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osoab
8th March 2011, 03:58 PM
There Are Two Americas...And One Of Them Can't Read (http://www.rightsidenews.com/2011030512984/life-and-science/health-and-education/there-are-two-americasand-one-of-them-cant-read.html?utm_source=Right+Side+News&utm_campaign=aeb8a90813-daily-rss-newsletter&utm_medium=email)


Okay, folks, place your bets. Was it clueless incompetence on a cosmic scale? Or, was it John Dewey's collectivist wet dream turned Clockwork Orange?

One of these ways or the other, we became a country with 50,000,000 functional illiterates, people who can't read a cereal box, never mind instructions on a pill bottle when that exact skill might save a life. Prisons are full of people who can't read. The country's schools wallow in mediocrity. All thanks to educational malfeasance, decade after decade.

J'accuse! J'accuse! The so-called experts in charge of reading are derelict and destructive. Please, remove these parasites from our weary carcass.

Reading was always something that kids learned, almost automatically, in the first few years of schools. Kids learn the alphabet, then A is for Apple, then the sounds of the letters, and soon everyone is reading.

John Dewey, however, opined that a concern with literature constituted a perversion. Takes one to know one, John. This character actually lamented that children might sit alone enjoying a good book. He and his cronies seem to have set out to make sure it cant happen. I never know what to call these people. Quacks is accurate; but I prefer shameless hussies.

Now, let's focus on what children should be doing and on what timetable. We need at this point a few expert testimonies to establish a baseline.

One of our best-known educators is Marva Collins. She has this assertion on her website: "Children as young as 4 years of age are admitted to my school, at the beginning of every school year in September. I guarantee that they will ALL be reading by Christmas, three months later. That has been the results since I started my school in 1975." Note that the lady says: "ALL," even as some public schools casually accept that one-quarter of their students might need to be classified as dyslexic.

Sibyl Terman and Charles Walcutt said in Reading: Chaos and Cure that: "It is absurdly easy to teach a child to read with [phonics]. Most of the children in America could be taught to read in a few weeks or months at the age of five."

Mona McNee and Alice Coleman, two of Englands leading educators, both with 40+ years in the school trenches, state in their book The Great Reading Disaster that: "All children, apart from the blind, profoundly deaf and brain damaged, can learn to read by the end of infant school [age seven]. Reading schemes should not go on forever and after two years children should be capable of choosing their own books."

These quotes should bring tears to our eyes. They tell us what is normal, and how quickly the process moves along in sensible schools using the proper methods.

Instead we have a totally lunatic situation where millions of children fall behind in elementary grades and never recover. They hate books, and their education remains in free fall. This is the predictable results wherever phonics is discarded and Whole Word (or Sight-Words) is imposed on children.

Heres another way to judge appropriate progress. You have probably learned a foreign language, or you know someone who did. This task might take a few years, at which point you're reading, writing and speaking a wholly different language from your own. Note that a whole new vocabulary must be learned. But give it two or three years, and you can manage.

The situation for American children in our public schools should be much easier. They are native speakers who show up on Day One knowing nearly 10,000 words and names. All these words and their pronunciations are ALREADY in the brains of the children. All they need is the tool kit that lets them recognize the words in print. This isn't a difficult thing to do, and experts tell us they can do it rather quickly.

How very dysfunctional our public schools have become. American children learning to read French make faster progress than American children learning to read English!

So let's think about this: our Education Establishment doesn't accomplish much of anything and they take many tedious years to do it. Hmm, you'd almost have to conclude that they're faking it, that they have no interest in teaching people to read. Why else would anyone use a loser pedagogy like Whole Word?

Just for a moment, consider the silly theory that our top educators put forward. There should be no sounding out of letters and syllables; children should memorize words as graphic designs or diagrams. Put yourself in the head of a kid showing up for first grade. The teacher points to a design like xhyld and instructs, "This means house. When you see this, say house." So, can you memorize xhyld?

Probably. But will you be able to pick it out from similar designs, of which there are dozens, such as: xhydd, xyhld, xhydl, xyyld, xhdyl, xyjkl, xkyht, xygld, etc. Of course, youll need to be ready for variations such as XHYDD, XYHLD, XHYDL, XYYLD, XHDYL, XYJKL, XKYHH, XYGLD. Okay, maybe you have a photographic memory, so you might have a chance. But no ordinary person has even a tiny chance of being literate. You can probably feel the dyslexia creeping into your brain.

And you've just started on your first list of words. You'll need 5,000 words to be barely literate. But guess what the guru of this madcap theory said? Children can acquire sight vocabularies of 50,000 words. Not without a chip implant. But it's even worse. College students probably need 100,000 words. (Total English vocabulary is over 1,000,000 words.)

