structure, etc. The problems which the students identify are most often relevant and meaningful to the students.
Field trips are often part of such programs which adds new functional purposes for writing.
Letters have to be written, maps have to be drawn, records have to be kept, and petitions have to be drawn up. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing become functional and purposeful. All these activities should be done in the two languages. The content is the base for constructing knowledge while knowledge is received by the learner through reading and listening or sharing with others through writing and speaking. Reading to Children Time must be found to read to children daily.