Posted on 12/01/2005 4:25:16 PM PST by ncountylee
LONDON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- Starting next year, all British school children will learn to read using the traditional technique known as synthetic phonics.
A report released Thursday said that, by the age of 11, children taught by the phonics method are typically three years ahead of others in reading ability. Jim Rose, a former director of the Office of Standards in Education and the report's author, also found that synthetic phonics works best when used alone and not in a combination of methods, the Times of London reported.
Rose recommended that children be taught nothing but phonics until they are 5, followed by a rich exposure to language. Under the present system, phonics is combined with the "look and say" method where whole words are taught.
"I am going to adopt the recommendations in this report to make sure that synthetic phonics is taught systematically and early in British schools as quickly as possible," Education Secretary Ruth Kelly said in a BBC interview.
END
That's the first time I've heard that case without makeing the political connection, of dumbing down the masses so they'd be more easily swayed.
Still, the unions think nothing of anyone but themselves, so perhaps some people give them too much credit.
Me, me, me, me, me... doesn't lend itself to "let's pitch in and help someone else."
I think the reason liberals prefer whole language over phonics is simple.... With phonics there is always a right and wrong way to spell or pronounce a word (OK maybe a handful of exceptions). In the Whole Language approach, their is no clear right or wrong. It is the home of creative spelling.
As a junior high language teacher in AZ, I wasn't allowed to correct spelling errors in my students' work because it would stifle creativity and negatively affect their self-esteem. What a crock.
China does not have an alphabet, therefore, no phonetics. Japan has two alphabets and Chinese characters, so partially phonetic and sight reading.
It was stopped by Leftist/Liberal administrators in total control of our educational systems -- to INTENTIONALLY impede the education of our children..
Leftists/Liberals require an uneducated citizenry to buy the bullsqat they're selling.... The public must be dumbed down, made dependent on Government and taught only to repeat the inane cliches of the left...
That's why our children are NOT being taught in the most effective manner possible to read --- they might read HISTORY and actually learn the truth...
Semper Fi
bump!
LOL!
That would be fine, as long as they continue phonics steadily. The curriculum I use has phonics classes through seventh grade!
Natural organic phonics are better.
"Natural organic phonics are better."
Don't tell me you are a phonetatarian?!
(yes, it is sarcasm)
you know, I have heard that synthetic phonetics may lead to mad kau dizeeze
Going after the NEA would be a great start.
I got hooked on phonics but through rehab I'm doing better. Taking it one day at a time.
And why is that more of a problem than "looking" at NUCLEAR and "saying" NU-KEW-LAR?
Ah! but will hang by the neck until dead those still living that STOPPED Britain from teaching phonics in the past..?
Those High-School grads didn't learn to read (or not learn to read, as the case may be) when Davis was Governor. No party is clean on this front.
There's evidence for and against either method. I wonder if maybe SOME kids learn better one way and SOME kids learn better the other way? Perhaps the real task is figuring out which group a kid falls into.
I'm not a big fan of one-size-fits-all in almost ANY area, and I really don't like it in education.
Excellent. I do wish this would be implemented in ALL public schools in America. It was there for me and gave me the help i needed to start reading (and writing) on my own.
It sounds presumptuous to say so, but GBS was totally illiterate (assuming it's anything more than a joke) when he came up with this. AFAIK,
"GH" is only an "f" sound at the end of a root* word: laugh, cough, etc, or as part of "ght" at the end: draught, etc.
"TI" is only an "sh" sound in before a vowel: nation, presidential, etc.
"O" is only a short "i" sound in the word "women".
* Meaning it retains the "f" sound before any suffices: laughing, coughs, etc.
Ask yourself what is the purpose of reading.
That was my point exactly. What is the point in of walking? What is the point in speaking? Well, what is the point in living?
The point is that (i) it is the person's right to decide how to use those instruments of life and life itself: as a parent you merely endow the child with those instruments. The parallel with speaking is particularly accurate: you teach the child to pronounce words properly without and do not even bother with the meaning attached them. "This is a bird," you say, "Say: bird..." And that's all. It is only later that you engage in comparisons from which the child learns to differentiate birds and dogs, say. The second point is that, even if you deny the right to construct the meaning and take it upon yourself to transmit it --- you quickly find yourself unable to do so. Hardly any parent can explain mathematics, for instance --- including people that took and use calculus, say. What mathematics is and how it is done is mostly unknown even to educated people. What is the meaning of war? peace? friendship? love? hate?
To be sure, you do answer child's questions at the rudimentary level. But the true meaning of these words is a debatable and philosophical matter. You simply cannot transmit it to the child.
In sum, it's both not right and impossible to transmit the meaning to any appreciable extent. What you give is the mechanical ability to read. And THEN the learning begins. The child reads, discussed what (s)he read with you and subsequently teachers in school, college, etc. --- and from THAT decides on the meaning. Naturally, it's a life-long process.
We read merely to complete communication.
That too is the modern mantra. Again, substitute "speak" for "read" --- do you insist that the child "understands" what fatherhood is when you teach him/her to pronounce "daddy?". For centuries, people have taught children to read, count, write, sing, walk in the same manner: do it first, do it well, and then decide how you are going to apply it and what to make of it. Critical thinking is an altogether different faculty that is and must be cultivated separately, and reading is merely an instrument for that. In recent decades, the "revolutionaries" convinced you that reading is different form speaking, walking, etc. It is not. The empirical evidence is overwhelming: after decades of teaching mechanic of reading simultaneously with conceptualization, the American public is more ignorant and uneducated than at any time in its history.
Your right I don't know where you are coming from...
maybe discord?
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