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In The Clutches of the Sight-Word Monster
EdFrontier ^ | Dec. 20, 2011 | Bruce Deitrick Prrice

Posted on 01/02/2012 7:18:49 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice

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To: achilles2000; FateAmenableToChange; BruceDeitrickPrice; BobL; savagesusie
An excellent memory (in addition to vast amounts of time) is also required to be able to read Mandarin at a literary level. Most people would be surprised to discover how few ideographs the average Chinese knows (1000 characters (words) is all that is needed to understand over 90% of Chinese publications, and even the average university graduate only knows about 6,000 characters). .....achilles2000/p>

The pictographs, being a high stylized "picture", does help clue the reader to the meaning of the word. This unlike whole word English where the jumble of letters give no clue whatsoever.

knowing that I don't have the perfect system that will always deliver 100% reading skill for every child all the time.....FateAmenableToChange/p>

From this sentence am I to conclude that you **are* government teacher on one of our nation's socialist-entitlement K-12 schools?

Where are the studies that separate out what is learned in the classroom ( due to the teacher's efforts) and what is learned well before the child enters school due private or home pre-schooling, or outside of school due to afterschooling by the parents and tutors.

Without careful studies, although you may be working very hard, It could be that you are teaching nothing at all.

101 posted on 01/03/2012 5:25:12 PM PST by wintertime (I am a Constitutional Restorationist!!! Yes!)
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To: wintertime

Thanks for outing him. I guess to survive in that environment you really have to believe all that crap. The ones that don’t - leave.


102 posted on 01/03/2012 5:30:45 PM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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To: savagesusie
We need government and their Billy Ayers -type writters of curricula OUT of the text book business. They are deliberately destroying the minds of children—creating cognitive dissonance which creates ACORN workers.

We need to abolish DOE and Unions
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

We need to abolish our nation's socialist-entitlement system of schooling and replace it with a completely private system.

Do that any Bill Ayers and his clones would be out of a job.

103 posted on 01/03/2012 5:36:28 PM PST by wintertime (I am a Constitutional Restorationist!!! Yes!)
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To: wintertime

“The pictographs, being a high stylized “picture”, does help clue the reader to the meaning of the word.”

Only slightly, and not in many instances. Of course, teachers do try to connect the characters’ shapes with some sort of “story” relating to what they mean. But those connections are more a matter of imagination than any real resemblance.


104 posted on 01/03/2012 8:34:20 PM PST by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: Prospero

The trick was to never let school get in the way of your education.


105 posted on 01/03/2012 10:28:30 PM PST by Pelham (Islam. The original Evil Empire)
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To: BobL

“Bill Honig”

I just discovered that Jerry Brown once again appointed that POS to the State Board of Education last January.

“Honig was convicted by a Sacramento Superior Court jury for using state Department of Education funds to finance a project his wife had created to urge parents to get involved in the education of their children. He had served as schools chief from 1983 until the conviction forced his resignation. He was sentenced to four years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service. The charges were later reduced from felonies to misdemeanor”


106 posted on 01/03/2012 10:33:15 PM PST by Pelham (Islam. The original Evil Empire)
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To: Pelham

Yea, he was HORRIBLE. He took the absolute worst advice possible (i.e., Whole Language) and forced it on EVERY kid in the public schools there. That’s why the term “Whole Language” got so tarnished that they had to go to “Sight Words” to hide from it.


107 posted on 01/04/2012 5:13:45 AM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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To: wintertime

So true!!!! Parents don’t understand how these textbook twists the thinking and logic of their children. It is inserting lies and half-truths into their foundational thinking-—their worldview becomes that of a hedonist/atheist/Marxist. Works 80 % of the time-—only some kids’ parents are able to counter the psychology inserted into the books......it is immersed in BF Skinner techniques that are highly successful in “forming” “truth” which comes right out of the Communist Manifesto.

The media uses psychology also to inject the “correct” perceptions of the masses—they dress evil up with beautiful actors and glorify it. Evil becomes cool—and dysfunctional behavior becomes normal.

The MSM is dangerous. Schools are training children (Prussian system) to be conditioned and for mass conformity and dependence-—killing the individualism and the “thinking outside the box” which existed before Dewey—the Fabian Socialist destroyed our education system.


