Posted on 01/02/2012 7:18:49 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice
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 note: “This has been a banner year for me. I have rescued dozens of students from the clutches of the sight-word monster. I am looking forward to rescuing more in the year to come. The parents marvel that I have been able to improve their children's reading with phonics in a very short time. They are also very upset to learn that their children were suffering, not genetic defects that screwed up neural pathways, but old fashioned artificially induced whole-word dyslexia caused by sight-word instruction. Every student coming to me has a copy of the Dolch Sight Vocabulary List in their Homework Folder.”
Note that the parents had embraced the idea that their kids were mentally impaired (dyslexic) but are now shocked to find that the kids are normal! (In fact, it’s the school that is mentally impaired.) There in a few dozen words is the whole story of dyslexia in our time. Parents and kids accept the school’s nutty diagnosis but in many cases will be angry with you if you tell them, sorry, you’re fine but you are the victim of a hoax. (I have a video on YouTube called "The Strange Truth About Dyslexia." People leave really violent comments on it.)
QED: the Dolch Sight Vocabulary List should be removed from every school.
Now, I want to give you a little more detail about the reading debate...but not too much! Reading theory quickly becomes murky; and I believe our Education Establishment uses the general confusion to keep their bad ideas in play.
Happily, I’ve found an excellent way to explore some of the subtleties. Raymond Laurita was a major crusader 40 years ago; in 1967 he published an article titled “Errors Children Make in Reading.” I’ve cut his article down to the best parts; and I promise you will be glad you read them. They explain how Sight-Words do their evil work:
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On hearing the errors of these unfortunate children, the first impulse is to attribute them to a lack of intelligence or even some form of mental aberration. The linguistic monstrosities these children perpetrate appear to be without semblance of logic or consistency...
The primary cause of reading difficulties in virtually all of the over 700 cases of reading disability I have treated over the years was related to difficulties the child encountered in attempting to cope with the problems imposed by whole configurations....
When a child is exposed to a whole word configuration such as “could” for example, without sufficient preparation, we are literally opening a Pandora’s Box of possible confusions....
To the immature child who hasn’t developed adequate visual and auditory identity and association between individual language symbols and the words they form, the word “could” will undoubtedly be confused later with a variety of configurations; among them: cold, called, cloud, canned, cooled, clawed, cord, would, should, etc....It isn’t difficult for the more than casual observer to understand why so many children become reading problems. They simply cannot cope fast enough with the need to learn numerous and unrelated whole word configurations on a purely visual basis.
It must be remembered that children who learn by the sight method, and this constitutes the majority of children in the United States, have been scientifically conditioned during the initial exposure period to a learning experience which by its very nature elicits a purely visual response to a configuration without assistance from auditory clues. No sincere educator can pretend that this initial exposure period hasn’t a most profound and enduring effect on the immature child, for by a series of carefully arranged stimulus-response activities, he has been literally conditioned to a visual, configurational attack on language. The result is inevitable.
The argument of those who persist in exposing all children indiscriminately to a visual configurational attack is usually based on post-facto reasoning, for they tend to cite the large numbers of children who have learned to read without first making auditory and visual associations with the individual letters of the alphabet. It is my belief and that of others that children who learn to read using a gestalt approach which exposes them to whole word configurations at the outset, are children who have had either prior preparation which prepared them for the experience or are those children gifted with better than average capacities of visual perception, discrimination and memory....
Alex Bannatyne writing in The Disabled Reader, states “This latter method, commonly called look-and-say, may be effective with those two thirds of first- and second-grade pupils who are sufficiently gifted in the realm of language to be able to learn to read quickly. I believe that these verbally capable children rapidly teach themselves to analyze words phonetically in spite of a deliberate non-phonetic approach on the part of the teacher. That this is so can easily be tested by asking children who have learned to read well using the look-and-say method to sound out difficult words; this they usually do quite competently....”
The subtlety and infinite diversity of the errors that the child becomes subject to in his developing confusion have to be seen to be believed....
Another example saw a child respond to the word “grab” with the response “drag.” This is an extremely common type of error for it has in addition to the visual confusion an overlay of confused auditory association. The consonant blends gr and dr are extremely difficult to differentiate for the child with inadequate auditory perception and discrimination. The two sounds are very similar as are the lip movements which are made to create them. In addition to the auditory confusion and the close configurational pattern of the two words, the child was also reversing the initial and final consonants. This child also referred to a “furry” animal as a “funny” animal and read about a character who went swimming in the “winter” instead of in the “water.” Both of these errors had a configurational base with the error involving the words furry and funny complicated by a discrimination confusion between the n and the r. This child also made the following progression in mistaking the word “Oh.” He went from oh to on to no and finally concluded the series with not.
