Posted on 03/19/2010 12:17:20 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
As a teenager, I heard rumors that the Russians put flouride in drinking water, presumably to wreck our minds and make us easier to control. I heard this only a few times; and I never heard of evidence. As I said, rumors.
But as I’ve researched and written about education a great deal, those rumors have come back into my thoughts. And here is what I want to report to you today: the Russians had absolutely no need to put flouride or anything else in the water. Ever since 1932, they had look-say in our public schools!
As subtle poisons go, as devices that will wreck minds and make people easier to control, look-say (also known as sight-words or Dolch words) is primo.
I was trying to figure out a way of explaining all this in a few words, and I came up with the phrase “education as neurotoxin.” It’s hard to invent a new phrase these days; but Google didn’t find it. So I wrote a column with that title (and later put it on other sites as “Bad Education Considered as Neurotoxin”).
I’m sure that mental dysfunction is a helpful way to discuss what is done to children in American public schools. But is this only a literary metaphor or more substantial than that? Well, we do have 50,000,000 functional illiterates and a million dyslexics. That’s a fact. Many of these people sincerely believe they were born “learning disabled” or “cognitively impaired.” Schools inspected them and said, “You are defective.” Many millions lived their whole lives believing this.
Of all the sins committed by the Education Establishment, forcing bogus reading methods into the public schools has to be the worst. And the first thing that needs to be fixed.
Here’s the summary with the article: “Much of American education is counter-productive and actually works to stunt and retard students. That's because progressive educators view the school as a factory for producing little cookie-cutter socialists. These educators have ended up favoring some of the worst ideas in the history of education, ideas that are best described as neurotoxic. Montessori knew better. No matter whether kids are gifted or slow, they are best served by Montessori's insight that all children develop most quickly in a challenging, cognitively enriched environment.”
“Education as Neurotoxin” http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/129985
Yes I have. I had a couple of those when I was teaching 4th grade ESL. It was interesting explaining to their parents why they could read (very well), but not pass the TAKS (the Texas assessment for minimum standards).
Actually it was not fun, and I swore I would never teach 4th grade again.
The WRR and SWR programs, and others structured like them strive not to create word callers. They do not separate the English language arts the way the schools generally do. Handwriting, grammar, literature, reading comprehension, and spelling are all interwoven until about 3rd grade when the student is ready to take on additional writing instruction.
The over teaching of phonics IS the cause of word-calling. I can pull up study after study showing that.
It’s not the teaching of phonics mind you, it’s the OVER TEACHING to the exclusion of everything else
And these are just the two this year. I’ve taught over 15 years and see at least 1-2 new word callers every year from 6th to 8th grade. BTW, word-callers don’t normally appear until very late elementary school to early middle school.
Lastly, I spent three years, 12,000 dollars, and thousands of hours in both observing students and reading professional articles to earn my masters in reading and nearly that much for my masters in teaching special education, so the teaching of reading and the rectifying of reading disabiities happens to be my strong suit.
So while I accept you have had excellent results in the teaching of your three children, I deal with dozens of weak readers every year and have for over 15 years. I have a track record of excellent results in teaching what appears in front of me. I don’t really get too involved in how they got there, but more in where they are going and how do I get them there now that they are in my classroom.
I also understand why you fail to see why phonics is to blame. Your world and mine are a bit different, but as an expert in the field, I can assure you that the over teaching of phonics is always the cause of a word caller.
You are splitting hairs where they don’t need to be split.
if a 6th grader has 1st grade comprehension, by default they have a learning disability — a learning disability that was created by poor teaching.
Since I know the cause, I know how to fix it, given time. However, it’s hard and very few people have the opportunity I have at my school where I am allowed to keep the same students for three years. More fortunately, the high school to which our middle school feeds in has 2 excellent reading teachers. I send them a list of the benchmarks met and the time frame and they pick up on day 1 where I left off on the last day of school. The kids even remark on that, like every year.
Please, don’t talk about dyslexia. That is another learning disability deeply misunderstood outside literary fields. It is truly rare. In nearly 15 years, I’ve taught 1 true dyslexic and about a hundred whose parents thought they were because they turned around letters.
So are you saying that phonics is not responsible but that neglect of comprehension skills is reponsible? That is what metmom is saying too.
Yes, it is the neglect of every other aspect of literacy, other than word study/spelling, and fluency that causes word-calling.
Or, the over-emphasis of phonics over every other aspect of literacy.
Why it’s done is for as many reasons as there are people. But you see those parents holding up flash cards going “T says ‘tuh, tuh, tuh?” — that’s where it starts, where it ends is in a classroom with a child reading a college level book without being able to repeat back one fact. What happens in between varies considerably.
Apparently you interpret what I say better than I say it. :)
I have excellent reading comprehension. Lol! :)
You can over emphasize phonics without neglecting every other aspect of reading.
The problem is not with phonics but lack of other teaching. Phonics itself doesn’t cause the problem, not teaching the comprehension and other aspects of it does.
Good point, btw. Kids with a balanced phonics background who end up with me generally have automaticity issues and fluency issues - both orally and silently. I find these the two easist problems to fix. Generally they spend one year with me and then they are in to regular ed reading. Comprehension, decoding, and spelling may be on the lower end of normal, but are side issues that correct over time.
Poor teaching causes the problems.
“parents holding up flash cards going “T says ‘tuh, tuh, tuh”
This is pet peeve of mine, adding an extra “uh” sound to the end of a phonogram. You don’t say “tuh o puh”, you say ‘top’. It takes practice not to add that extra sound. I hear parents do this. I hear teachers do this. I hear it all kinds of reading curriculum. Enunciate people! Lol!
