“Memorizing 500 sight-words is very difficult. Most people can not reach 1000 and this process takes years. Surprise. That’s when you find out, for all practical purposes, you’re illiterate. You’ll never read a book.”
Maybe they will, but considering that they won’t be taught reading CORRECTLY (i.e., phonics) until 4th grade (since K through 3rd grade is now nothing but sight-words)...they are ASSURED to be crappy readers. Kids can learn to read at 4 YEARS OLD, providing someone is willing to take the time needed to teach them properly (again, phonics)...but leave it to the public schools, it will be 9 years old, if that.
But, no matter how many times I post stuff similar to the above, parents here will STILL keep sending their kids to public schools, and they will STILL keep whining about the fact that their kids are not being taught properly in public schools. And they will NEVER accept the fact that the schools do not answer to parents, they answer to certain people in government, and those people are doing all they can to bring America down a few notches...and having badly educated people is one of the fastest ways to do that.
...and all I can say is THANK GOD FOR IMMIGRANTS, particularly, Asians, as they are on to this scam, and while they usually send their kids to public schools, they know they won’t learn jack there - so while American kids are playing video games in the late afternoon, Asian kids are at after-school Learning Centers, or informal groups, learning math and reading CORRECTLY.
Without these immigrants, this country would have collapsed decades ago.
Our daughter’s Sunday school teacher is from China. She has the kindergarten and first graders looking up verses in their bibles on their own. I think she assumes that 5 year olds can read the Old Testament. It seems the kids work to find the book, chapter and verse; then they follow along with her. Her expectations are far higher than what the rest of us and the kids are rising to the occasion.
She is hands down my daughter’s favorite teacher.
All kids probably can easily do this by the end of first grade, but she has kids who will be going into kindergarten and first grade. My mom says she taught me to read before kindergarten, my kids (those who are over the age of six) were competent readers about midway through first grade. Everyone learns at a different pace; the important thing is that they learn phonics and that parents read quality literature to them from a young age and continue to read to them often.