Posted on 02/10/2015 6:30:03 AM PST by C19fan
Johnny in Topeka can’t read, but Janne in Helsinki is effortlessly finishing his storybooks. Such a disparity may be expected by now, but the reason might come as a surprise: It probably has much less to do with teaching style and quality than with language. Simply put, written English is great for puns but terrible for learning to read or write. It’s like making children from around the world complete an obstacle course to fully participate in society but requiring the English-speaking participants to wear blindfolds.
Adults who have already mastered written English tend to forget about its many quirks. But consider this: English has 205 ways to spell 44 sounds. And not only can the same sounds be represented in different ways, but the same letter or letter combinations can also correspond to different sounds. For example, "cat," "kangaroo," "chrome," and "queue" all start with the same sound, and "eight" and "ate" sound identical. Meanwhile, "it" doesn’t sound like the first syllable of "item," for instance, and "cough" doesn’t rhyme with either "enough," "through," "furlough" or "bough." Even some identically spelled words, such as "tear," can be pronounced differently and mean different things.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
it worked for generations... until now
First the commie libs decided that kids didn’t need to know how to write, now they’ve decided that kids shouldn’t be able to spell either. That’s how bass turds like Obama get elected.
I’m using a phonics program based on this book with my daughter:
Basically, 74 phonograms and 30 rules let you spell 98% of native English words. I’m using a simple first grade version but there’s one for older kids and struggling readers that would be an excellent resource for anyone who has spelling and reading issues. English isn’t nearly as confusing as it’s made out to be, it’s just that nobody lays it out properly.
Let liberals mull over the stupid and nuanced while the world is burning. Don't we have better things to think about?
Then again maybe Luba Vangelova can list some of those 'oh so superior countries' where kids read quickly - and list their accomplishments and Nobel prizes...
This is a load of hooey. I taught three kids to read, and it was no problem at all. At about the age of three to four I taught the alphabet, one letter at a time (there are only 26 of them) and their sound equivalents. I found that there’s something about the mind at that age which keeps them from realizing the connection between sounding the individual letters of a word, and the whole word itself. However, between the ages of five and six, something “clicks” and virtually overnight they begin reading, fluently and without stumbling, almost as if by magic. From that day forth they can begin applying their new-found skill to their further education, and entertainment, if it comes to that.
If English spelling is such an impediment to reading, why is it that past generations learned to read without experiencing any of the problems today’s generation is going through?
I was going to read the article but I had already read it.
;-)
Isn’t this article nothing more than another front in the war against western civilization?
Yeah. English is a dying language. Hardly anyone in the world uses it any more...
Somewhere in this post we must link to Weird Al’s Word Crimes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc
That should do it!
Good grief. Not this SHIT again. My youngest, 21 year old twins, suffered through what our school district called “creative spelling”. Spelling was deemed not as important as the thoughts the children were trying to express. It took years for them to recover from this nonsense.
Don’t forget “anxious”.
“Anxious” and “eager” do NOT have the same meaning.
During an open house back in 1994, I raised my hand to complain to my sixth grade daughter’s teacher that the spelling errors on her assignments were not being addressed. He said to me that with the age of computers, spelling was not an issue, what was important was the child’s ability to express themselves. They also are no longer taught long division or cursive. I went to work as an aide at the school, but left after one year. Could not stand the social engineering. Now, I homeschool my daughter’s son. You can bet he will learn how to spell, divide and handwrite.
Simple languages are for simple thoughts.
What a bunch of naval gazing.... ;)
It was a simple means of deciding which word to use, of same sounding words, in a sentence.
Stop looking for a boogey man.
Of more concern is today’s “texting generation” that’s totally massacring language, spelling and context.
If we don’t teach kids to spell we may as well use hieroglyphics because without spelling the alphabet is useless.
For the last seven years youngsters with surnames from the Indian subcontinent have won the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bees. Why? Because they work at it.
French, Italian and Spanish have genders for nouns that people have to learn so that the equivalent of “the” is correctly matched by gender.
German has case endings for nouns and adjectives as well as gender that all have to be learned.
Luckily English no longer has either.
They didn't learn any better...
Funny how tyrants are all alike.
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