English from the Roots Up.
https://www.amazon.com/English-Roots-Up-Vol-T/dp/0964321033
Posted on 07/28/2018 5:06:38 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Subtitle: Fix reading and half of our education problems disappear
--It's a common problem in the US. Children in the second and third grades, even the fourth and fifth grades, are struggling readers. They guess; they skip ahead; they search for clues from context; they look at pictures to read words. Did I mention they guess? Typically, these children are unsuccessful in most school subjects and very unhappy.
The school may think this slow progress is fine. But perhaps you as a parent know younger children who've already learned to read. You worry that your child Is falling behind. You are right to worry.
The first thing to confront is that teachers and school officials will mislead you. Truth is, they'll lie: "Your child is doing fine. He's getting plenty of phonics." But then your child comes home with a list of sight-words to be memorized. You know phonics is being slighted. But what can you do?
Here's a second problem: finding help is not easy. The media are basically a dead zone. You're not going to find advice on reading in your local newspaper or TV program.
Bottom line, sight-word instruction (that is, learning to name word-designs on sight) is the cause of most reading problems. Ideally, schools stop using them. The good news is that a list of sight-words can be a valuable wake-up call. They tell you that the school has embraced the destructive ideas which have been hurting children for the past 80 years.
Parents should trust systematic phonics where the focus is on learning letters, then the sounds represented by the letters, then the blends of those sounds. (Usually the whole process takes five months. All phonics experts say the same thing: reading is easy.)
So let's say your child is having reading problems; and simultaneously your child brings home lists of sight-words to memorize. Get involved immediately and teach your child the basics of phonics. Namely, letters represent sounds.
To start, parents can read "Preemptive Reading," a quick introduction to phonics. (It includes a list of complete phonics courses.)
YouTube has many helpful videos. A. J. Jenkins in Australia has made some wonderful phonics videos. One of these has attracted more than half-a-billion views! Encourage your child to sing along. Very quickly he'll have the phonics idea in his head.
The main thing is that children get the concept that letters and words are symbols for SOUNDS. When looking at b-words like beach, branch, ball, and block, the child knows that all of them start with the same sound. At that point, language becomes logical and predictable.
Sight-words, on the other hand, are always arbitrary, like a phone number you just committed to memory. (Wait a minute, was that 5271 or 5721?)
Despite all the propaganda we hear, the English language is 100% phonetic. There is no such thing as a non-phonetic word in an English dictionary. Indeed, all the words are arranged alphabetically, which is to say that all the words listed under B start with the same b-sound.
English is an old language that has borrowed many foreign words. So our vowels can be inconsistent. But old tennis shoes are still tennis shoes. Whole Word promoters try to pretend that a small difference means that something is "non-phonetic." No, merely non-consistent. For a word to be truly non-phonetic, it would have to be something like XXFG, which you're told to pronounce "shuffleboard." Fortunately, English has no such words, although the Education Establishment loves to pretend otherwise.
Some children learn to read almost without instruction. The brain figures out the easy way to read, which is to identify the phonics information. Less verbal children seem to need more rules and more practice. But keep in mind that phonics rules are stepping stones to reading, not goals in themselves. Don't hesitate to teach something over and over; on the other hand don't hesitate to move along. It's good to make the learning process as fun as possible. Mix in singing, poetry, knock-knock jokes, and football cheers.
The most important thing of all is helping children find things they want to read. Once reading is easy for children, they'll read everything in sight. The problem in our schools now is that many children never reach that point. Especially make sure that boys find material that is appealing to boys.
Sight-words (also known by many other names) are probably viewed by our far-left as one of the most successful subversive tricks in history. They imposed this incorrect theory on the public schools in 1931. They carefully destroyed phonics books, and since that time they have been conducting a rearguard operation insisting that sight-words are terrific, phonics doesn't work, and kids will read when they are ready. If they don't read, that's because they have a serious problem like dyslexia. Nature caused this problem, so our Education Establishment can claim to be blameless for what it has perpetrated! Phonics experts reject the sophistry, saying that "dyslexia" should be relabeled "dysteachia." That is, a disease caused by classroom instruction.
The simple way to save American K-12 is to eliminate sight-words and return to phonics. Children must learn to read before they can read to learn.
The big question. Does the parent read?
A decline of a couple of hundred kids in one year is noticed by everyone and anyone even remotely associated with education.
