Posted on 03/06/2011 3:27:10 PM PST by IbJensen
If anyone is interested or needs to pass along this information.
There is a free service on the web located at
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/
A youtube video explains here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=619fGVETdWk
“I have a coworker, black, female, 29 years old, currently working on her SECOND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! master’s degree.”
I work for Uncle Sugar, too. That woman will be your boss, soon.
First of all, all of those chinese engineers who are supplanting us never learned to read using phonics. Ideogram-based languages have to be read using the whole-word technique.
Second, even if phonics is used, it is only a stepping stone, until the reader becomes proficient enough to use whole-word. Phonics is horribly inefficient.
Third, anecdotally, I didn’t learn to read using phonics. I was reading before I was two, and by age three could comprehend articles in magazines like Scientific American. As noted elsewhere, it’s not a panacea. There is certainly a place for it, but many children can skip past needing phonics to read. The real tragedy is the apathy of the teaching cadre in not focusing on basics like reading and other fundamentals.
Back in’72 I was a student at Virginia Commonwealth University. I took an elective course titled Americans From Africa. The professor(an “AA”) was describing the slaves.saying “dey had nothin’ on their feets”, He was working on his Dr’s degree at U.Va. at the time.
I remember a movie that starred Johny Cash as a truck driver who couldn’t read. I wondered how he could do that, without being able to read signs, addresses, maps, etc.
I remember that movie! I think it was an ABC Movie of the Week. I was about 10 when I saw it; the scene I remember centered around a complex and confusing array of traffic signs at an intersection, and he had to guess what they meant. He guessed poorly and got a ticket.
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