yup, we taught all four to read phonetically with less and less effort as they came along, the youngest two being a year apart, learned at the same time.
Posted on 02/13/2011 4:44:10 AM PST by IbJensen
I looked at the Korean alphabet once. About the time I encountered the fifth letter for the sound my American ears heard as eh, I gave up.
Incidentally, Latin is so impoverished in vowels that we had to force each vowel to work double-shifts, and have at least two different sounds. While the most common vowel in the English language, the schwa (think of the sound between the b and l in able) doesn't have a letter to its name!
Bravo, Sir!
“... cause they don’t teach Phonics anymore?”
My older two were taught to read prior to kindergarten. I used the Hooked On Phonics material. Both were reading at proficient 2nd to 3rd grade levels by kindergarten (I am also teaching my 4 year old currently). Today, the schools teach “see and say”. That is also why the kids can’t spell. One issue that I had with the school is “age appropriate” reading material. I had to go to war with the school librarian to allow my son to take out fourth and fifth grade level books in first grade. He was interested in History and those books were reserved for the older kids. Finally, I said that he was not going to be permitted by me to take out the books that were below his level. I would take him to the public library and forgo the school library. Then he was permitted to take out the books that interested him. Just a thought.
I’m the wife and couldn’t resist commenting on this thread, since I’m a teacher (at home), and have learned a lot as I endeavor to teach my own kids.
Another metaphor for reading theory is playing the piano, even though I don’t play any music, you learn the notes and fingering and then you can pretty much pick up anything and play it. Over time (and practice) it becomes easier, and you don’t have to focus on each note, but instead can look ahead and pick up a whole measure or line at a time. And can memorize pieces to play without looking at the sheet music.
Whole language is like teaching your kids to memorize one piece at a time(depending on their age, it might be Beethoven or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), they can “feel out” how best they want to hold their hands to play that song. However, without the foundation of knowing the individual notes and proper fingering, you cannot just pick up another piece and play it, you would need to start from the beginning again and memorize it. Obviously, you would already know some parts, because you have done it before, but it would take much longer and become quite tedious after a while. Eventually I think the person might give up out of frustration, and learn to be satisfied just listening to the music. I think that people would give up sooner with whole language than with phonics, if that’s all that was taught.
Where it came from is the idea that America is a “melting pot,” and so many people believe our language is only half of English and the other half a mix of other languages. Thus we “need” to use different ways to learn to read all these different words. When actually, there are 36 simple rules to remember and about 72 different sounds, and that takes care of about 95 percent of all our words. Yes there are more detailed rules than that, and there are lots of words that come from other languages, but overall many of our words come from the same roots (Latin and Greek). So you learn that our words don’t end in the letter i or u, and that if we see a word like that, we know it might not follow the standard rules, but the rules give us somewhere to start.
Learning is all based on the individual and what’s best for that person. I saw that with my kids. Any setting that tries to generalize learning is bound for success only in limited amounts.
Please consider becoming a teacher when your children are grown.
I became a teacher at the age of 42. It’s a wonderful career in middle age, when you can bring lots of experience into the classroom along with measured responses to the emotional upheavals of children.
Your writing sparkles with intelligence and wisdom. Your kids are lucky. Other kids could benefit from you as well. Yes, the system is a socialist nightmare, but that doesn’t have to be the description of your classroom. Please think about what I’ve written here.
yup, we taught all four to read phonetically with less and less effort as they came along, the youngest two being a year apart, learned at the same time.
Phonics is how we learned to read. Once they get some of the blending of sounds, there are ladder words to memorize that aren’t phonically correct but simple to them as they go on. I think the lesson here is that the parents have to do it at home prior to sending them off to school. Plain and simple. If someone doesn’t do that then the child will struggle from kindergarten on. I am amazed once they get the sounds and the blending, they sort of shoot off like a rocket with speed. Other kids are still struggling while the ones who learned phonics early are just advancing every day. Just a thought.
wat r u tryin 2 say?
bump
“I looked at the Korean alphabet once. About the time I encountered the fifth letter for the sound my American ears heard as eh, I gave up.”
Thats an issue with your ear and not the language ;)...
I have trouble hearing the differences as well but I know people who are comfortable in the language they all have completely distinct sounds.
Unlike English where not only do some vowels do double duty... But some sounds have Multiple Assignments
Long E and (sometimes) Y: My Parents named M*e* Bobb*y*
“wat r u tryin 2 say?”
Took me a minute! i iz say-n reedin iz gudd. LOL
After I discovered he could read, I handed him to his teenage sister and said, “Do something with Pat,” beause I had a new baby and a bunch of other kids. Anoreth let him read all her high school textbooks, and he discovered in Church History that the early Christians used Greek. “If we do not speak Greek, we are heretics!” he announced, in his ferociously dweeby way, so I got him “Hey Andrew, Teach Me Some Greek!” and we started learning it.
He’s 9 now, and we’re in Book 4 of Greek and Book 1 of Latin. I wouldn’t let him start a second classical language until he could write independently, which didn’t happen until last year. (And then I found the first two books on clearance.) This is also the first year I’ve been able to let him go to a Sunday School class I’m not teaching, because he’s mastered the concept that nice children don’t call their teachers heretics.
Johnny can’t read because Johnny isn’t Johnny. He’s Mohamhed, Mustafah, Juan, Jose and all the rest or system has been forced to teach in their native dialects.
Good.
Better: i iz sayn redin iz gud.
Works like a champ. For a few years I was a reading tutor at a Middle Grade school helping laggards come up to grade level. We had some books in the room but we told the kids they could bring in any other book they were interested in. Quite a few brought in those by Goosebumps. They came up to speed pretty fast.
Second, that “if” whole language failed because it had not been applied *extensively* enough—an obvious logical fallacy.
Third, that *if* whole language failed, it was only because it had been starved for funding, that throwing money at it would make it work.
And finally, their fourth argument was that whole language *would* have worked, but that it had been *sabotaged* by nefarious people, including teachers, parents and others, who either did not want the children to succeed with whole language, or who supported the evil and corrupt (capitalist?) system of phonics English language instruction.
Wow, that's the progressive argument for every single one of their abysmal failures. Thanks for the great post.
Excellent! Teach a child in the way he should go...
I like to emphasize that your verse says, “The way HE should go,” and that the way for one child may not be the way for another. Patrick’s way may lead to a rarefied academic career, while Anoreth is a sailor and Sally is likely to marry pretty young and have lots of children.
dudUUUUUUHhhhhhdayieee du duh duh duhhhhhhhhh
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