Posted on 06/11/2015 8:02:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The following letter (sent via iPhone) is from Marilyn T., a teacher. She has worked in the greater New York City area for many years and wants everyone to know how debased and crazy our classrooms have become. She sums it up this way: “NYC is lost. Totally.”
Every American should be keenly concerned about understanding and saving New York City, because your own city is probably using the same bad methods and heading toward the same level of failure.
The letter:
Rather than choose what works in our schools, we are often using poorly designed programs in order to meet some philosophical ideal. Cohesive Curriculum is now the buzz. Unfortunately too often our administration chooses weak programs because of the philosophical ideal rather than the efficacy of the program.
Presently the administration spent thousands on a reading program which throws sight-words and phonics at the students simultaneously. Mixing these two at equal strength can set students years behind because sight-word instruction confuses decoding instruction. Rather a seamless program that is phonetic, systematic and explicit is best.
Sitting in a meeting about teaching reading with teachers who are not trained is painful. Today a first-grade teacher told the group that she thinks the kids should read a list of 50 sight-words in September to see if they can read. I tried to push the phonics assessments but the teachers believe this might be a waste of time since the administration is only concerned about the ‘level’ students are reading at. The Fountas and Pinnell leveled books are NOT diagnostic, that is, they do not tell us any useful information regarding word attack skills and systematic decoding ability; however this is how we are assessing our students.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Now you know why people voted for Obama twice.
“Noo Yawk is lost.”
She doesn’t know how right she is...
Depressing
This argument has been going on for almost a hundred years. The problem is that some kids do learn to read by sight better than by phonics; most do better with phonics. But when your throw kids together into one classroom and force them to use one method, then the burden falls on the teacher’s ability to handle a mixed group. IMHO, reading is basically a matter of the kid’s ability to handle language. From the time he is born, he is larding to decode language. He “invents” his own form of English etc. which as he grows older he integrates with the English he hears about him. Pity the poor kid whose parents speak bad English.
Nice that you see what others have known, and been writing about, for thirty years or more. Welcome to the party.
So soon old, so late smart.
I am one of those that learned to read by sight. I have never understood “phonics”.
But, my brain is apparently wired for visual input: I had a nearly photographic memory, although it is degrading as I get older.
Unfortunately, my auditory side is horrible. If you tell me a phone number, I will never remember it. But if I write it down and study it for a few seconds, I can recall that image.
Never end a sentence with a preposition. Well maybe this teacher doesn't teach writing or English.
This is the sound of the death knell for New York?
What about the increasing crime?
What about the pseudo-Marxist mayor?
What about all of the corruption of Wall Street?
I must be missing something.
I don’t know - Some kids might seem to do better initially with sight words, but unless they have the ability to decode phonetically these kids will be at a disadvantage as time goes by. I do agree that children learn language skills naturally. When they are exposed, then, to phonics they can understand how to put the building blocks in order to learn how to read and write correctly. Our history of teaching these basic skills is so sketchy. We try one method after another, and invest tons of money only to find out that none of them work. sigh.
Yesterday, I heard a “progressive” at my work arguing for some teaching method where the teacher breaks the class up into groups, and has the few kids who understand the lessons explain it to the rest of the kids. He seemed to think this was some great thing that would help both the fast and the slow learners.
I said “You’re just slowing down the smart kids to the speed of the dumb kids”. He was flabbergasted and just kept denying it, but he couldn’t make any counterargument other than to sputter “studies have shown”.
That’s why education is screwed up, you have all these idiot progressives who want to do something new just for the sake of novelty, without even bothering to question whether their new method is going to accomplish anything.
I know, I'm weird that way, thinking it was my duty to make sure my children got a good start on their educational journey...
Most if not all of the nonsense in the article would be a moot point if parents took control of their children's education...
Get YOUR children out of the government indoctrination centers - NOW!!
http://nypost.com/2012/12/17/reading-riting-and-race/
This should really help the kids. Progressive judge does right by the children once again.
Well, they have to successfully indoctrinate them before the huddled masses will accept all of the points you mentioned.
It all started when they dropped the Greek requirement.
“Disparate impact” strikes again!
It’s stuff like that which ensures we can’t just reform education through elections and school boards, because the black robed dictators will just overrule us. Getting school choice passed is really the only viable alternative.
wonder if those who do not process words and sounds through both sides of brain communicating are the same who don’t spend a lot of time crawling. My son is perfectly balanced in sight sound and touch. I was more sight, but can translate English from accents well.
Going from written to pronunciation has produced some funny results. Never hearing a word spoken but reading it phonetically and knowing its definition did not help me recognize the spoken word. Therefore, reading it along with someone reading it out is probably the best way to kill two birds with one stone. Teacher reading the classics out loud to third graders is where I would start.
My wife and younger son are the same way. When my older kids were about 9 and 10, I rewarded them for memorizing the first two verses of The Mid Night Rise of Paul Revere in about half an hour. I tried that on my younger son at the same age, and ...nothing” He managed maybe three lines. I am a teacher but try as I might I could not get the elementary teachers to try sight reading. Bottom line: no time for odd-balls; didn’t know HOW to do it excerpt by phonics. He ended up in speak ed and instead of working on his reading they went through their bag of tricks. as if he had an IQ of 80. he finally got old enough to learn to take close notes and now he is our best reader.
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