Don't learn their language, just say my child is X years old and can't read, I want everyone fired and a clean slate hired.
THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE TO DO !
The Education Establishment loves your thinking. They call it Balanced Literacy. I call it schizophrenia. I think it’s like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head.. Each word is a mystery: how should I deal with this word?
I would urge you to consider the possibility that it is really better to read a phonetic language phonetically, all the time. There will be words here and there that stick in your mind because of a certain shape. But that’s the exception.
I taught my four kids to tead before they started preschool. Even a cave man could do it.
I had to have been taught the whole language garbage.
I remember being in first or second grade reading the Dick and Jane series and thinking that there were an awful lot of words to memorize and wondering how I could to it all, especially since some of the words were so big with so many letters.
I kind of sighed inside and figured it would just take time. A LONG time.
Well, fortunately, it didn't take that long and I was always a voracious reader.
Come around 10th or 11th grade, I started noticing patterns in the words and thought it would be a great idea if someone could make some rules for how to put words together based on the sounds of the letters.
When I homeschooled, I used Rod and Staff for English and reading, and their phonics program, which was for first and second grace only, was TERRIFIC.
My kids could read by the time they were five and the oldest two were terrific spellers.
My youngest wasn't as much a visual learner, so didn't read fluently quite as young, but still was a way better speller than most kids her age.
The Rod and Staff Phonic program is great.
Reduce the counterproductive stimulus. Turn off TV, etc. not just for the child. When the whole house is reading: Reading happens. Sing simple songs, show the words.
Thanks for the post, interesting.
“When was the last time you showed up at a schoolboard meeting in your entire life? I’d bet never.”
You’re damn right. I would NEVER give those assholes a moment of my time, and I’d NEVER let them get their hands on my kids.
Make sure to go over prefixes, suffixes, and root words. Make a game out of it. Pick a good root word and see how many different combinations you can make with them and how the word changes in meaning. It will give them context and understanding. For example, pandemonium. Pan meaning all, ium meaning building or home, all demons home. Language can be beautifully structural, which appeals to logical learners, not just ethereal for the creative learners.
“Dick and Jane were sight books.”
I started kindergarten in 1960 in a small KS town so Dick and Jane were fully ensconced in the elementary curriculum. The thing that was the wild-card was the teachers were all old-school teachers, some who had started their careers in one-room rural school houses of the 30s & 40s. They may have had these boring books in the classroom but they still used phonics every day and in every way. Fortunately, I was reading before entering school and was well ahead of many of my peers. Sight words were just a challenge for building vocabulary and spelling skills.
The key is always going to be the teacher who determines what the child needs to be successful. If sight words is all the teacher knows or is all the system will allow, then you have to choose to go around that roadblock and take on the job at home.
There ARE words in English that just don't fit the phonics rules well.
Those few I figure are no problem to memorize.
FORTUNATELY, they tend to be the shorter words.
“I agree on phonics, but English is not 100% phonetic. If the author thinks it is, he should see a psychiatrist.”
True, it’s not 100% phonics. But once a kid has mastered phonics, he no longer needs any instruction - he can take it from there.
BobL perfectly expresses almost everything there is to say on the subject. If you don’t trust me, please trust him.
Bkmk
I’m glad my joke with using a ps word was recognized.
And I agree with you. Once phonics are mastered, very little instruction is required.
English from the Roots Up.
https://www.amazon.com/English-Roots-Up-Vol-T/dp/0964321033
I would look at Corrective Reading by Engelmann then. It is designed for older emerging readers. I should have remembered it as I used it to teach 2 5th graders with it. This would be a better choice. I believe there are 3 levels, A, B, & C. You would need to get the teacher’s guide as well as the student book. Good luck.
Oh well, if your Church is sure to blow great opportunities most of the time, you have that in common with the Catholic Church.
BTW—reading and studying the Bible does not automatically make one a non-Catholic. I’m a Catholic who devotes a great deal of time to the Bible. My Hebrew is pretty lousy, though I can sort of get by. My Greek is OK.
Bkmk
Once all my four became readers, here was the night time litany:
"Bed time!"
"Can we read?"
"Yes."
Extended their bedtime a half hour and helped them realize the joy of books.
I taught two out of four to read. It's not hard. It's simple, repetitive, and rote memorization. We were maybe 3/4 through the book and they "got it" and their reading took off. One of the best things I did as a mom.
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