Free Republic

Willa Cather wrote an American literary masterpeice - so did Fitzgerald, Bellow, and Mailer - but Clancy's Red Storm Rising is just commercial junk. Take a university English course offered under a summary like "The American Novel" or "A Survey of American Literature" and you find that before the 1930s the great American novel was written by people like Mark Twain, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Henry James - but literary greatness after that period devolved to people like Philip Roth, John Barth, and Paul Auster. So why is the Life of Pi great literature and Cardinal of the Kremlin just paplum?...

[More about Sight-Words...] Your average criminal has a few aliases. It’s de rigueur in the underworld. But only real swashbucklers pass the half-dozen mark. Think about the confusion keeping your identities straight. Down South you’re Jackson Jones, but in New York you answer to Maxie Smith, however, guys in Atlantic City call you Lefty,” as in, “Yo, Lefty, still doing hits?” Which has to remind us of Whole Word, one of the greatest swashbucklers since Charles Ponzi’s business plan. This wise guy--I mean Whole Word-- came into the world as Look-say, with a few early aliases such as Word Method...

Sunday Mass Readings of Fourth Sunday of Lent: http://new.usccb.org/bible/readings/031812-fourth-sunday-of-lent.cfm Dearest Lord: Your royal instrument said, “Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up (to rebuild Jerusalem) , and may his God be with him!" Oh, we were born in iniquities, our nature, which was once pristine, is now defiled with infidelity upon infidelity. It is perpetually true that the loss of charity and sanctifying beauty of our soul always come from infidelity, the refusal to worship the Lord our God. You have given so much grace and strong foundation, the Church, to guide...

Marie Antoinette, on hearing that French peasants had no bread to eat, suggested, “Let them eat cake.” This quip perfectly captured the haughty indifference which many people attributed to the French monarchy. A few years later, she was punished for her hauteur: execution by guillotine. The famous quote was probably never uttered. Real or not, it’s a handy symbol for an arrogant elite, indifferent to the suffering of the people. When you read in the newspaper that the US has 50 million functional illiterates, the disdainful queen should flash into your mind.During the 1920’s, the American population was moving toward...

[MORE ABOUT READING, SPECIFICALLY, THAT SO-CALLED BALANCED LITERACY IS ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE LONG-RUNNING HOAX:] So here’s the deal. The same people who lied to us about reading for 70 years now want us to believe they are finally telling the truth. They said that English isn’t phonetic, that children don’t need the alphabet and the sounds, that children need only to look at words and memorize the shapes. All this was utter nonsense. They further said that if children didn’t recognize a word (which they typically didn’t as it’s hard work to memorize a word by its shape), they...

Gov. Scott Walker and the state schools superintendent unveiled a task force's recommendations Wednesday for how Wisconsin might ensure that every child can read by the end of the third grade, including testing incoming kindergarteners' reading proficiency, providing teachers with more training opportunities and holding teachers to higher standards. Walker formed the Read to Lead task force in March after reading tests showed Wisconsin students were falling behind students in other states. He and state Superintendent Tony Evers unveiled the recommendations at a public school in the Milwaukee suburb of Greendale. They called the recommendations an "aggressive plan to improve...

GOOD INSIGHTS ON WHY MILLIONS OF KIDS CAN'T READ. (A FOLLOW-UP FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN EARLIER POST TITLED "FAKE READING THEORY IS THE SLAVE TRADE OF OUR ERA.") The country continues to be plagued by illiteracy. The reason is simple. The country continues to be under the heel of some of the most reckless and reprehensible “experts” imaginable. They make little children memorize the SHAPES of words, which most little children simply can’t do. Ergo, these children experience major reading and cognitive problems.  Don Potter, the phonics guru and as well a teacher in Texas, recently sent me this illuminating...

May we never forget GOD! His wisdom, love, grace, mercy, peace, forgiveness, honesty, and humility. As well as HIS rebuking, reproofing, and correction through HIS WORD! LOVE TO ALL!

Fake reading theory is the slave trade of our era. Conscience demands that it be opposed. A hundred books, perhaps two hundred, have been written on the reading wars. Finally those millions of words come down to a few dozen. English is a phonetic language and must be learned phonetically. Whole Word, the opposing theory, is a mirage, without merit. The great sophistry of the 20th century was to create the illusion that Whole Word could actually work or, one step lower, that there was a legitimate choice between the two approaches to reading, as there is between fahrenheit and...

>>>THIS ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED FOUR YEARS AGO. STILL A HOT TOPIC.>>>> The Vatican recently announced a return to the Latin Mass for congregations that wish to use it. Much of the world was bewildered or bemused. Oh great, old-fashioned religionists will be listening to sonorous noise that nobody understands. Ah, but what if they did! I believe the Pope’s decision is a great opportunity, both for spiritual enlightenment and educational advances. Perhaps I should mention that I’m not a Catholic or someone who goes to religious ceremonies of any kind. I write as an education activist; in that context, let’s...