108 posted on 01/04/2012 11:10:41 AM PST by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature=Just Law.)
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To: Pelham

That POS is hired to force sodomy into the minds of 5 year old kids—to corrupt their sexual identity formation—to make the sex act meaningless—which makes morality in sex non-existent....and the Bible “hate speech”. They want to take God out of our Constitution-—so they can kill off babies and the old and sick—in their Marxist utopia. Can’t have some people matter more than others in the utopian state....got to be able to kill off useless eaters.

Comes right out of the Communist Manifesto—to destroy the Natural Family-—destroy all biological connections-—to make the State, mommy and people hate their own mothers and fathers and men and women.......No trust in communist nations.....so you have to turn to the nanny state.


109 posted on 01/04/2012 11:16:50 AM PST by savagesusie (Right Reason According to Nature=Just Law.)
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To: BobL
It’s sad to see people on this defending Whole Language. They must either have a vested interest or be filled with guilt...

And here we have your cult-like mentality showing its stripes. Alternatively, you've been brainwashed to the point that your system is good and all others are communist plots. Do you even read what you and your fellow travelers are saying? And as a last alternative, you're just practicing sales tactics. As I said at the beginning, the mentality you display is disturbing. You come off as a slick, Kevin Trudeau-like scammer with the false pity. This, in turn, makes you about as credible as the John Bircher buttonholing pregnant women into not vaccinating their babies because it's all a government mind control plot.

Dumbest thread ever.

110 posted on 01/04/2012 8:33:09 PM PST by FateAmenableToChange
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To: FateAmenableToChange

We already know you have vested interest.

...but just what do I gain by supporting Phonics?

Interesting too that you never seem to provide ONE SINGLE BIT of evidence that Whole Language has any value...you just call anyone who opposes it an idiot.


111 posted on 01/04/2012 8:38:21 PM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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To: FateAmenableToChange

Hell, why are you even on this site, if you’re that far to the left as far as education is concerned?


112 posted on 01/04/2012 8:39:10 PM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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To: BobL
You have an agenda.

Yes. It is to prevent mindless drivel and kooky conspiracy theories mixed with otherwise valid scientific fact being passed off as truth. Obviously, since that's what you've been doing here, my agenda involves pointing out that your car-salesman tactics, like all good lies and indoctrination programs, contains just enough truth to make it palatable. The rest belongs with the folks who believe the moon landing was faked.

113 posted on 01/04/2012 8:45:22 PM PST by FateAmenableToChange
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To: FateAmenableToChange

You do realize you’re looking like a jackass.

But then again, you are and have always been THE PROBLEM.


114 posted on 01/04/2012 8:49:15 PM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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To: FateAmenableToChange; BobL
You have the audacity to use science to defend you position? Unbelievable.

Fact: NO studies have ever been done to determine how much is learned in the classroom as compared to that learned **in the HOME** due to the afterschooling efforts of the parents and child.

Honestly...Without knowing where learning is happening and who ( parent teacher or child) is doing the teaching anything any government teacher has to say about science as applied to teaching methods has no more substance than a big ball of cotton candy.

115 posted on 01/04/2012 9:13:32 PM PST by wintertime (I am a Constitutional Restorationist!!! Yes!)
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To: BobL
Hell, why are you even on this site, if you’re that far to the left as far as education is concerned?

Now you're just back to ad hominems, unfounded assertions, and guilt by association. I guess when you can't defend your blind faith that one, and only one system for teaching reading is the one true system, or that anyone daring to suggest that a pure phonics based system does not work for everyone in every case, then logical fallacies must be pretty comforting.

Here's my problem with what you're doing. Actually, it's several problems. One is that you don't have any facts about me or what I do, and yet you assert repeatedly that I must be a government school employee and that I have an "agenda". If you bothered to read, you would at least suspect that this is not true from the fact that I homeschool my kids. You know nothing else about me. You don't know the mixture of phonics and dolch card work that finally broke through with my youngest. You don't know the work or research I've put into reading, math, language, grammar, science, and other curricula. You just continually demonstrate your ignorance and inability to engage in civilized discourse time and again with every post you make in response to me. As a result, I'll be civil but I'm sure not going to have any respect for your arguments or your credibility.