I do not have any sources to cite, but it is my understanding that the public school system was established in order to mass produce factory workers that needed to be interchangeable because of the industrial revolution. In this sense it makes complete sense that John Dewey wanted to socially engineer these children because they were the ones destined to factory work, soldiering, or policing. (Note that I understand his reasoning ~ I do not agree with it)
That said, there are many students who do strive and indeed excel in spite of the dumbing down of education in America.
Agreed. That is where it starts. Children may want to read at a very young age, and maybe they have the ability to read at that young age. However, they do not necessarily have the ability to write because their fine motor skills have not yet developed. I do not believe that reading and writing should be separated. They should be learned together, and if a child does not yet have the fine motor skills for writing, they should not be learning to read yet either. Waiting for their fine motor skills to develop also gives them time to increase their spoken vocabulary, and develop their listening skills. My case in point. My daughter is 5. She can read and write three and four letter words and her name on her own so far. She isn't ready for more yet. However, she uses words like collaborate, sweltering, flabbergasted, or gnarly in her daily speech. (yes, I heard her using the word gnarly in her playtime today! "I am holding the gnarly rose and must find the queen!") Today, so many parents are eager for their children to learn to read and there is some prestige when their children learn to read early. Sometimes, early reading is not smarter, nor is it necessarily better.
And again you are confusing a teaching tool for a pedagogy standard which it is not.
Do the ruling elite wish to keep everyone else in the dark??? But of course. That is the way of authoritarians through out history. It is neither new nor based on this word list. The folks who in the past have demanded their rights and freedoms have not necessarily been literate but they have been moral and honorable.
The people who become dependent are those with a sense of entitlement that somehow someone owes them something. That comes from a lack of maturity and personal insight ( ie still acting like a three year old). There are many causes for that and I can point to television, computers, silly parents who allow their children to be their friends......and on and on.
It is important to not over simplify any of these concerns or arguments for then we do nothing but give the same illogical quick fix that we blame on the other side
You speak of illteracy as if it is so rampant that only a few people can read. Of course that is as nonsensical an argument as the one the writer was trying to force through his twisted logic. Read my previous post. The election of Obama has to do with many many things. To put it down to the ‘whole word’ method of teaching reading is a stretch that you should be embarrased by.
Using a tool does not make one illiterate. That is like saying that using a slide rule (or a calculator) makes one incapable of doing arithmetic. Or that using a protractor takes away from the understanding of bisecting an angle because it was not done with a compass and straight edge.
I have never spoken of illiteracy as being so rampant that only a few can read. What is nonsensical is arguing against a position that I never held
In our county we have about a 50% graduation rate in the public schools. Whole language is the method they use for reading. Several of our teenagers at church are functionally illiterate.
Whole language is not a tool to teach reading, it is an obstacle that must be overcome. Alot of children will go on to read despite whole language method but not because of it.
There is one woman in our church that was taught with whole language. She is functionally illiterate. Until I told her, she had no idea that letters made sounds. That is the danger of whole language instruction.
I wasn’t attributing the election of Obama to illiteracy. I was using it as an example of what happens when people aren’t taught to think for themselves. Part of being able to think for yourself is being able to read.’
If whole language was an effective tool for teaching reading you may have a point. It is causing alot of the children that are “taught” under it to be illiterate. They are being labelled with learning disorders when all they need is to be given the keys to our language.
I have never heard of a child that was taught with phonics that can’t read and that includes children with all ranges of learning disabilities.
As for illiteracy being rampant, everything I have read puts about 1/4 of the adult population in our country in this category. And about 1/4 more as marginally literate.
I think that is a problem. There is no reason except unwillingness that a person shouldn’t be able to read.
Sorry those numbers should be 1/8 for illiterate and 1/8 for marginally literate. I need to go back to bed!
In 1973, Samuel Blumenfeld wrote “The New Illiterates,” which further exposed the history of how our children are being damaged by being taught reading with improper methods:
“In the course of researching this book, I made a shocking, incredible discovery: that for the last forty years the . . . children of America have been taught to read by a method originally conceived and used in the early 1800s to teach the deaf how to read, an [experimental] method which has long since been discarded by the teachers of the deaf themselves as inadequate and outmoded. Yet, today, the vast majority of . . . American children are still being taught by this very method. The result has been widespread reading disability.”
http://www.nrrf.org/essay_Illiteracy.html
I have no idea of where you come up with a 50% graduation rate for US high school students. Here is what the 3008 results are ( by House district)http://www.edweek.org/ew/dc/2008/40cdmap.h27.html
Unless you live in Nevada everywhere else is graduating more than that and in many areas significantly more. I have not said ANYTHING about the methodologies for teaching reading. AGAIN you totally misunderstand what the Dolch list is, It is NOT the whole language methodology. It is a TOOL— a part -— of many teaching methodologies
You have confused “look-say” with whole language. The fact that one woman in your church had such an experience is not evidence of wide spread illteracy, nor is it an indication that whatever method was used to teach her was necessarily bad. You do not mention whether this woman graduated high school. Being illiterate should have prevented her from moving much beyond grade number two without remediation and special education evaluations being done.
Note please that places that have 199 percent ( or close to it) literacy include such stellar examples of freedom as Cuba, Russia, the other various components of the former Soviet Union.
The fact that you have never heard of something does not make it true. Phonics is also a TOOL and not a methodology.
You persist in making the same error as the illogical writer which started this series of posts, namely you oversimplify and paint with a broad brush. You have read one or two books on a subject which you do not fully understand and have taken some of the vary good arguments in them and turned them into nonsense.
Obama’s election has NOTHING to do with whether people have been taught to think for themselves. If that is the best analysis you have for the 2009 election then I feel really sorry for you
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