These confusions are not extreme examples of severely disabled children but are instead rather common samples that every remedial teacher will meet on a given day if the time is taken to record the mistakes children make.
Often a child will read a sentence such as: “The little boy went into the jungle and saw a big giraffe.” and substitute for the last word: elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus or even dinosaur. Most adults fail to realize the subtle yet logical cause for this kind of mistake. It is really very logical for the child who has been conditioned to respond to visual stimuli. He isn’t thinking in terms of auditory clues, rather he is sure only that the little boy has seen some kind of large jungle animal. Unless he is a capable, linguistically talented child, his auditory associational training hasn’t prepared him for a total attack on the word, thus why shouldn’t it be a hippopotamus, elephant, rhinoceros or even a dinosaur. They are all “big” words in terms of size; they are all large animals and to the small child the possibility of a dinosaur residing in the depths of the jungle is a distinct possibility....
Observing a child who has lost some of this marvelous human capacity to respond with reasoning and logic, is a terribly depressing sight, and when one considers the number of times that human frailty in the form of faulty teaching and inadequate methodology has been the cause of this loss, the situation takes on the aspects of a tragedy....
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QED: the Dolch Sight Vocabulary List is the reason we have 50 million functional illiterates. It should be removed from every school. All the phonics experts say that children learn to read in the first grade. The Whole Word maniacs say that children will read some day, maybe, perhaps in middle school, but don’t be surprised if they experience ADHD, depression, dyslexia, and chronic illiteracy.
Don Potter publishes this article and many like it on donpotter.net. His site is an archive of historically important material.
My own focus is on providing artillery for parents to use in their daily battles with school administrators. Many of these officials may actually have no idea how far over to the dark side they have drifted. (They make the mistake of trusting the pronouncements coming down from on high.) So send them a copy of this post or the article titled: “Fake Reading Theory is the Slave Trade of Our Era.” (on RightSideNews)
(Improve-Education.org also has 10 articles about reading.)
“Everything else is a communist plot. (No, really. You guys really said that.).”
I’ll let others use that term...I don’t need to. I only go as far as saying that the people pushing this crap at the top simply want to “level the playing field a bit” and bring the US down to with the rest of the world.
And judging by our test scores (which just happen to crash when we went to Whole Language and Fuzzy Math), they have been quite successful.
There's the false pity and appeal to empathy again. Wow, you really only have a limited bag of tricks, don't you?
In a final appeal to rationality, take a look at the logic behind what you just wrote. I won't expect an apology, but here we go.
My only factual assertions in this entire thread have been that (a) English is an amalgam of many different language groups and is highly complex; (b) in some cases dolch sight cards are a good supplement to a sound reading program.
On the basis of those assertions alone, you have asserted that I am a "crappy" parent if I believe the assertions above. And that I'm really "whacked out."
Since you know nothing else about me, it logically follows that you believe all people who believe factual assertions (a) and (b) above is a "crappy" parent. (I'll take the "whacked out" comment to refer to the fact that I'm still attempting to teach you the error of your ways.)
Really? Do you feel good about that?
You realize that you’re giving yourself away with terms like that. No normal person uses it - only education insiders.
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Not true. MrR and I both use the word, neither of us are educators.
That’s fine, lots of us have multiple log-ins.
“(b) in some cases dolch sight cards are a good supplement to a sound reading program.”
Nuts.
And judging by our test scores (which just happen to crash when we went to Whole Language and Fuzzy Math), they have been quite successful.
There we agree on something. Although I think that overemphasis on WL and FM are symptoms of the overarching problem that parents gave up on their personal responsiblity to raise and educate their children and ignored what the school boards did. Stupid things like letting school boards schedule meetings for Wednesday and Thursday nights when the most religiously oriented (and therefore most demanding in terms of personal responsibility and accountability) citizens were in mid-week church. Parents turning their children over to Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers for after-school moral indoctrination. Etc. In my opinion, that's what opened the door for Dewey's acolytes to come to dominate the schools. Additionally, it could just as easily have been a capitalist "plot." The McGuffey Reader and progeny pretty much dominated the market. The only way a competitor could get in was to provide something completely different and justify it as more modern, scientific, and progressive. The competitor then engages in agency capture by electing the school board or lobbying it intensely. It's curriculum then gets adopted by gullible (or paid off) school boards as the newest and most modern thing.
