Posted on 01/02/2012 7:18:49 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice
“If a child cannot adapt to one way of learning, I don’t know why another one can’t work instead. Who says there can be only one way to learn? Who says every child learns the same way?”
One of the things constantly pointed out by right-wing extremist critics of education (you know, the types that would prefer first graders learn math without calculators) is that the people pushing Whole Language and Fuzzy Math never seem to be able to provide any scientific studies to prove that their new system works better than what’s been around for hundreds of years. Now, if there is that data, I’m all ears.
“It is just our WHOLE educational system HAS to be scrapped and start from the bottom with the parents and local control of EVERYTHING-—even deciding WHO can teach—and what books to use.”
I certainly won’t argue that - I just wish that day would come.
“Not really, if it was, we wouldn’t have the reading mess - after all, they do quite well learning their languages. No, the Asian languages are visual-based.”
No, the Chinese do not, on average, do well in learning to read and write their language. You would be surprised to discover how few Chinese out of 1.3 billion have the time and the memory to master more than a very basic grasp of the written language. In fact, the Chinese schools’ emphasis on memorization (driven by the language) is a major policy concern in China for various reasons.
No, “Asian” languages are not visually (ideographically) based. Mandarin and various dialects (e.g. Cantonese) used in China are (although pinyin is phonetic system that is used in China with children to help them learn characters - an admission that phonetic systems are easier to learn).
Vietnamese (a roman alphabetic system replaced Chinese characters as a result of the influence of French missionaries), Korean (Hangul), Thai (an indic system), Lao (an indic system), Cambodian (an indic system), Malay (always phonetic, but an indic system gave way to an arabic system which gave way to a roman system), and South Asian languages are not ideographic.
Japan uses a variety of systems jumbled together. The Kanji characters, borrowed from China in the 4th Century, are now combined with two syllabaries known as “Kana” ( Hirakana and Katakana). Romanji, which are phonetic characters, are also used.
By the way, If China ever went phonetic, the value of China’s human capital would soar. Until China changes politically and culturally, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. Given the Chinese people’s cultural attachment to the ideographs, the likelihood of a switch in the near to medium term future is remote.
Cheers!
This is absolutely true. I’m so depressed. My kid is ruined by this, even though I fought it all the way. It’s too late for him now.
Please see post 43 so that you don’t repeat this sort of thing any more. In particular, you need to stop thinking of “Asians” as an undifferentiated blob.
No. I didn’t sound out words when I was three. I learned words that she’d written up as flash cards. I learned them by sight, not by sound. She would go through the deck and couldn’t believe how fast I learned them. She had to keep adding to the deck because I was outpacing what she thought a child of three could learn.
She learned to do that, when she worked with disabled children at a school as a teacher’s helper. She wasn’t a school teacher herself. But, she’d seen other teachers do it with children, and she thought I could do it too. She was right.
Re: Some of the comments to you - see comment 43.
My apologies. It's easy for someone of European lineage to do. I would imagine that Asians likewise lump us European types into one big group for similar reasons. No offense was mean. Again, I apologize.
“This reads like the la leche league nazis who drove my wife into nearly fatal post partem depression. It’s sick.”
Dang breast nazis. Can’t stand ‘em.
Don’t give it a second thought. Now, how do we keep Romney from getting the nomination? ;-)
My oldest child was completely unable to read until I taught him with phonics. My youngest was taught with phonics starting at age 4. I see phonics as a quick way to learn many words - bot, cot, dot, got, lot, etc. Children quickly master many little words and then build on their success. Some words do have to be memorized by sight because they don’t follow standard pronunciation rules but you work on that bit by bit. Phonics and sight memorization go hand in hand to completely master reading but phonics is the best place to get started and become quickly successful.
Would I be a grammar nazi if I hoped that your children wrote better as well? Good is an adjective, it modifies nouns. To read is an action, so it would require an adverb that modifies a verb. You don't read nearly as well as your kids.
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“Re: Some of the comments to you - see comment 43.”
You’re probably. But I do know one thing, for certain, here in the US. One big reason that Asians run circles around whites academically is because they have their own system of making sure their kids get taught, either through their organizations, or through after-school centers...and believe me, they don’t use Whole Language, or Calculators, for that matter AT ALL, in those places.
After all...they only make money (the after-school centers) if the kids actually learn something.
That at least I understand. We vote someone else in the primaries...anyone else in the primaries.
Not to go off on a tangent, but the Mormon thing is enough to put me off. That no non-mormon is allowed in a Mormon temple places the religion in enough of a secret-society category for me to reject a Mormon candidate outright, without any further evidence. Some might well be justified in calling it bigotry, but that is simply how I see it.
“Would I be a grammar nazi if I hoped that your children wrote better as well? Good is an adjective, it modifies nouns. To read is an action, so it would require an adverb that modifies a verb. You don’t read nearly as well as your kids.”
Well, if you don’t learn reading good, your not going to do two good later on...which is the point of this thread.
“Phonics and sight memorization go hand in hand to completely master reading but phonics is the best place to get started and become quickly successful.”
But even what you’re calling sight isn’t really - it’s more like phonics, with some deviations - since phonics can be used to to almost sound out even the tougher words in English.
If we had to rely on Whole Language, we would see a character string such as “lknpe” and remember that it means water, whereas as “lkcnpe” means waiter. That’s what Whole Language is...the letters mean nothing, just a bunch of useless symbols - it’s the shape of the word, and only the shape of the word that means anything.
The obvious conclusion when followed to its logical conclusion: remedial telephone book-reading class. Any objection is totally disingenuous.
Obviously that ultimately be only possible by an advanced sight reader-instructor who’s dissertation is based on being learned all the names in the telephone book.
Right?
I fear that sky’s the limit in that regard: there’s remedial atlas reading-class.
Right?
The ultimate destination will be remedial map-name reading class. This will be a doctoral level program where only those having the necessary qualifications in both telephone book-reading AND atlas-reading will be qualified to be learned how to sight-read map names.
I’m fairly certain this will ultimately deteriorate to all things being referenced by some arcane numeric grid-code, i.e., akin to how the various Soviet factories were named. That’s about the time when all those special ed-instructors will be shot in the head (their survivors billed for the cost of execution materiel & processing costs).
Whole Word was ardy awesome concept; whole LNGUAJ redng? Wow! Sins I’m a graduate of Heln Wud Sped Reding. I reds 186000 wrds pr secnd.
BTW: Y U wan hav sx w me?
I blame them.
By now parents ( especially conservatives) should **know** that government schools ruin a child for both literacy and numeracy. Our nation's socialist-entitlement schools push homosexuality and other sexual deviency, are biased against boys, espcially white boys, and are utterly godless in their worldview. Simply by attending the child learns to think and reason godlessly. He must just to cooperate in the classroom. How could it be otherwise?
I also blame the **TEACHERS***!
Would a moral and ethical person work in an abortion center, order the supplies, and hand the instruments to the abortionists, just to hold on to the vain hope that once in a while they could throw out a conservative or Christian anti-abortion crumb to the clients? Wel!l.. The same holds true for teachers who **willing** run these godless, socialist, pits of ignorance, misnamed “schools”.
Personally, I have recently made a decision. I will NOT have a government school teacher for a friend. They are either too stupid , too evil, too much of a Useful Idiot, or too much of a paycheck collecting and timid toady to be a friend. That's my stand.
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