The idea that reading has something to do with memorizing word-shapes is nuts. There's no polite way to say it. English is a phonetic language, and you first need to learn the alphabet and the sounds they represent.

(Just for fun, lets jump back in history 50 centuries, to that bright day when a genius with super-hearing announced to a friend. "Know what? I can write down our entire language with about 25 symbols."

The friend naturally said, "You are crazy. Weve got thousands and thousands of words."

The First Writer explained, "No, its easy. Here's how it works. Take the word bat. So I write a b-sound, an a-sound and a t-sound, thus: B-A-T. Now, say that back to me fast."

Whereupon the friend said, "Ba-...ah-...tuh-....BAT! Darn, it works! How the heck did you figure that out?" And at that moment the friend became the First Reader.

Note that the processes are complements. Reading and writing are the reverse of each other, like ice into water, and back again. We seem to be wired to do both processes with amazing speed. Sounds become letters; letters become sounds.)

The Whole Word frauds say: But English has so many inconsistencies. Well, it certainly has some. But remember, kids don't care because they ALREADY know the pronunciations.

Really, it's quite possible to read phonetically without knowing all the rules and details. (I'm Exhibit A for this.) Similarly, most English speakers do quite well despite not being able, for example, to conjugate common but very inconsistent verbs, such as to be.)

So let's say kids go down the formal phonics route, and do memorize 100 rules. That's a walk in the park next to memorizing 100,000 words. This has always been the single most demented aspect of Whole Word, that learning 100 rules and exceptions is said to be too much work, but memorizing 100,000 sight-words is something any kid can do.

I'm not keen on memorizing little rules myself. I've worried about this aspect. But I've been comforted by Mona McNee's conclusion that little kids love all the little rules. It's like a game or a puzzle for them. As they gain mastery, they feel better about themselves and more enthusiastic about reading. Sounds good to me.

Joan Dunn, a teacher, wrote in 1955: "The children...want to be taught step by step, so that they can see their progress. The duller they are, the more important and immediate is this need." All of my research suggests that Dunn's second sentence is educations Big Profundity. The slower kids are simply being destroyed because the schools refuse to teach the basics in a systematic way.

Samuel Blumenfeld provides the bottom line for the whole society: "In fact, most reading problems can be avoided by teaching a child phonics at home before he or she goes to school."

Inoculate your children. Teach them to read early.

(For more about the hoax called Whole Word, see "42: Reading Resources" on the writer's site Improve-Education.org.).

Do you think that 50 million is a low number?

Ponce
8th March 2011, 04:03 PM
Well, I am eloquent when I have to be but my main problem is my spelling.....reading wise I feel that I am in the upper 99% in understanding.

MNeagle
8th March 2011, 04:05 PM
& the other half can't write:

Why Can't MBA Students Write? (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703409904576174651780110970.html?m od=WSJ_hpp_sections_careerjournal)

iOWNme
8th March 2011, 04:09 PM
Just for a moment, consider the silly theory that our top educators put forward. There should be no sounding out of letters and syllables; children should memorize words as graphic designs or diagrams. Put yourself in the head of a kid showing up for first grade. The teacher points to a design like xhyld and instructs, "This means house. When you see this, say house." So, can you memorize xhyld?

Probably. But will you be able to pick it out from similar designs, of which there are dozens, such as: xhydd, xyhld, xhydl, xyyld, xhdyl, xyjkl, xkyht, xygld, etc. Of course, youll need to be ready for variations such as XHYDD, XYHLD, XHYDL, XYYLD, XHDYL, XYJKL, XKYHH, XYGLD. Okay, maybe you have a photographic memory, so you might have a chance. But no ordinary person has even a tiny chance of being literate. You can probably feel the dyslexia creeping into your brain.

Holy crap!

It really is just incredible what has been done to us.

When the Government/State got involved in education, is where it went downhill.......Its been a slow incremental process. Like everything else.

osoab
8th March 2011, 04:10 PM
Well, I am eloquent when I have to be but my main problem is my spelling.....reading wise I feel that I am in the upper 99% in understanding.


We don't use Cuban standards here. ;D

Ponce
8th March 2011, 04:16 PM
Osoab? I know that, yours here are much lower ;D ;D

MAGNES
8th March 2011, 04:21 PM
We were just discussing Plato and education, the Occult in another thread.

If you want to know who is responsible for all this it is there, all of this is deliberate.

Tavistock, Frankfurt School, Fabian Society to name a few operations.

They own the schools and policies of importing third worlders.

Publico Pro Se
8th March 2011, 04:33 PM
They had me until this sentence:

All of my research suggests that Dunn's second sentence is educations Big Profundity.

