I saw a link to some sort of sight word worksheet from on of Bruce’s articles. ‘ksjf’ for chair, i.e. I wasted a good bit of time trying to figure that one out, because of course, chair is the correct word/spelling. How in the world do you connect ‘ksjf’ to chair? I just made up ‘ksjf’ btw, because I don’t remember what seemingly random letters the example used. The only way to connect was the pictograph of a chair included with ‘ksjf’ I finally reached the conclusion that ‘ksjf’ was used to illustrate what a child sees? Still not sure, but that’s the only reasonable conclusion I came up with. And because you mentioned hieroglyphs. Without that tidbit, not sure I would have come up with the conclusion I did. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it.
I attempted to volunteer tutoring through library years ago. They kept cancelling or rescheduling training until finally I just never heard back from them. You, along with Bruce, have inspired me to try to volunteer again. But this time, I’d like to follow in your footsteps & buck whatever bizzarro teaching technique they are sure to lay on me during training. I have been reading Bruce’s articles on Am Thinker, watching his YouTubes. Are there any tutoring technique resources you can provide in preparation please? Maybe I’m putting the horse before the cart & should take the training course first, then investigate how to counter what they train me to do? I’ll ask my teacher friend first, but she’s going to direct me to common core stuff, I suspect.
As to your comment about younger parents being at a disadvantage trying to do as you are doing, it seems to mee you are right on point. The sad thing is they may have been subjected to the same common core stuff as well. Since they may have not been taught, through no fault of their own, the way we were. I am not trying to criticize or put anyone down or be superior in any way to anyone, just calling it as I see it. I think it is a shame. Kids, IMHO, even in college, are no longer taught critical thinking from what I see. TIA for any resources!
I really appreciate your enthusiasm.
Let me comment on your problem with “KSJF” or whatever it was. The biggest obstacle I have with exposing the stupidity of sight-words to parents is that they have been using English words for many many years. They think those words are friendly and comfortable and ordinary and logical. In short, easy. In short, parents do not appreciate the ORDEAL their kids are going through.
So my problem becomes thinking of ways to show adults what the children are experiencing. Children, seeing English for the first time, experience it the way most adults experience words in Norwegian, Russian, Czech, etc. English words were never designed to be memorized visually. They are random, chaotic, repetitive, quite insane. The same shapes and letterforms repeat over and over.
In one article I suggest turning a book180° and reading the words in a mirror. Don’t try to reconstruct what the word is, just look at those weird shapes That’s what the kid is dealing with. Some kids never master even 25 sight-words.
Most of these tutoring programs let people do what they want. It’s inefficient and irresponsible. But if they insisted on phonics, they would find themselves in a war with the NEA and the public school system. (If they want to teach you anything else, keep looking.)
In general, I suspect a lot of these outreach efforts are phony. They want to take credit for trying, even as they know their efforts are not going to do anything. I’m very suspicious of the groups that hand out books to poor people, so the parents can read the books to the kids. But that’s not what we need. We need to teach parents to teach reading, at least a little.
I also have some good pieces on my main site Improve-Education.org. Just scan the titles and you’ll see.