Reading Wars Explained

[General of Darkness]

I was never aware of this.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi0Sg7JLYDA&feature=related

[Dogman]

Learning the whole word thing is shit..One needs to learn each charter and its sound , the hard part is learning how to string them together!

[osoab]

For Croatians who are just getting the hang of the language. ;D
http://www.hookedonphonics.com/

I really can't comment on what he is saying with whole word idea in today's education system. I have no knowledge of it.
This is the first time I have ever heard of this concept.
All I can say is that they taught phonetics when I was in grade school.
Maybe it just hadn't filtered down our way yet 60 years later.

[Dogman]

For Croatians who are just getting the hang of the language. ;D
http://www.hookedonphonics.com/

I really can't comment on what he is saying with whole word idea in today's education system. I have no knowledge of it.
This is the first time I have ever heard of this concept.
All I can say is that they taught phonetics when I was in grade school.
Maybe it just hadn't filtered down our way yet 60 years later.



Old school is the best school.

Just for example, look at how people used language when writing 100 or so years ago compared to today...

Nuff said!!

Modern is trying to take the easy out , and teaching to the lower end of the class. I use words that I learned 50 years ago, the language now is being dummed down. Along with everything else in education.

Fact Jack!

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

He makes some good points but I seem to be missing his overall point.

[osoab]

He makes some good points but I seem to be missing his overall point.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F63zjs-jChY&feature=player_embedded#!

I wonder if it is difficult for us to understand because we learned phonetics.
Is this like teaching that the word is just the word itself, with no underlying substance behind it?

[Dogman]

He makes some good points but I seem to be missing his overall point.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F63zjs-jChY&feature=player_embedded#!

I wonder if it is difficult for us to understand because we learned phonetics.
Is this like teaching that the word is just the word itself, with no underlying substance behind it?


Point made1

[Ponce]

That's what I like about the Spanish language, you read it, write it and pronaunce it the same way.......in the other hand the English language you have to remember the right character for the right word and most of the time when use it with the spoken words you have to first fill your mouth with mude......I know several languages and English is the hardest one.......Italian and Portuguese is part of the Romance language that are very much like Spanish.

[osoab]

Here is a little more from one of the esteemed Midwest universities.
http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Whole_word_approach


The whole-word approach is a method to teach reading by introducing words to children as whole units without analysis of their subword parts. (Beck and Juel 2002) The whole-word method involves teaching children to “sight read�? words, that is, to be able to pronounce a whole word as a single unit.(Mayer 2003) Whole-word instruction involves associating word names with printed words. By repeated exposure to words, especially in meaningful contexts, it is expected that children will learn to read the words without any conscious attention to subword units. Hence, whole-word recognition, or the development of a whole-word vocabulary, is a goal of whole-word instruction. The idea behind this approach was that children could learn to recognize words through repeated exposure without direct attention to subword parts, unlike the phonics approach to reading. The whole-word concept is a whole to part method of teaching children to read, where as phonics is part to whole.

In recent years, the whole-word approach has been changed somewhat to the whole language philosophy. (Mayer 2003) The basic feature of whole language is the view that language is indeed whole and it is best learnt as a whole with meaningful and relevant text. It is to incorporate both reading and writing as a whole.


This is messed up.

This is the whole language approach (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_language).


Whole language describes a literacy philosophy which emphasizes that children should focus on meaning and strategy instruction. It is often contrasted with phonics-based methods of teaching reading and writing which emphasize instruction for decoding and spelling. However, from whole language practitioners' perspective this view is erroneous and sets up a false dichotomy. Whole language practitioners teach to develop a knowledge of language including the graphophonic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects of language. Within a whole language perspective, language is treated as a complete meaning-making system, the parts of which function in relational ways. It has drawn criticism by those who advocate "back to basics" pedagogy or reading instruction because this whole language is based on a limited body of scientific research. [1].

I feel dumber trying to understand the teaching method.

[Neuro]

Right now I am reading "The count of Monte Christo", by Alexander Dumas, the translation to English was done during the late 19th century. There is no doubt that the written language has degraded a lot since then. And whole word philosophy seems a likely culprit. It is an insane way of teaching a phonetic language. English is a difficult phonetic language though since words are rarely pronounced the way they are written. But certainly it would be easier to learn the way the letters are pronounced, than to have a memory of all the different whole words in all their forms. Read an old book and you will definitely see that the vocabulary today is way smaller than it used to be...

[Bigjon]

Right now I am reading "The count of Monte Christo", by Alexander Dumas, the translation to English was done during the late 19th century. There is no doubt that the written language has degraded a lot since then. And whole word philosophy seems a likely culprit. It is an insane way of teaching a phonetic language. English is a difficult phonetic language though since words are rarely pronounced the way they are written. But certainly it would be easier to learn the way the letters are pronounced, than to have a memory of all the different whole words in all their forms. Read an old book and you will definitely see that the vocabulary today is way smaller than it used to be...


Read anything by Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne... and you will see the power of the English language. They had real precision when conveying their message.

It is kind of funny because in high school I was told not to use those big words in written reports.

I was told that writers of Dumas' time were paid by the word and you can see it in his writing every room his characters entered had to be described in exacting detail.

[Neuro]

Right now I am reading "The count of Monte Christo", by Alexander Dumas, the translation to English was done during the late 19th century. There is no doubt that the written language has degraded a lot since then. And whole word philosophy seems a likely culprit. It is an insane way of teaching a phonetic language. English is a difficult phonetic language though since words are rarely pronounced the way they are written. But certainly it would be easier to learn the way the letters are pronounced, than to have a memory of all the different whole words in all their forms. Read an old book and you will definitely see that the vocabulary today is way smaller than it used to be...


Read anything by Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne... and you will see the power of the English language. They had real precision when conveying their message.

It is kind of funny because in high school I was told not to use those big words in written reports.

I was told that writers of Dumas' time were paid by the word and you can see it in his writing every room his characters entered had to be described in exacting detail.

Yes it is like seeing the room in front of you!