Conference moira::parenting

    Carole - just as a coincidence I read an ad in the sunday paperwork
    last night and it seems very fascinating. I am almost positive my
    husband grew up in Barbados where they used this approach to learning.
    Last night I forgot to mention to him that I had read about it. Tonight
    I'll try to speak to him on the subject and post another note.
    
    -clotelle
    

    I think this is discussed in the CONSUMER notesfile.
    
    Chris D.

See topic 117 in ASABET::LEARNING_DISABILITIES (KP7 or SELECT to add it to
your notebook).

    Hi.  I went to Catholic school from grades 1-3 and learned to read
    using phonics.  I hated it, but looking back, I feel it was a good way
    to learn.  All the students were taught this way and it had nothing to
    do with learning disabilities.
    
    Mary
    

    I seem to have lost the ad referencing this tape. Does anyone have the
    ordering information handy they can send me. Thanks much. 
    
    -clotelle

    I don't have an ad to send you, but I remember the radio ad said
    to call 1-800-abc-defg.
    
    Celinda

Phonics teaching will work for SOME kids and will not work for others.  It all
depends on their learning style.  (I say style but that's not really right ...
they have little choice in the matter ... it's related to the way the brain
works.)  A visual learner for example will get nowhere with phonics!

If you have a child who is experiencing difficulty reading .... or you want
to teach a child to read early ... find out HOW they learn.  If they are
normal learneres, or non-visual learners, then trying a phonics based system
should work.  BUT if the child is a visual learner then it may be a total
waste of money.

Stuart

    
    re .-1  
    Any tips, tricks, or tactics on how to tell what learning style
    is preferred?
    
    Jamd
    

Unfortunately the most reliable way is a professional analysis.

There are some "symptoms" of visual learning though ...

  The inability to sound out words.
  Difficulty with words with prefixes and suffixes, when they know the
     root word.
  Inability to cope well with numbers and simple addition etc ... e.g.
     "what's 3 + 1"
     The child counts 1 2 3 ... 4 as opposed to 3 ... 4
  Generally pays a lot of attention to visual detail in pictures.  Pictures
     are generally more important than text.

    If anyone wants the services of a professional learning specialist who
    can provide testing, tutoring, and referral to medical specialists,
    please contact me.
    
    She lives and works in Nashua, NH.

    Stuart,
    
    I usually find you to be very knowledgeable and well versed on many
    topics, but I must disagree with you on this one, I'm afraid.
    
    Phonics *can* work for **everyone**. It was the *only way* children
    used to be taught until about 1920 or so. Interestingly, it was with
    the introduction of the "see-say" method that literacy began a steep
    decline in this country. In the late 1800's, this country achieved
    nearly 100% literacy (I have seen it quoted as anything from 94% to
    99%). 
    
    The "see-say" method, which was so very popular from about 1950 on, was
    originally develped as a method to help deaf people to read. Since it
    is difficult, if not impossible to learn phonetically when you are deaf
    (you must be able to "hear" the sound each letter makes, in order to
    use phonics), this method was developed. Some dim-bulb latched onto it
    as the greatest thing since sliced bread. It became widly popular in
    our public schools. Who knows why. Did it work? Well, occasionally.
    Mostly with the visual learners who had amazing capacity to remember
    things through the "eye gate". Why continue using it then? Most
    children can appear to do quite well with see-say, until about 3rd
    grade. This is because readers used in school have a fairly controlled
    vocabulary, in terms of which words to use... you don't see a lot of
    "new" words until the 3rd grade, and from then on, words are added
    rapidly. Usually (*usually*) beyond the capacity of the see-say
    reader to memorize them. Thus they are labeled "slow" readers, or
    dyslexic (and some may be, that's not the point). Meanwhile, their
    phonetically reading counterparts are able to sound out lots of these
    new words. Can they be dyslexic or "slow", too? Of course! But it is
    not as common to see these lables in children taught phonetically. 
    
    Now, lets jump a bit further. No one will argue that many very basic
    words are "sight" words. You can't phonetically pronounce "two", or
    "move" or "want" or "said" or a host of others. And, as adults, we
    certainly don't sound out each word as we read along in everyday
    literature such as newspapers, etc. Most words are recognized as a
    "group", and this is basically the same as sight reading (see-say). But
    what happens when you encounter a new word? Say, a person's name or a
    place name. What about a chemical name for soemthing? How could you
    possible know what it was if you didn't know phonics??? How would you
    cope with "hydoroxypropyl"? (off a shampoo bottle). I know someone who 
    simpl;y cannot handle these words! She never learned phonics, and just
    sort of mumbles through these unfamiliar words.
    
