Teaching Children to Read, and Failing to

[ndrosen]

Back when I was in high school, I read Rudolf Flesch’s famous book, Why Johnny Can’t Read, which had been published about twenty years earlier, even back then. The dispute over phonics versus other methods continues, and I think that this is one of those cases where the official experts (many perfessers of education) are wrong, and the outsider critics are basically right. Be that as it may, John Stossel is astringently on the side of phonics.

Comments

[warriorsavant]

I went through all the "new" this-and-that in education, and it was all a disaster. I learned everything, but that was either because I was smart, or my parents taught me.

For my kids, Hedgefund sorta learned by herself following along as we read to her. For Wallstreet, I got "Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" by Seigfried Engelmann. Completely recommend.

The "reformers" were right in that you have to learn how to use the knowledge, but forgot that you have to have the knowledge first. In other words, I'm firmly on the side of half-memorization-half-learning-what-to-do-with-it.