It should be: All of my research suggests that Dunn's second sentence is education's Big Profundity.

Hillbilly
8th March 2011, 04:46 PM
Makes you wonder why we are still paying School Teachers so much money??? We should pay them based on performance. If there students fail they get no money. Those lazy fuckers would have to actually do their jobs then instead of blaming the parents.

In this day and age with both parents having to work their asses off to make ends meet. The school teachers see the kids for more hours a day than the actual parents. There is no excuse that after having a kid in the system for 13 fucking years! that they can not have them well educated and well adjusted despite any problems they kids may or may not have at home. And we all know how teachers like to call social services on parents and get them taken away.

osoab
8th March 2011, 04:49 PM
Osoab? I know that, yours here are much lower ;D ;D


http://instantrimshot.com/classic/?sound=rimshot

osoab
8th March 2011, 04:56 PM
Probably. But will you be able to pick it out from similar designs, of which there are dozens, such as: xhydd, xyhld, xhydl, xyyld, xhdyl, xyjkl, xkyht, xygld, etc. Of course, youll need to be ready for variations such as XHYDD, XYHLD, XHYDL, XYYLD, XHDYL, XYJKL, XKYHH, XYGLD. Okay, maybe you have a photographic memory, so you might have a chance. But no ordinary person has even a tiny chance of being literate. You can probably feel the dyslexia creeping into your brain.

This part of the article reminded me of 2+2=5 from 1984. (I think it was 1984)

We already have half of one generation befuddled by whole word. With the reproduction rate of the ignorant masses, what is the time frame for only 10% of the population being literate?

Twisted Titan
8th March 2011, 05:39 PM
99.9 dont have a basic understanding of arethematic and coin

Glass
8th March 2011, 07:57 PM
I know someone who teaches literacy or more appropriate "rectifies" what kids are taught in schools so that 10 year olds can start reading. Yes that's helping to start reading. She says whole word is stupifying kids and hurting them emotionally because they are embarrased and humiliated with their inabilty to read. Within 2 to 3 months she can have an illiterate 10 year old actually able to work out words for themselves and to be able to read at a 7 or 8 year old level. By 6 - 9 months the kids are usually at or exceeding their peers.

The ones that make it are the ones who's parents care that their kids are illiterate and do something about it. A lot of people are too stupid to know they are stupid and their kids suffer as a result. It is planned. They know it (whole word) doesn't work and it is a disgusting abuse of children, their right to knowledge and dignity.

bellevuebully
8th March 2011, 09:44 PM
Well, I am eloquent when I have to be but my main problem is my spelling.....reading wise I feel that I am in the upper 99% in understanding.


How long have you been in the US Ponce? And while you were in Cuba, did you speak, read or write English?

You have reasonably good spelling. Not the best, but pretty good considering (I assume) English is a second (maybe third) language. I always find it is mostly sentence structure that is lacking with those who are posting in English where it is a second language.

I'd say you're way ahead of the game though. Most only speak and write in one language, and even so, do so poorly.

Case in point....ambalamps.

Ponce
8th March 2011, 09:53 PM
I understood English sinse I was born because my mom was an Irish-American and my dad went to college here in the states, never spoke it but did read it.......my main problem is that while working for Uncle Sugar I was out of the country about 88% of the time so that now I have a working knowledge of seven languages ......and I would not starved with five more hahahahahahaha......English and Russian are the two harder languages for a westener to learn.........right Antonio?

Antonio
8th March 2011, 09:58 PM
Those who do not read are not better off than those who can`t read.

Antonio
8th March 2011, 10:05 PM
I understood English sinse I was born because my mom was an Irish-American and my dad went to college here in the states, never spoke it but did read it.......my main problem is that while working for Uncle Sugar I was out of the country about 88% of the time so that now I have a working knowledge of seven languages ......and I would not starved with five more hahahahahahaha......English and Russian are the two harder languages for a westener to learn.........right Antonio?

I didn`t know any English b4 I was 18. I had 5 yrs of German in my HS and was very good at it, started to learn it myself at about 11, then more at the HS. I barely remember a few words of it now. IMHO German is very hard, Russian is very easy to read but the grammar is 10x more difficult than English, it`s compared to Finnish in terms of the grammar complexity. English was easy for me to learn. I have photographic memory and this helps a lot.

bellevuebully
8th March 2011, 10:15 PM
I understood English sinse I was born because my mom was an Irish-American and my dad went to college here in the states, never spoke it but did read it.......my main problem is that while working for Uncle Sugar I was out of the country about 88% of the time so that now I have a working knowledge of seven languages ......and I would not starved with five more hahahahahahaha......English and Russian are the two harder languages for a westener to learn.........right Antonio?