A Los Angeles area elementary school is facing some major criticism from parents after the district invited porn star Sasha Grey to read to a group of first graders, according to a report from TMZ. TMZ obtained photos of Grey reading to the children at Emerson Elementary School in Compton on November 2 as part of the Read Across America program. Grey also tweeted about the experience, gushing that the students were the “sweetest.”

OUTSTANDING (& FUNNY) POST FROM BLOG YOU MIGHT NOT RUN INTO:: ---------- Curse you, "Sing, Spell, Read, & Write!" I've had a revelation. It dawned on me exactly when I lost control around here. It was when I taught my kids to read. See, it doesn't take long, once a kid can read, that he gets twice as smart as his parents. One day he's working his way through The Cat In The Hat, and a week later, he's making subversive messages with those plastic letter refrigerator magnets: "DOWN WITH OPPRESSIVE BEDTIMES! STOP THE TYRANNY!" And then they learn to...

A special education teacher wrote to me about the abuse of Ritalin. The teacher said: “My students are on Ritalin. This is a brain shrinking, top tier heavily psychotropic drug, as you know. The authorities KNOW this is their weapon for the most intelligent boys... ” The teacher believes this is a high-level NWO plot, which is not a road I like to go down. But the teacher got me thinking... Here are the two parts I’m personally sure of: 1) The Education Establishment in this country, for 75 years, has used bogus methods (i.e., Whole Word) to teach reading....

I am preparing a list for my children and grandchildren of the _____ (to be filled in) non-fiction books everyone should read. To date, I have only four, all of which I have read. In alphabetical order by author: Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species by Natuarla Selectin." Noccolo Machiavelli, "The Prince." Sun-Tzu, "The Art of War." H. G. Wells, "The Outline of History (1939 edition). For the record, I am a 70+ year old retired attorney, who has always been a voarcious reader. Criticism and suggestions are welcome.

Archaeologists believe they have found the first pre-Roman planned town discovered in Britain.It has been unearthed beneath the Roman town of Silchester or Calleva Atrebatum near modern Reading. The Romans are often credited with bringing civilisation to Britain - including town planning. But excavations have shown evidence of an Iron Age town built on a grid and signs inhabitants had access to imported wine and olive oil. Prof Mike Fulford, an archaeologist at the University of Reading, said the people of Iron Age Silchester appear to have adopted an urbanised 'Roman' way of living, long before the Romans arrived. "It...

Obama summer reading list leans toward fictionBy Alister Bull and Laura MacInnis Reuters – 8 mins ago VINEYARD HAVEN, Massachusetts (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, perhaps seeking a break from harsh reality after a tough summer battling the economy and Republicans in Congress, has picked a summer reading list that is long on fiction. The White House says four of the five books that Democrat Obama has to choose from during a nine-day family vacation here are novels. Obama's reading list -- like the criticism from Republicans for vacationing while the economy is stumbling -- is a rite of the...

A reading coach in Missouri told me a revealing story. A nine-year-old boy, unable to read; showed up for remedial help. Pointing at “bead,” the tutor explained, “When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.” The puzzled third-grader looked up and asked: “What’s a vowel?” Which prompts the question: “Has the state of Missouri lost its mind?” Specifically, the school board members, administrators, superintendents, principals, politicians, civic leaders, and all the other people in charge of public education, all the people who let a smart boy reach the third-grade without being able to read. What process of...

Pope Benedict XVI has urged Catholics to read the Bible while on vacation, particularly the lesser known books of sacred scripture."This seems to be a good thing to do on the holidays: take a book of the Bible, so you have some relaxation and, at the same time, enter into the great expanse of ​​the Word of God and deepen our contact with the Eternal," said the Pope in his Wednesday General Audience address at his holiday residence of Castle Gandolfo, 15 miles south of Rome, Aug. 3. Pope Benedict noted how "each of us needs time and space...

An Internet forum asked this question: “Suppose you had $1 billion to spend, how would you improve education?” More than 30 people left suggestions, all of them smart, articulate, and sophisticated. But something nagged at me. I sensed there was an unstated premise that all these respondents shared. A false premise. Everyone seemed to assume that the Education Establishment is honestly trying to do a good job. The premise goes like this: These elite educators mean well. They have the right answers. But for some odd reason, they can’t quite get their act together. All that’s needed, apparently, is for...

Churches in the U.S. are preparing to read sections of the Torah on Sunday, August 13, in a show of solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people. The move is a response to an initiative by a group of churches that read from the Muslim Koran during their services on Sunday, June 26. According to the Faith Shared project, which initiated the Koran reading, 66 churches from 32 states joined that effort. In an effort to counter the move, a grassroots movement of churches across America is preparing to read from sections of the Torah during their services. According to...