Posted on 06/06/2020 7:01:07 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Sad to say, the Reading Wars continue in the USA.
Millions of children are made to memorize sight-words, a proven road to illiteracy. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of websites, continue to assert things that are the opposite of truth. For example, we are told that English isn’t a phonetic language and students have no choice but to memorize the vast English language one sight-word at a time. Nonsense, as Rudolf Flesch famously explained in his 1955 bestseller "Why Johnny Can't Read.”
Why does this destructive charade go on? The official experts continue to disorient the public with incorrect theories, fake research, bogus claims, and airy jargon. Parents tend to be overwhelmed. Even teachers don't usually understand the wastefulness of what they're told to do in the classroom.
Realistically speaking, only a tiny percentage of human beings could memorize hundreds of phone numbers, license plates, chemical formulas, or birthdays. The same is true of English words treated as graphic design, i.e. sight-words. They are a dead end. And "hundreds," if you want to read English, are just the beginning. You must memorize many thousands, with instant recall. You have a better chance of winning a million from the lottery.
The following six items quickly explain why children need phonics. (All six can be easily read in less than an hour.) Then you will know more about reading than the people in charge of reading in this country.
1) Reading Is Easy. Four-minute video presents quotations from seven famous experts all saying that reading is easy if you teach it in the correct way.
2) 54: Preemptive Reading. Short article describes the basic steps for teaching a child to read English.
3) 40: Sight-Words—The Big Stupid. Article explains what it's like for children in elementary school when they are told to do the impossible.
4) Whatever Happened To Phonics? Short article provides more historical and cultural context for what is effectively a war against reading, and thus a war against thinking and academic achievement.
5) Phonics vs. Whole Word —Take 2. Sub-four-minute video illustrates the differences between phonics and sight-words.
6) An Educator Admits Her Mistakes. Only 3 minutes. In this graphic video Edwina Educator lays it all out for you: why our public schools went to hell.
What finally is so threatening about literacy that our education system is set up to prevent it. Traditionally, children learn to read; then they read to learn. If there's no reading, there's little learning and little reason for kids to be in school. Current practice can well be defined as the Biggest Crime in American History.
"Saving K-12” (book by this writer) has an 18-page section devoted to explaining our reading crisis. In general, this book provides an excellent short survey of what happened to our public schools and how we can fix them. More information about book and author here.
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Phonics worked for me.
You were a gifted child!
I was doing letters/phonics flashcards with my kid before age one. Also, never talked baby talk. She was speaking by nine months, reading by two, and was into The Great Books by 10.
I should have done the same with math. Not her strong suit.
My kids most heard nursery song from me was the ABC song!
They learned basic Algebra in 3rd grade. Used a “Hands on Algebra” program.
Bookmark
Not only did I learn to read with phonics, we were also taught Latin & learned about root words and romance languages.
Then, in fourth grade, we tackled grammar & learned how to diagram sentences.
We were taught simple tricks to distinguish homonyms, too.
‘There’ contains the word ‘here.’
‘Where’ also contains ‘here.’
Where is it located? It’s either here or there.
‘Their’ signifies ownership & contains the word ‘heir.’
‘They’re’ means ‘they are.’ It never means ‘their’ or ‘there’
It astonishes me that many FReepers never learned these things.
“ i just absorbed it”
That’s a funny story. Children do absorb like little sponges.
I got in trouble in 5th grade because teacher thought I cheated on a test, which I sorta did, but didn’t mean to.
She thought I had the answers copied & hidden in my pocket, because I wrote answers that were verbatim sentences & paragraphs from the history book.
But I had photographic memory.
I had developed the skill of not reading, but merely turning pages & taking mental snapshots.
On tests, I could close my eyes & mentally turn the pages to “look up” the answers.
I had been doing it for a couple of years, before teacher noticed.
A quick trip to the principal’s office cured me of that skill. I’ve never been able to it since.
You are right. Everyone should learn these things.
Some are clever and I’ve never heard them.
Thanks, Bruce. I’m enjoying your book.
I’m amazed at the number of FReeper posts that show the FReeper doesn’t know the difference between than and then.
Example: You’re better then me.
Homeschooling BUMP!!
One other thing: the house was full of books. I remember spending Saturday mornings in Dad's den, trying to read books the parental units thought were too hard or inappropriate.
The trap I fell into (which trips me up to this day) is that in my teens I never heard the words I was reading. _Language With Lucy_ suggests getting hold of audiobooks and books together, so that you could listen and read the material at the same time. Indeed, her YouTube channel is sponsored by an audiobook company.
Remember the “Hooked on Phonics” ads from the ‘90’s?
I helped teach my daughter using the Phonographix method it is great.
When I studied Russian, I learned that words already known were identified by sight. Of course, I learned new words phonetically. Even after more than 30 years, I quickly register even long Cyrillic Russian words from their appearance, but even 3-letter words I haven’t seen before need a little phonetic processing time. I’m not sure if this simply demonstrates that phonetics is how we learn new words, or gives some credibility to sight learning.
future reading
I do phone support and I gotta tell you how hard it is to understand some people. They do not speak clearly.
Thank you.
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