Two is that you write like a Kevin Trudeau scammer. That's why I think you may be practicing your sales techniques. There are schools using primarily phonics-based curricula. And with respect to one of the more infamous phonics programs marketed to homeschoolers and unknowing parents, many are still wondering why their child still can't read and those 100 lessons were not "easy" in any sense of the word.

Three is an alternative to two. You and your fellow travelers have been deliberately implying throughout this thread that anyone who did not adopt your one true faith is a bad parent. Maybe that's how you get your jollies. That one really pisses me off. Achilles2000 had one good post in this entire thing that actually attempted to address many of the critiques asserted against the bald and rambling manifesto that started the thread. Besides that, anyone who disagrees with you gets a response that strongly resembles the way I've seen JWs or Mormons sadly and pityingly correct the unsure, insecure, or undecided. The false pity and the attacks on people who disagree with you are not convincing me of the rightness of your opinion.

Fourth is the worst. The devolution of this thread into communist plot conspiracy theory mongering gives people who actually are involved in bettering the system or opting out of it altogether a bad name. The thread reads like it was scripted by a bunch of kooks, again with Achilles2000's post and honest attempt at discourse excepted.

It's sad - looking at your tag line, we probably agree on many things.

116 posted on 01/04/2012 9:14:16 PM PST by FateAmenableToChange
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To: FateAmenableToChange

“Now you’re just back to ad hominems, unfounded assertions, and guilt by association...Two is that you write like a Kevin Trudeau scammer. “

LOL - pretty much all I needed to read from your post. You are really whacked out. And yes, you are one hell of a crappy parent if you really believe the crap you spout. I feel for your kids.


117 posted on 01/04/2012 9:33:05 PM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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To: BobL
You do realize you’re looking like a jackass.

Oh, my gosh. No, wait. I actually don't realize that. Nor do I accept the assumptions underlying your assertion. Perhaps you merely have a highly reflective and mirror-like computer monitor?

Let's keep recapping.

Your point (and that of your fellow travelers): Phonics-based systems are the only possible and true and correct way to teach reading. Everything else is a communist plot. (No, really. You guys really said that.).

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. (And I agree that John Dewey followed a political ideology indistinguishable from some forms of communism. But I just don't buy the communist plot thing.)

It's a pretty basic logical distinction. You all say all. I say some. All that it takes to show you're wrong is one null reader for whom a pure phonics system did not work but a different system or a mixture of phonics and a different system did work. I know from personal experience and my own studies that you're wrong. Probably not terribly wrong, and in a rational discussion we might even manage to agree that the demands of mass producing readers means that a phonics-only curriculum might be the most efficient means with the least spoilage. But we're not in that discussion; we're in this one, and you're wrong as a matter of logic.

That's it. And yet all you've done is call me names (that's called an ad hominem), assert -- with absolutely zero factual foundation (remember what they say when you "assume"!) -- that I am a left-winger, a stoolie for the educational establishment, a whole-words acolyte of the 9th order, and so on. And you deliberately make other people feel bad because they disagree with you. Finally, you (again without any foundation at all), throw in calumnies that I am associated with bad people like government educators or that I must actually be one of them evil, bad, communist plotting, George Sorosing public school educators. (That's guilt by association).

On top of that, your buddy, Wintertime is whinging out there about how I want to force everyone onto a whole words pedagogy. (That's a strawman argument). I think I've said previously in this eminently tiresome thread that I agree that a phonics-based system is the most important core around which language instruction should be based. Where we disagree is with your assertion that other methods cannot supplement phonics.

Your attacks are starting to just get silly. Now, come on. Call me names again.

118 posted on 01/04/2012 9:40:26 PM PST by FateAmenableToChange
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To: wintertime

Thanks, this is bizarre, on this site, having someone defend something with the history of Whole Language...and defending it to the point of near-insanity. I don’t know what’s happening to our site...but it’s a bummer for people trying to get reasonable information.


119 posted on 01/04/2012 9:42:04 PM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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To: FateAmenableToChange

“pedagogy”

You realize that you’re giving yourself away with terms like that. No normal person uses it - only education insiders.


120 posted on 01/04/2012 9:45:09 PM PST by BobL ("Heartless" and "Inhumane" FReepers for Cain - we've HAD ENOUGH)
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