Posted on 03/31/2010 5:08:44 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Boys can learn to beat girls at reading if they are given old-fashioned teaching methods, claim psychologists.
The use of more traditional phonetics-based lessons helps boys catch up with girls - even doing better on some tests - and prevents some children from needing 'special' schooling, according to new research findings.
A study of synthetic phonics also found children from disadvantaged backgrounds do as well as those from better off homes.
The research, presented at the British Psychological Society's annual conference in York, has underpinned changes being made in the nation's classrooms.
They have been introduced after damning revelations that four in 10 children have failed to master the three Rs by the time they leave primary school.
There has also been concern about the growing gender divide in achievement, starting in primary schools.
Under the synthetic phonics system, children are taught the sounds that make up words rather than guess at entire words from pictures and story context.
Rhona Johnston, a professor of psychology at Hull University, and Dr Joyce Watson of St Andrews University, studied the results from 300 children originally given training using synthetic phonics when they were five.
The progress of the group at primary schools in Clackmannanshire was compared with 237 children using the more usual analytic phonics approach.
Boys taught using synthetic phonics were able to read words significantly better than girls at the age of seven, with all pupils ahead of the standard for their age.
Boys were 20 months ahead while girls were 14 months more advanced than expected.
At the end of the study, boys' reading comprehension was as good as that of the girls, but their word reading and spelling was better.
(Excerpt) Read more at thisislondon.co.uk ...
Learning to read opens the door to gathering information besides that which the left wants to spoon feed our children.
Let’s see, our school systems do away with phonics, cut recess, and cut any competitive sports. They the educators write articles about how superior girls do in school.
You get drowsy when you get bored. Anyone would get bored performing a task in an artificially slow and difficult manner.
I still have my 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade readers with Dick and Jane and Sally
Maybe it has more to do with different types of learners, too.
I have twin girls who were subjected to the whole word method during their early years.
The one who was an abstract learner did okay, while the one who was a logical learner continued to have problems for a few years.
Boys tend to be logical learners too, so it would affect boys more.
-----
I finally got my daughter back on track by investing in a set of McGuffy Readers.
You know...those pesky phonics books that was used in America for a hundred odd years before we became 'progressive'. [yak!]
:-)
A Nation that cannot read and comprehend is easily controlled. Thanks Chicago, Columbia Univ,and all those PROGRESSIVE educators who designed this monstrosity.
Dick and Jane was a sight reading method, not phonics.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3p.htm
McGuffy Readers were phonics based.
I started first grade (1961) with Dick, Jane, and Sally readers. The series used the "See and Say" method that superceded phonics but I can remember my teacher using phonics as a supplement for the class to ensure that nobody was left behind. I recall doing small group reading out loud where a student that struggled with a word was coached through a "sound it out" process that was phonics-based. Generally, I believe that most students became functional readers unless held back by IQ.
BTW, my first grade class was a combined 1st and 2d grade group so the teacher had to have excellent skills in order to manage a mixed group with multiple reading levels. She did groups by reading level rather than grade level so slow 2d graders could catch up and fast 1st graders wouldn't get bored.
Imagine how effective teaching phonetics would be if English spellings were actually consistently phonetic, as they are in some languages. Still, it gives a child a starting point, at least - something to build upon as they move forward.
“The “new approaches” to math computation are a complete joke. About a dozen years ago I was at a 5th grade open house, and the math teacher, for some reason, was proudly showing the way they taught division. If you know algebra, you could see that conceptually what they were doing was breaking down the division algorithm for regular numbers the same way you would for synthetic division of polynomials”
I watched the video and I can sort of see what the creators of those math curricula are trying to get at. Learning algorithms to do calculations is not the same thing as learning mathematics. However, they’re trying, as you say, to use algebraic concepts like the distributive and associative properties to do basic calculations, without the students likely having any understanding of these concepts - and I doubt that any but a very few students are likely to infer these concepts on their own in any sort of useful way. Looks like the sort of mush-headed approach to teaching we’ve come to expect from the graduates of schools of education, unfounded in any real understanding of the subject matter, or how children may actually learn.