Your spelling might be a little weak, but your statistical accuracy is sharp as a tack. lol ;D

the biss
8th March 2011, 11:10 PM
I've had this conversation with people before. I say, "Think of the most average person that you know. Now understand that 50% of Americans are less capable than that."

Fact is that even though my colleagues, friends, and family do not run in those circles, we cannot avoid the fact that they exist.

Silver Shield
8th March 2011, 11:35 PM
I can tell you that people I have been working with on my site, a shocking amount have very poor literacy skills. They are not dumb by any means, just probably never exposed to true education.

Bring on the collapse of the enabling dollar.

Ares
9th March 2011, 05:28 AM
Exactly the kind of outcome you get when teachers have collective bargaining rights, mixed in with a Department of Education that does anything but education.

It's for the children :oo-->

Ponce
9th March 2011, 08:47 AM
Reading and Education has nothing to do with "understanding" unless you are able to dissect what you are reading into it and put it in it's proper square hole.........remember that most of whay they wiite is only what they want you to kow and not the real truth.

Ash_Williams
9th March 2011, 11:05 AM
Just for a moment, consider the silly theory that our top educators put forward. There should be no sounding out of letters and syllables; children should memorize words as graphic designs or diagrams. Put yourself in the head of a kid showing up for first grade. The teacher points to a design like xhyld and instructs, "This means house. When you see this, say house." So, can you memorize xhyld?

Probably. But will you be able to pick it out from similar designs, of which there are dozens, such as: xhydd, xyhld, xhydl, xyyld, xhdyl, xyjkl, xkyht, xygld, etc. Of course, youll need to be ready for variations such as XHYDD, XYHLD, XHYDL, XYYLD, XHDYL, XYJKL, XKYHH, XYGLD. Okay, maybe you have a photographic memory, so you might have a chance. But no ordinary person has even a tiny chance of being literate. You can probably feel the dyslexia creeping into your brain.

Holy crap!

It really is just incredible what has been done to us.

When the Government/State got involved in education, is where it went downhill.......Its been a slow incremental process. Like everything else.


I actually agree with doing it that way. I learned to read at age three without any "sound it out" bullshit and I think any kid could. I can also read french without having the first clue how to pronounce 2/3 of the words. You just look at the word and know what it is. That is how you read fast and spell without the most common mistakes. The written language and verbal language are two different languages, although you do need knowledge of the verbal language to master the written one.

The example given is stupid because it ignores how every one of us can read just fine without sounding things out and recognize words based on how they look and the context they are in. "My huose burned down." <- You still know what I meant. "urfige htis uot" <- it probably takes you a just a few seconds to figure that out. It's not challenging. Many foreigners learn to read this way and so you'll find many can read english much quicker and better than native speaker of the language. Learning to read phonetically just limits speed and understanding.

It also screws with spelling and leads people to write stuff like "their going too the store" or "I want a tunnel cover for my pickup". I get great deals on line because people sound things out and if I'm searching for something, I first search for how it sounds (ie. deasel engine). Doing that gives you the ads that no one else has seen or replied to.

BruceDeitrickPrice
9th March 2011, 07:31 PM
They had me until this sentence:

All of my research suggests that Dunn's second sentence is educations Big Profundity.

It should be: All of my research suggests that Dunn's second sentence is education's Big Profundity.


Quite so. RightSideNews has a Text Editor that drops apostrophes. I put back all but 4-5. I'm suitably embarrassed. Please pretend they are there.
Bruce Deitrick Price

MNeagle
9th March 2011, 07:37 PM
Welcome!

Do you like precious metals? Or care to learn about them?

sunshine05
9th March 2011, 07:40 PM
I learned to read at age three without any "sound it out" Bullshit and I think any kid could.

You were probably a visual/spatial learner. My 6 year old is too and he learned to sight read when he was 3 also. All of the words were from memory and he can see a word once and remember it. But his school taught both and I think the phonics has helped him to sound out new words that he doesn't know. He is a phenomenal reader now. At 6 he is reading at a 3rd grade level, way better than anyone in his class.

Book
9th March 2011, 07:52 PM
Bruce Deitrick Price



Welcome Bruce (http://www.cambridgewhoswhoauthors.com/20090515-cambridge-whos-who-contributing-author-bruce-deitrick-price/)

:)

ximmy
9th March 2011, 08:09 PM
There Are Two Americas...And One Of Them Can't Read Spanish...

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/04/mexicobillboard.jpg

Ponce
9th March 2011, 08:18 PM
Hehehehehehehehheheeh, mi peaki spanglish.......