Imhocket oone fonikz
It’s a mistake to let teachers off the hook with excuses about how they were misled or deluded into implementing failed educational practices. After all, these people were graduates of educational programs who would have been expected as professionals to discern what was effective and legitimate practice and what wasn’t. Would you excuse a doctor who implemented quack medical practices whose bad judgment led to permanent illness or death of his patients? I don’t think so!
I teach 11th grade ELA (formerly American Literature) and this is quite true. My students are functioning illiterates. They were taught to read using a Title I program called Success for All (SFA). The elementary teachers love it because it is completely scripted. They need only run copies and maintain order. Teachers don’t even really have to interact with the kids since all of the work is done in groups.
Later.
Phonics is the only way to teach reading.
Overall, what I found is that as a childs letter/sound knowledge increases, his/her reading accuracy increases.
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This might be considered common sense, but, then again, maybe not.
In other words, the old methods of letter-sound recognition works and whole word doesn’t.
As a parent and an avid reader, I wanted to share my love of books with my son. My husband and I read to him from the time he was an infant. It was an absolute joy to see him comprehend letters and words and begin reading at the age of three. I’m tearing up a bit just remembering those days. Today he is a college freshman that achieved a 4.0 this past semester. Being the emotional sort, I teared up again. :)
I truly believe it is the parent’s responsibility to teach reading and math early on in the child’s life. It’s the most rewarding and exciting thing I have ever done in my own life.
Today I was with my grandson at a science museum science presentation. The college educated presenter made a few mistatements of science that challenged common sense and experience.
Even worse, he invited little kids to answer questions whose answers he only knew because he had a cheat sheet. The little kids mostly answered incorrectly. He affirmed each kid that gave a wrong answer, thus placing the wrong answer in the heads of all the other kids. It obviously was confusing to some of the kids who knew the correct answer that the wrong answer was affirmed.
But the science museum presenter was obviously more concerned about embarrassing the kids and their parents and hurting their self-esteem than in science. But he was a fairly adequate entertainer.
I pulled my son out of second grade because he was guess reading and he was a terrible guesser. He knew phonics before he went to kindergarten. He forgot all that and was guessing the words - even the simple words I taught him to memorize!
He told me in college that home school rescued him.