I've come to believe that education is one of the most fad-oriented disciplines one can follow. Every 10 years there's a BIG NEW THEORY that purports to wipe clean the failed slate of everything that came before.

Until it too is abandoned as a big waste of time a decade later.

I personally think we should reinstitute a lot of the rote learning that was present in most k-12 schools until about 1960. I read a pretty compelling City Journal article (I think it was CJ) a while back that argued rote learning was actually a significant cognitive enhancer and gave children an important store of concepts with which to approach every day critical thinking.

Here's the article I mentioned:

In Defense of Memorization

This is why I homeschool, Ace. Well, this and reading about 6th graders girls giving blow jobs on buses ...

I think Cq is right-if their were more stories written about sixth grade girls giving blow jobs on school busses i dont think we would have too much trouble getting our kids to read.

"I think Cq is right-if their were more stories written about sixth grade girls giving blow jobs on school busses i dont think we would have too much trouble getting our kids to read."

HAHAHAHA........uh wait maybe I should not be laughing at that.

I'm afraid I can't blame Bush for your friend's inability to recall the name of the method by which she was taught to read, and I don't think he should have to turn his campaign speeches into lectures on teaching methodology for those who aren't familiar with the terms. The failure this time is on the part of the listener, not the speaker.

This is why my mom insisted on teaching me how to read before I started kindergarten.

I'm afraid I can't blame Bush for your friend's inability to recall the name of the method by which she was taught to read, and I don't think he should have to turn his campaign speeches into lectures on teaching methodology for those who aren't familiar with the terms. The failure this time is on the part of the listener, not the speaker.

Why not? People without kids don't know this stuff, you know. If you're making a case for a change in policy, it's useful to explain what the current policy is and what the policy you advocate would entail.

This doesn't require a long-winded speech about phonics versus whole word pedagogy. For my friend, it only would have required a paragraph-long explanation that phonics was the method of teaching twenty years ago, and the method that worked (and continues to work, since many parents use it to teach their children).

People without kids don't know this stuff, you know.
I don't have kids. I remember the term from second grade. You know, when they were teaching it to me and stuff.

If you're making a case for a change in policy, it's useful to explain what the current policy is and what the policy you advocate would entail.
I agree, in theory. Where we quibble is in our assessment of the likelihood of the audience members understanding what phonics is. I am evidently giving them too much credit.

This doesn't require a long-winded speech about phonics versus whole word pedagogy. For my friend, it only would have required a paragraph-long explanation that phonics was the method of teaching twenty years ago, and the method that worked (and continues to work, since many parents use it to teach their children).
Couldn't she have done a teensy amount of research before she decided she was against it, though? Like, maybe looked the term up in the dictionary?

I don't know why it said I was "Cq" lol -weird. But, I really don't think 6th grade blow-jobs are funny. I'm not a stick in the mud, I just have children that are very close to that age, and it breaks my heart what has happened to kids now-a-days.

I think I have the answer.

If a child learns to read because Daddy reads them a bedtime story every night starting when they're 2, whole-word can work quite well and is probably the more natural way to learn (this is how I learned to read) because they learn how the word is pronounced and what it means at roughly the same time as they learn what it looks like. For instance, when I see the word "electricity" it has always connoted sparkiness and outlets in my mind. I've never sounded it out, even when I was 4 or 5.

But if a child already has well-developed vocal speech (as most kids do by schooltime), phonetics is now the more natural choice. That is, you determine what vocal word (that you know the sound of and meaning for) corresponds to this unfamiliar jumble of symbols on paper. This process is inherently less efficient than starting out with whole-word, but there really isn't much choice at that point because the linguistic neuronic pathways are already mostly in place. This goes back to the central problem in education: Parents have as much or more responsibility to educate their children as schools.

This look-say teaching reminds me of the "think-method" of musicianship from The Music Man. It's like trying to teach people to see those 3D posters in the mall that piss me off so much. That, of course, does not stop the textbook industry, which seems mostly interested in making children lose IQ points every time they crack open one of these laughable tomes.

Ace,

Think you're can't say whether your friend learned phonics or not.

Even the article you reference clearly show that the look-say approach has been around since the late 50s... The Dick and Jane books were the classics in this form of reading and how I learned in 1967....

And Tall Dave is correct, this method DOES work; unfortunately, it leaves way too many children "left behind". It turns out that as you read more most become "sight" readers no matter which method they were taught, which is required for higher reading level comprehension.

"Sight readers" are what the most proficient readers are from the get-go. Whole language works for them, because they "get it". Some kids are able to skip the phonics step, and go right to sight reading (what most early readers are). It enables you to know that the word "said" means what it does, not because you sounded it out correctly (because it isn't a phonetic word) - but because it starts with an "s", ends with a "d", and has lower letters in the middle. These kids usually know how to read before kindergarten. It's useless, imho, to "teach" this to kindergarten, or first graders ... because if they "could" do it, unless they lived in a home devoid of words (mom and dad NEVER read to them), they already would be reading. I say this from as a homeschooling mom, as well as someone with a Teaching degree (post graduate), with a speciality in reading.