You're probably posting something nasty to my last post right now, and that's ok. Since we agree on something rational besides that Herman Cain would have made an awesome president, I'm just going to let this thread go on without me.
Excuse me? If you are going to accuse me of something, do so plainly.
Some of us actually HAVE a vocabulary. Of course it helps that MrR and I both have advanced degrees (none in education).
My only factual assertions in this entire thread have been that (a) English is an amalgam of many different language groups and is highly complex; (b) in some cases dolch sight cards are a good supplement to a sound reading program.
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Both of those statements are correct.
“Excuse me? If you are going to accuse me of something, do so plainly.”
Sorry, my apologies. You just happened to stumble on an otherwise dead thread out of nowhere, at just the right time. But I see you’ve been busy tonight on other stuff. Since I have had the other guy tied down pretty effectively in his rampage, I don’t see he could be working multiple threads.
Even so, your use of the term “educators” does raise my eyebrow a bit...generally only teachers call themselves “educators” - the rest of the public knows better, given our test scores.
My point: Not even the very bestest of the bestest pedagogical systems in the whole world will reach every child every time. Sometimes, some children benefit from approaching the problem of learning in a different way.
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Phonology is ingrained to such a degree (and wrongfully so) that it can become an imediment to learning foreign languages.
MrR was reading at 2 1/2, I was reading a few months later (by my 3rd birthday). We were in preschool together and were the only two who could read (which annoyed the director of the daycare because we wanted to follow directions as printed, not as they told us). Neither of us went through traditional ‘phonetic’ training.
Fast forward 16 years. I’m in college, studying Biblical Hebrew. Almost all the kids tried to learn it like they learned English (phonetically). I treated it as a code substitution and learned to recognize root patterns. It worked for me, but it wasn’t what most kids were taught.
Sometimes we have to learn to think outside the box, US education doesn’t do that and as a result we have instead dumbed down our education system to the point of no return.
PhD in Geography? ...or Sociology?
“You’re probably posting something nasty to my last post right now, and that’s ok. Since we agree on something rational besides that Herman Cain would have made an awesome president, I’m just going to let this thread go on without me.”
LOL. Only a little nasty. Anyway, let’s get to bed, I have to work tomorrow (and probably you too).
And yes, Cain would have been OUTSTANDING. I came real close to dropping some big bucks on him...but I wanted him to get through a week without messing up, but he couldn’t. I’m all for Rick S. now...but I’ll still vote for Cain here in Texas if the Primary’s already decided (and he’s on the ballot).
Ok, I was going to stay out having said my piece. But this is too good. First off, I've been feeling pretty good, stuck in a hotel room in a boring city with nothing better to do, just being able to keep you and your fellow travelers tied up in this thread. It lets me do some small bit of good for the world by bottling you up here for a while.
Second, I like how you call logic and practical experience a "rampage."
Third, that thing you just did with wintertime about how it's all sad that people are defending Whole Words ... blah, blah... That was hilarious. Please do it again. It makes you look very mature. And world-weary.
Fourth, pretty much anyone with an advanced degree knows the word pedagogy.
Finally, you do realize how FR works, right? Every time there is a post on this thread, it shows up again when viewing recent posts. A "dead" thread is one that no one is actually posting in.
Understood, but I often work multiple threads (ADHD at work). I ended up here because I hit ‘comments’ tab on the latest posts.
And I use terms like ‘educators’ and other specialized terms. It is a byproduct of my love of learning and background.
My best friend teaches High School, but I love her anyway. However, I have no love for our current educational system.
And I did go all in with every primary penny I had the day before the last Chicago Special erupted. I would do it all over again if it would have had any influence in keeping him in the race.
Degrees in Biblical Studies, theology, history. Hubby has his JD.
The word "pedagogy" was not invented by leftists in the 1960s. In The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane was a pedagogue. Some of us had parents who made us look up hard words in the dictionary if we didn't understand them. Dictionaries once upon a time had etymologies as well, teaching the prefixes, roots, and suffixes of words.
As always, the best teachers are observant parents, no matter the official pedagogical regime. (Not to let the current muddle-headed hippie retreads off the hook in any way.)
imediment should be impediment.
Amen to that! That's almost a tagline.
“My best friend teaches High School, but I love her anyway.”
I could make a comment here and keep Fate up for another half hour writing a response...but I won’t. LOL.
“Understood, but I often work multiple threads (ADHD at work). I ended up here because I hit ‘comments’ tab on the latest posts.”
I am familiar with that...but the comments go so fast I didn’t think anyone would actually use that...but then things do slow down at this hour.
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