Posted on 02/21/2012 3:37:12 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice
Answer: The school, of course and those who push sight reading!
One thing that steams me is that these school ratings **never** take into account all the hard work parents and kids do **afterschooling** and **preschooling** IN THE HOME!
I learned sight reading in first grade (they didn’t offer kindergarten at the public school) and was qualified to read any book in the library by the time I started third grade.
My grandson was reading sight words at 15 months.
A lot of our “functionally illiterate” children (and teachers) are foreign language and ebonic speakers and they have their diversity race “right” to be functionally illiterate. How does a public school child learn to read and write when English is not their language? They don’t.
It all depends on the style of learning that a child has. You have to be a visual learner to learn sight reading. My family are all visual learners and not very good auditory learners.
When my grandson was 18 months old, he could read every word in his vocabulary and some words that were not in his vocabulary, like chimpanzee.
When I was in college, I was in an advanced English comp class for students that scored above 650 on their English boards. The teacher told us that we were all sight readers and that studies showed that because we were sight readers we were also very fast readers, but we were also the worst spellers. We had spelling lessons in Eng. Comp, that the lower classes did not have.
INITIAL TEACHING ALPHABET...Yes, my impression was that ITA made no earthly sense. Almost a separate language. Very scary when you first glance at it. But there’s still a foundation pushing it!
“Let them eat ITA!”
The sad truth is that our Education Establishment was/is a lot more dedicated to illiteracy than to literacy. All the evidence shouts that.
Everything in your post is proved false by specific, documented studies referenced in the book that I mentioned in my previous post . . . for Pete’s sake.
Too bad. Children who are taught phonics are reading before kindergarten.
RE: “Sig Engelmann’s “Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons”
I think that the best phonics program in the US is the Abeka K-5, Grade 1 and Grade 2 program. Works well, is colorful and gets the job done.
I taught four using it and it was very successful. All learned to read well and comprehend easily. Never needed the third grade program, went straight to Easy Grammer and its companion book.
The boys in our cub scout troop tell me that they are not not taught cursive.
Seriously...After working with the cub scouts for 3 years, I am convinced that the **only** children in our county learning to read and do arithmetic are those kids who have parents that do **tons** of afterschooling.
Who takes the credit for the high standardized test scores after the parents have done tons of afterschooling? The teachers and principal, of course!
Who do the teachers and principals blame when the child fails to learn to read or do basic arithmetic? The parents, of course!
Personally....I would like to see the studies that show exactly how much is learned in the classroom as compared to what is acquired ** at home** due to the parents’ and child's’ own efforts.
The problem (Yes, Virginia, there is a problem) is that the "Teacher College"-based educational establishment tends toward "one size fits all" theories, and they put all their reading eggs in the "Sight" basket. This has had the effect of putting the dream of universal literacy, especially among the lower middle class, way behind the 8-ball. My community College kids are just as "smart," as anyone on this planet. Their inability to really read effectively is enough to make an old man (me) weep!
It is very interesting that in O say, 1920, most American "educators" were "conservative," and tended to belong to the Republican Party. The Communists very deliberately and consciously set out to change that.
Newsflash! In the brief span of 25 years or so, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
I can't imagine that any school teaches kids to read any other way.
There was no kindergarten, where I lived and when I asked my mother to teach me, she told me to wait until I went to school. I did not come from a particularly literate family. There wasn’t any help or interest from the family.
As a matter of fact, it was so bad that the superintendent of schools came to fist our house to discuss the lack of proper academic stimulation with my parents. They had given by brother an IQ test and were shocked at the fact that the district had never seen such a high IQ, especially coming from a blue collar family.
Look say bit one of my grandchildren. I resent it highly.
I strongly urge that you purchase Charlotte Iserbyt’s book, THE DELIBERATE DUMBING DOWN of AMERICA. You will learn how and why our nations schools have been turned into school-to-work training institutions. Also suggest you buy the hard copy even though it is available online too. Internet access could be blocked but an in hand printed copy is much safer. You will find it to be an invaluable resource. It will make you angry but give you the information you need in order to decide what is best for your family. Private school, home school, parochial but not Charters as they are part of the same ‘government controlled system ‘.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.