Look, all these educrats are liberal elitiests. They don't think these kids can learn in the first place. They trump out new fads every ten years to placate frustrated parents. They'll through around jargon like pedagogy (which roots from the greek word for the slave who carried your kid's books) ESl, BBL, ADHD, and all sorts of other bullshit to hide the fact that after 40 years of liberal higher education, they don't no shit either. AND they want to be treated as a profession like doctors and lawyers are, with comenserate pay. That's why there has been such a push behind certification, and education beyond masters.

And you watch. Homeschoolers are going to become the new Christians. ie the freak nut-jobs that law & order uses to show how great and caring people these educrats are.

Lets be honest. We've had a public school system for less than 180 years. For the 6000 years before that kids got homeschooled. And if they needed specialized knowledge they paid for a tutor. And those tutors weren't that cheap.

Our education model is taken right from the Spartans, with a heavy does of Plato's Republic. Basically its designed to produce lots of happy, obediant workers. The elites always get special education outside of the regular ed.
And guess where most public school teachers send their kids to school. They know.

Ace,you gotta get an edit button.
It should have been "don't know shit" among all the other mistakes.

You need both methods. I have two children, one 7, one 5. We've been reading to them since they were two, every night before bed.

The seven-year-old picked up phonics immediately. She was attempting to sound out words before Kindergarten. But she's smart and driven. She loves to read.

My five-year-old son is having a tougher time of it. Whole word is working for him, and he'll come along fine in the end, but he has to memorize the words at first. (And let's face it, how can I teach him the phonics of a phrase like "the tough cough ploughs the dough?" Sometimes, the English language won't co-operate with phonics.)

In the end, you use what works with the hcild, no matter what. But education is so fad-driven these days that resisting it is like pushing a boulder up Niagra Falls.

For what it's worth, I've done some ESL teaching. English has about 800,000 words in common usage (over one million counting technically specific words for computers and medicine and such).

I needed both methods with my students. Whole word teaching is useful when teching exceptions and beginner students. Phonics is easily better when teaching language rules and moderate to advanced students.

Yeah, yeah-- all good points.

But what's with Luskin taking a cheap shot at National Review?

Hey bub, lay off the friends, ya know?

Look-say reading was around for a long time. I tutored second graders when I was in 8th grade (late 70s) and it was already in use. Whole language was firmly in place by the early 80s, I believe.

Whole language is a complete joke. Both aren't "needed". The stats are pretty clear. Most kids will learn to read no matter what. About 10-20% of kids will only learn how to read with phonetics instruction. Whole language has never been demonstrated to work.

Someone above said that children were homeschooled for most of civilization. Uh, no. Rich kids were tutored ("specialized knowledge" my ass). Poor kids didn't learn how to read. As the middle class developed, so did teachers and schools. Home schooling isn't a tradition, but an excuse for stay at home moms to justify their existence when the kids would otherwise go off to school and the housework excuse starts to wear thin.

Finally, it's bullshit to say that American schools suck. We do a terrible job of educating the poor, and we have a far less homogenous population than the other countries we're compared with. We could do better, but our middle class and beyond do just fine.

I thought the best point made above was that all kids can learn with phonics, and some will eventually become whole language readers. They should stick to teaching phonics since it's easier to learn that way if you don't already know how to read when they get to school.

I think the combination of teacher's unions and the tenure system are ruining education. With no other system could you be given more and more money every year for doing a worse and worse job. This issue screams for market reforms. Catholic schools in DC spend 1/3 the money of public schools and do MUCH better. I've read surveys where even most blacks, a die-hard Dem constituency if there ever was one, support vouchers. Why the hell can't we get vouchers done?

It's even worse than you think, at least in New York.

Frankly, I don't see how conservatives haven't gone after the source of this crap: the ed schools, which are 90% hard-left indoctrination and 10% practical stuff it takes neither degree nor "theory" to teach (and which the insanely wrong theory manages to mess up anyway). Just eliminate them all. Hell, ban them. The republic may yet survive having its youth systematically brainwashed into PC docility, but why take the risk?

If you are taught "look-and-say", then hear a word you can't figure out, you cant look it up either. With phonics background, you can at least try, even if "pneumonia" may still throw you.

Oh yeah, that "800,000 words in common use" - bull. Yes, the unabridged Oxford has over 700,000 words - but even the New York and London Times' seldom use moe than 20,000. Conversation uses maybe 15,000. Which is why "see-and-say" can work at all. How often have you seen or heard the word "zythum" ('an ancient Egyptian beverage somewhat resembling beer')?

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