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To: Ouderkirk
BS....the more time that partents spend with their children reading and working on annunciation and spelling the more successful readers their children will be.

Sorry, not necessarily true.

Dr. OTTB and I are both well-educated, well-travelled and well-spoken, and we are both published authors who love to read and write. There are thousands of books in the house; as I write this in my own study there are about 700 books on history, art, medicine, science, architecture, politics, and more history within arm's reach. Of course I started reading to my children almost from the time they were born, and I was a stay-at-home mother with plenty of time to do fun-but-educational stuff with the kids. The TV has largely stayed off. When they got old enough, I used the phonics approach to try to teach them to read, since this was the way Dr. OTTB and I learned. We didn't shove reading down their throats but they did see us reading constantly. We also insisted on correct pronunciation and worked constantly on spelling and grammar.

No dice. My daughter seldom reads anything that's not online, and my son has a learning disability (though thank goodness he is not ADHD). It's rare you will see either of them spontaneously pick up a book or magazine. My son has acquired a Southern accent from somewhere and you can tell from her voice that my daughter is from Maryland.

We never did teach them about the Annunciation as you suggest, but we are not Roman Catholic. ;-)

3 posted on 12/22/2008 7:37:14 PM PST by ottbmare
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To: ottbmare

“My son has acquired a Southern accent from somewhere . . .”

Do you think it’s because you’re from the South? I’ll trade you, my son sounds like he’s from the movie Fargo.


5 posted on 12/22/2008 8:32:58 PM PST by adgirl
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