phonics here... 1961We need a rational alphabet for the English language.
Sounds really interesting.
Can someone read this to me?
Too true. I went to a wonderful public school that taught reading by the phonics method, and the entire student body turned into a bunch of ravenous readers before they were six. When each of my children started school I begged and pleaded for our present school system to teach my children with phonics and was contemptuously refused. As a single mother I could not afford to put my kids in some private school that would have taught phonics, nor could I stay home and homeschool them, so I just tried to teach them phonics at night. Unfortunately the school system really sabotaged my efforts, undermining the phonics instruction by making them memorize sight words. The administrators and teachers thought I was nuts because their research showed their method was best. Uh-huh.
Today neither child (mostly grown up now) is an enthusiastic reader. Both have terrible spelling, punctuation, and grammar. They think books are a boring waste of time though they see me reading enthusiastically and though I’ve tried to show them how books extend the things they’re interested in. We have a library with probably over a thousand books in it, but they never pick up a volume.
Please don’t lecture me about what I should have done a dozen years ago. I fought the good fight to the extent an exhausted single mom could fight without any support from the other parents.
This is the absolute truth. Which is why I homeschooled my age five son and he learned to read above fifth grade level after only a month of phonics practice.
I didn’t want to take any chances with my niece. I bought Zig Engelmann’s “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” and gave it to my sister. They took their time but my 6 year old niece is in first grade and can read chapter books. My sister decided to use it with her 4 year old and is halfway finished. Her friend was so impressed that she is doing it with her own 4 year old daughter, as well.
My niece was unable to read in second grade due to dismal California schools. She had been labeled as with a learning disability.
Over the summer my sister sent her to us in Phoenix for a crash course in phonics taught by my wife, who is a school teacher. After a few weeks, my niece was excited about reading the newspaper comics to me. Without the extra help she would have been left behind.
You just can’t talk to the “whole word” people. They will not listen to sense.
Where’s the link?
i am not a teacher, yet i have taught three kids at three different ages to read using phonics... it is not rocket science... so glad i learned to read using phonics... the sad thing is—back in the early to mid-70s—kids in my class who didn’t pick up reading as easily were taught using the whole-word method... so they had two things going against them... not readily inclined toward reading... being taught using an inferior method...
They still had “Dick and Jane” books that my parents remembered from their schooldays in the 1940s (a few updates, not many), and I had that read through double-quick, and on to the more advanced books in the school library.
I wish I could remember which book it was— at least 3/4 inch thick— that I wanted to check out, and the librarian said I shouldn't because I wouldn't be able to read it. I had to tell her I had read half of it while sitting in the library and was only checking it out because it was time to leave...
Good program. Too bad my wife and I can't have children; I'd be pleased to have them learn to read as I did.
Helps with spelling, too. If you can read and write “dog” (a canine), “mat” (a small floor covering) and “tic” (a small twitch), then “dogmatic” (insistent upon certain ideas) is literally child's play.
This book is a great find.
Using a phonics-based approach, virtually any child can be taught to read in a few weeks, and to read at a relatively sophisticated level in a year, if you are willing to give you child 20-30 minutes a day consistently. This is why the average homeschooled child reads at the 89th percentile (See the results of Dr. Brian Ray’s peer-reviewed study at www.NHERI.org).
Government schools are institutionalized child abuse and need to be closed. All of them; no exceptions (not even your “really different” suburban schools).
My older brother and sister were caught in the whole word BS and were handicapped in their reading. Fortunately I had a phonics based reading program. However when my kids were in primary school the whole reading BS was back even after being discredited for decades. Fortunately my kids had a first grade teacher who bucked the trend and still taught them phonics.
Ping for postponed perusal.
Phonics works, but there is the occasional child who can’t learn through phonics and must learn through other method (whole word, etc.)
Between my sister and I we were able to use phonics with all the kids, but one (they’re grown now, and have college degrees) so this was years ago and we didn’t think there was anything other than phonics. But one child could not process phonics and had to learn using a combination of other methods.
I asked a teacher who worked with learning disabilities and she said most kids can pick up phonics just fine, but there will be a child, from time to time, who has to be taught apart from phonics.
Sight words screwed up my whole education. I have always had problems reading and spelling. I have, however, made it a game to get better.
phonics here... 1961“The authors state: “It is absurdly easy to teach a child to read with the proper method. Most of the children in America could be taught in a few weeks or months at the age of five.”
I was close. 6 weeks to learn reading at 3.5 years old for my oldest. Easiest thing I every did. Once junior knew how to read, getting good at it came from simply liking to read. Math was another story though...lots of hours and several years of hard work to get ready for Calculus. In the end, well worth it and I taught him early enough so that the schools would NEVER get a chance to “unteach” it. They were beat - he could read and he knew his math...nothing they could do about it.
But that all makes sense to me. Reading has been around for 5000 years, Calculus more like 350 years...obviously harder to learn.
Sight reading instruction and fuzzy math — double whammy.
Phonics is definitely the way to go.
I read somewhere though that they are going to stop teaching cursive writing. I can’t imagine generations to come not being able to read/write cursive. They’ve got to at least be able to sign their names, I would think.