Posted on 10/01/2025 12:55:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
This is why “the Mississippi Miracle,” the sobriquet for the extraordinary gains that students in the Magnolia State have made in reading in recent years, is a misnomer.
There’s nothing miraculous about a state that adopts phonics and that sets high standards for its kids getting better results in reading instruction. This, to the contrary, is a predictable outcome, and a replicable one, as other Southern states that have taken up similar polices have shown.
Mississippi went from 49th in fourth-grade reading results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress about a decade ago to ninth in 2024. Its low-income children are ranked first in the nation. Its black kids are No. 3 in the nation, and its Hispanic kids No. 1.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Imagine that!
Hooked on Phonics works for MS
Be careful. Someone will petition Judge Boasberg to dumb down those in Mississippi who are successful.
They will sue due to the lack of reading “equity.”
This is a case, like so many others, of success being a choice. Just like failure is.
I find it hard to believe that not learning phonics is helpful.
It means more work for the teachers?
The Catholic nuns got similar results, back in the day.
OK, kids, you will learn - it is not optional! A combination of firmness and encouragement will work.
OK, NYP, lets see the rankings for Detroit, NYC, Balimore, LA, and how their liberal miracle edumication planning succeeded.
Back to basics. It always works. Next, resurrect the McGuffey Readers and arithmetic times tables.
Looking forward for Mississippi to soar Nationally to the top of the class in every area (except homicide).
Yep. Growing up in Catholic schools, with almost all Catholic school students as friends, I had never heard of "Dick and Jane" until I was a teenager. I found the whole business of limited vocabulary taught by word-shape and utterly inane stories appalling.
The textbook and curriculum industry doesn’t like phonics because it’s cheap to teach. It can literally be done with a chalkboard and chalk for the teacher and a pencil and notebook for the student (see The Writing Road to Reading). Then you don’t need work sheets, work books and all those vocabulary controlled readers that are both stupid and boring for which the schools pay excessive amounts of money.
Do Californians know California geography?
Jay Leno, but what the hay!
Short video
https://youtube.com/shorts/ToNF1XVP7W8?si=QQU0pBSt5SqL4r-q
You can teach phonics to a whole class at once.
Mostly I sight read common words, but I still use phonics to sound out unfamiliar words.
"Class......Class......SHUUUUUT UUUUUP!"
If it weren’t for government schools and the Department of Education, schools probably would never have stopped using phonics.
Well, go figure.
This is so good to hear.
Hats off to Mississippi, and three cheers for phonics!
mark
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