Posted on 02/13/2011 4:44:10 AM PST by IbJensen
The wonders of a government-run education system.
In today’s world a 1950’s high school graduate is the equivalent of a BA! Perhaps even an MA.
I’m just glad that there are literate writers who understand today’s situation.
He was a Goober.
and you don’t know how to click the link? It was an all too obvious cut/paste error.
So, what do you mean by “either?” Do you dispute the premise of the article? If so, please elaborate.
What a valid point: let kids read what interests them, what they enjoy, and they will pick up reading as a pleasant thing to be pursued, not something mandatory, to be dropped at the earliest possible time in their lives.
My daughter started with the “Babysitters Club” series in 2nd grade. Once she’d read the first book, she went thru the others in record time, because she was actually interested. My sons took to The Hobbit. Whatever it takes. Now, in their late 20s, they all are voracious readers.
Blumenfeld doesn’t know what he is talking about. I know because I have one child with severe dyslexia and dyscalculia and one with minor dyslexia and dysgraphia and my husband has both dysgraphia and minor dyslexia.
The child psychologists who tested my son in pre-school were able to predict that he would have these problems due to the fact that he was left handed and right footed, indicating that both sides of his brain were equal, rather than having one side stronger than the other. It actually made him ambi-dextrous. He writes equally poorly with both hands. It’s great for sports though, batting either side, etc. It’s not great for golf, though.
Anyway when he was in kindergarten, he once wrote a whole sentence in mirror writing like Michael Angelo in the Davinci Code. Dyslexia is a very real disability that kids are born with. It is not just one thing, it involves the way the brain sees letters and interprets them. My son often cannot tell the difference between a two and a five if he is working too quickly. It’s the same for letters. Phonics just didn’t work at all. I tried it with him when he was about 4 or 5 and he just looked at it like I was nuts, but picked up the sight reading very readily.
I’ve found that it’s rather impossible to discuss this subject with people who have been told by “experts” that they or their children have so called “Dyslexia”.
So called “Dyslexia” happens as a result of being TAUGHT reading through the Whole Language scheme. Historically, no records of “Dyslexia” exist anywhere before the mid 1930’s. Why? Because true Phonics was widely used before then. But when the Whole Language scheme, or
Look-Say method became wide used all over America, especially after 1950; and it so obviously failed to teach reading, indeed, rather created an obvious dysfunction in how letters are decoded..then the Pedagogical “experts” invented a new “illness” to blame, namely “Dyslexia”.
Eva, please understand that Blumenfeld is NOT saying that a child with a reading disability does NOT have that reading disability.
He IS saying that the cause is NOT a made up illness called “Dyslexia”. He IS saying that this reading disability can be REVERSED through teaching true Phonics.
Blumenfeld is not the only person who is saying this. There are many others. Do your own research. Read Blumenfeld’s books.. but there are others who have been saying the same thing for many years.
The Educational Establishment have their goals. Those goals do not include teaching children how to read, write or do arithmatic..rather, these goals include creating a completely compliant child, without the ability to think critically, who will gladly join others in continually voting for, and supporting Socialism.
No, it cannot. There is a real disconnect between the letters and the sounds. The kids can learn to break down words into syllables and sight read the syllables, but they cannot seem to understand that each letter represents a sound, just like the kids with dyscalculia do not understand that a numeral represents a number.
The kids with dyscalculia must touch every single object as they count them because counting doesn’t compute in their brain as a number of objects.
The only way that kids with dyslexia learn to read is through repetition, making them read, until the sight reading clicks. My husband went to so many summer reading programs that taught phonics and nothing worked, until his parents sent him to a boarding school that sent him to study hall every single night for punishment. It was so boring that he actually read his literature assignments and learned to like reading, though his reading was still very slow. Phonics never helped and this was before learning disabilities and dyslexia were a fad.
Weren’t we fortunate to receive such priceless educations? Of course our parents had to buy our books, but they were usually used and passed down. The books didn’t change every day as they seem to do now.
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