But to repeat my original point, learning to do multi-digit multiplication or long division doesn’t really teach you anything about mathematics per se. It’s a somewhat useful skill to have though, so that you can do simple calculations with pen and paper without needing an electronic aid, reasonably efficiently. Of course, at one time (before calculators) a reasonably educated student would have been expected to learn how to calculate square roots with pen and paper in a reasonably efficient manner, too. How many people do that anymore?
“Dick, Jane and Sally was the best Reader ever devised.”
If I recall correctly, the Dick and Jane books were actually part of a “look-say” whole language reading curriculum.
“It does make a difference. When we have kids, we’re likely to home school and phonics will definitely be part of our curriculum.”
PHONICS is the only way to go! My daughter, who is almost three years younger than her brother, was jealous that her 1st grade brother was learning to read books and she could not read.
She demanded that I teach her to read. I taught her to read through phonics when she was three. By the time she got to kindergarten, she was reading at grade levels that shocked her kindergarten teacher. My five year old was “tutoring” her classmates. She was confused as to why her friends couldn’t sound out the words.
On the flip side, this extrememly smart child came home with a note in the fifth or sixth grade (my memory fails me on the exact school year) that said she was FLUNKING math. Fortunately, she had an older teacher who really cared and tested her and investigated the situation. Turns out that my daughter and many many other classmates were all flunking math. This fabulous teacher helped me determine the cause. Massachusetts had recently begun their MCAS test. Their teachers in the 3rd and 4th grades were not teaching the multiplication tables to the children because multiplication wasn’t on the test. They were only “teaching to the test”. We all know that the times tables are the foundation of all math!
I am proud to report that after I tutored her for several weeks she mastered her math class. She is a high school senior graduating as a member of the high honor roll. She is heading to college to study nursing in the fall.
Unfortunately, the older teacher is retired now and the teachers union in town wants more and more of my money....
good luck with your future children. My advice is that parents need to be very proactive in teaching their children.
I’m sorry to hear the educational establishment victimized girls as well. I assumed that because this method so specifically is against the learning style of boys that at least it might be useful for girls.
To get my son reading, I used a method that was recommended on a home schooler TV show. He read out loud from a book with either no pictures or pictures you can cover over. What a struggle but over a few months he went from a kid who couldn’t read a whole sentence without serious errors to a kid who got most of the words right. I really had the sense that that “whole word” produced a kind of learning disability.
Thanks for the encouragement. My wife has been working with various materials already (she teaches 5th grade) and her school definitely puts the emphasis on the basics.
It reminds me a lot of my grade school years in Catholic school: phonics, spelling, vocabulary, multiplication tables, writing, memorization and recitation of poetry, diagramming sentences. All of these things are important for a solid foundation.
The practice of sending kids to the blackboard to do problems and having spelling bees in class are rites of passage that I remember fondly. I recall it was a little frightening to have to do a math problem in front of everyone or to have to recite a spelling word that you weren’t certain of but looking back I’m glad I had the experience.
Even in college my logic professor (definitely old school) sent us to the blackboard to demonstrate Venn diagrams and proofs. I got the same adrenaline rush then too. :)
Exactly! This is what socialism is all about anyways.
Which is why they have the standard features. Big pictures, small vocabulary.
Yeah instead of being only about 92 percent phonetic. Huge difference there. The exceptions are blown well out of proportion.
You think the purpose is to help them become independent? Hardly. There’s no money in it for the government.
Yes, but keep in mind that the non-phonics teaching methods disadvantaged both boys and girls: in both sexes, those who had less phonics, had lower literacy skills.
It's just that the boys were disadvantaged even more.
All this makes one wonder if there are education wonks out there who actually prefer subliteracy for both sexes and all ages.
Most would. They aren’t getting paid according to their performance.
It’s just like Harrison Bergeron. To make everyone equal you have to tie down the strong.
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.