Posted on 10/14/2022 3:34:10 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Emily Hanford became famous over the last several years for talking constantly about the Science of Reading. That's where children learn to read in the simplest, most efficient way and go on to enjoy many hundreds of books. Long story short, what she means by the Science of Reading is phonics — nothing less, nothing else.
The problem is that the left in our country forced phonics into oblivion starting in 1931. So what was going on for those 90 years from 1931 to now? A titanic and quite stupid con, that's what.
Basically, the professors of education at Harvard and such places identified and codified the things that work — and then (this is my summary) they made sure that none of those things are allowed in the schools. Only methods known NOT to work are praised in our classrooms. The simplest, most appropriate name for this approach is the Science of Illiteracy.
Sometimes the impression is given that these professors drifted around from one method to another. That's actually not true. They have only one method — but it has many names (such as sight-words and Whole Word) — and they are content to hide inside the confusion they create.
Reading consists of learning two things: letters and sounds. If you're not focusing on letters and sounds, you don't have phonetic instruction of a phonetic language.
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At the school where I work in the northeast, we have picked up The Science of Reading approach, after years of failed programs. Seems to be a good approach that will result in actual literacy.
Better try something. In urban public schools 60% of 8th graders are functionally illiterate and are incapable of doing basic math. Then again prior to 1970 virtually all middle school graduates were literate. Despite all the money spent, things have gotten much worse.
Since some words in English don't follow the general phonetic pattern, it would be "wordist" to teach things phonetically because that would leave out the "queer" words.
I want to take a moment to recognize my departed parent. Thanks mom and dad for teaching me to read before I went to elementary school.
I am not sure about this, I am self taught and just recognize words. I assume this is why I read faster than anyone I have ever met.
Once I had a job where I had to support windows in all major languages, the only ones that gave me problems were the bi-di languages (Hebrew and Arabic) they would give me actual physical headaches and I still cannot read them.
P.s the symbol for ‘no’ in Arabic looks just like the playboy bunny. :)
My aunt learned to read at age 4 by following along with what her father was reading to her. She had a genius level IQ. My mother used to joke that she carried around a calculus book for a little light reading.
**our country forced phonics into oblivion starting in 1931**
I learned to read quite well in the 1950s. Was an avid reader in the 1960s. Still read quite often.
I noticed my daughter is now an avid reader.
There used to be a company selling something called “Hooked on Phonics”. Haven’t heard their commercial in years.
Still around:
https://www.hookedonphonics.com/
Anyone remember the “Speed Reading” course popular in 1961 and 1962? It was mostly skimming the page. I had it in 1962, Carlsbad NM. I still often use it on light reading, but revert to slow reading for more intense pages.
When I was a little bit older and trying to learn Algebra, I remember my second "Eureka!" moment. I got a paperback copy of Isaac Asimov's The Realm of Algebra. (Asimov might be better known for his prodigious Sci-Fi output). I bought it in the local drugstore newstand, i.e. every town's proxy for a "real" bookstore.
It was not a text book, but a readable interesting little book, conversational almost. Like most paperbacks of the era, it was 25¢ (more or less). (You can download it for free today from the Internet Archive: Asimov: The Realm of Algebra.
Asimov shows how easy Algebra is. It really is a simple concept, of keeping numbers balanced like a "seesaw".
However I would have never learned Algebra if it weren't for the lady who taught me phonics. She really taught me to read.
How about pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconeosis?
Reading is a good way to learn a foreign language.
I was in public schools late fifties through the sixties. We were taught phonics
I learned to read sitting in my mothers lap
Did you have to do any cyrillic or greek?
I see that as a bunch of separate words
We had phonics all through school when I was a kid and I started school in 1965, did I miss something??
Every language. For the programmers Turkish was always difficult for some reason.
I wish I had kept a copy of the cuneiform hieroglyph language pack which was made as an April 1 joke back in 2000
Most of my friends kids were reading at a level years beyond their age by the time they entered kindergarten. This was accomplished by buying tons of kids books at the 99 cent stores, or garage sales, or just hand me downs, and started reading to their children immediately. I have tutored my friends kids over the years in everything from basic math to algebra, geometry, calculus and all university level engineering mathematics. Especially when tutoring high school kids in things such as algebra, they usually show up utterly baffled. The first thing I do is have them explain to me how their teacher showed them how to solve whatever the concept of the week was. It was always so convoluted and complicated that I could barely follow it, even if I explicitly read their book. Without exception, I would show them a very very simple method on how to approach and solve any problem based on logical thought processes. Without exception, they would give me that skeptical glance and exclaim...it cannot possibly be that simple. They would try it once, it would work. Twice, it would work. Repeatedly on more and more difficult problems it would work. I would then task them to teach three of their friends how to do it so it would fully stick because they had to think about it enough to articulate it to someone else who was struggling.
It staggered me how complex and convoluted the poor kids were taught. I have even brought stereotypical blond sorority girls from failing college algebra to finishing the course with a B average. At first it was soooo difficult because they were conditioned to think math was hard, and there was a healthy concrete mental block to understanding. But the first time you finally find the correct approach and articulate an idea in the correct way to finally penetrate that wall, you see a flood light bright as the sun flash in their eyes and that concrete wall shatter to dust as they exclaim “it can’t possibly be that easy”...that is so gratifying
The public school in my small hometown in Pennsylvania used phonics when I was in elementary school in the early to mid 70s.
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