My database consists of my own experience with two exceptionally
intelligent snappers of my own, one who got ruined by first grade
efforts to shove whole language reading on her, and one who got saved
when we yanked him out of the same first grade teacher's class when he
got there. Fortunately, with phonics assistance from a school teacher's
aid and our own extreme efforts at the same at home, our daughter turned
out to be one of the best readers and spellers in school. (01)
The school district superintendent was extremely passionate about the
program; never mind that his own kids never went through it. He was
convinced we just were not giving the program enough time. For my money,
you don't get enough time with your kids in the first place, so why have
to waste it trying to do damage control. (02)
Jack (03)
Henry K van Eyken wrote: (04)
>Jack.
>
>Well I remember that awful period when "whole-word" reading was the
>vogue, but as for detail my memory falls far short of yours. Might it be
>that you have a highly efficient database on tap that permits you to
>write such a nice, detailed reply?
>
>Any worthwhile secrets here? Just curious, very curious ...
>
>Henry
>
>On Sat, 2004-01-03 at 15:29, Jack Park wrote:
>
>
>>In the U.S., there was, for a time, a whole thrust in reading called
>>"whole language", the gist of which was similar, the theory being that
>>kids could look at pictures and "guess" what the words were saying.
>>Turns out, that doesn't work all that well for kids. The reason seems to
>>be that there needs to be an "adult-sized" vocabulary behind the
>>guessing, even though the pictures were quite simplistic. For some kids,
>>it worked fine, for others, it failed miserably. The method finally got
>>dropped when enough parents complained and when the schools noticed they
>>were paying assistants to teach phonics to the slower readers. The
>>ability to learn reading that way turns out not to be associated with
>>the IQ or other capabilities of the learners.
>>
>>The Steiner learning method keeps kids from reading anything at all
>>until they are around 8 years old. Instead, they spend the extra time
>>memorizing poetry, singing lots of different songs, and storytelling.
>>For those kids, reading comes up quite easily.
>>
>>Jack
>>
>>Peter P. Jones wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3365465.stm
>>>"Researchers in India have been giving details of a novel scheme
>>>aimed at increasing adult literacy.
>>>"It works by teaching people whole words rather than individual
>>>letters, and the scientists who developed it say it costs about $2
>>>for each adult."
>>>
>>>Apparently it uses a computer program instead of trained teachers and
>>>takes users ten weeks to go from nothing to reading a newspaper. Wow.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> (05)
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