    So, where is all this leading? I would say, without a moment's
    hesitation, "Try phonics first!!!". And try it for more than a month.
    There are some absolutely **wonderful** phonics programs out there,
    some to be used by pre-schoolers, some by schoold-aged. They often have
    various facets which stimulate all learning modalities. For example,
    "the Writing Road To Reading" had children looking at the "phonemes"
    (groups of letters or individual letter sounds), saying them out loud,
    using them in words, tracing them with a finger in a pan of cornmeal,
    writing them when old enough, etc.  this is one of the most acclaimed
    methods ever developed and is used in many public school systems,
    although not as much in the northeast (don't know why). I have heard it
    is used in the Shrewsbury, Mass. district, but have not confirmed. Many
    programs use pictures, music, games, etc.  It is *extremely* unusual
    for children not to learn using these methods. 
    
    Now, to be up front, many of these programs are written with the idea
    of homeschoolers in mind. They therefore work very well when done
    one-on-one with your child. They don't always work as well in a
    classroom of 30 kids, but, them agian, what does? Virtually everything
    can be learned more quickly and thoroughly with a one-to-one tutor
    relationship.
    
    If you are seeking to teach a child to read *before* they enter school,
    or if you are in a district that does not teach phonics, consider doing
    it yourself at home. I might caution that some kids simply arent' ready
    to read early, and shouldn't be pushed to do so, just cause your
    sister's kid is or something like that. Make sure the interest comes
    from the child.
    
    Stuart, it has actually been my and my wife's experience that children
    who are visual learners learn phonics *faster* than their peers who may
    be more kinesthetic or auditory or whatever. Just so happens they can
    do "see-say" better, too.
    
    Feel free to rebut or comment, but my wife and I have had contact with
    *many* children who have been messed up by see-say in public schools,
    and have advanced up to 4 grade levels in reading within a month of the
    introduction of phonics. No exagerration. And not discounting the fact
    that the one-to-one homeschooling relationship probably contributed to
    the increase, too.
    
    --dave--

    Dave,
    
    I have NO ARGUMENT whatsoever with your contention that see-say
    learning for most children has got to be one of the most difficult
    problems for learning to read because a see-say learner must learn
    to read twice ... once visually ... and at about grade 3 to 4 again
    phonetically.
    
    Now, I have one daughter who is a visual learner; I have one brother
    who is a visual learner.  With my brother, we tried everything
    conceivable to help him to read ... he was hindered further by
    being dyslexic.  Phonics categorically did not help him ... if anything
    it confused him more.
    
    My eldest daughter is a visual learner.  She cannot read phonetically.
    Again, attempts to teach her to read by phonics did not help her ...
    it only confused her more.  The school used a whole language program
    where in the early years spelling didn;t matter ... this made matters
    even WORSE.
    
    Now she is 10 and maturity is starting to set it a bit and she "sees"
    the parts of words ... but again she cannot sound them out ... she
    remembers what the various parts are.  But there are problems ...
    
    take the word   noted
    
    to her this word has two parts  not-ed
    
    the result is that the first time she sees a word like this she
    struggles to find a meaning for this  ... "it used to be not so now it
    is ?"
    
    she does not see  note ed
    
    
    What you also have to remember about teaching before 1920 was that
    they concentrated on fewer subjects ... reading, writing and arithmetic
    were just about the entire contents of the school day.  Teaching by
    rote ... repeat it and repeat it and repeat it ... was the order of
    the day.  It was drummed into them.  If they didn't get it right,
    corporal punishment was administered routinely.  To compare pre-1920
    teaching of phonics with teaching today is invalid.
    
    If you spent as much time with a child today concentrating on the 3rs
    as our forefathers did, we would have more literate children coming
    out of school ... but we want them to know about history, social
    studies, computers, sex, drugs, as well ... there is not the time to
    spend with each child.
    
    Phonics can work for *most* but definitely ... absolutely definitely
    not all.  So, if your child is struggling to read, you shouldn't
    assume that phonics is going to teach your child to read ... you
    should find out WHY your child is struggling ... then if phonics
    is recommended, go for it ...
    
    Stuart

re .11:

>    Phonics *can* work for **everyone**.

What's the difference between saying "phonics can work for everyone" and
"look-say can work for everyone"?  Different children have different styles
of learning.  No one system works well for everyone.  BTW, I agree that
most children are better served by phonics than by look-say.

re .12:

>    Now, I have one daughter who is a visual learner; I have one brother
>    who is a visual learner.  With my brother, we tried everything
>    conceivable to help him to read ... he was hindered further by
>    being dyslexic.  Phonics categorically did not help him ... if anything
>    it confused him more.

I find this interesting.  As far as I know, all the methods used to teach
dyslexics are based on phonics.  Look-say is a disaster for dyslexics.
Did your brother ever learn to read?

>
>I find this interesting.  As far as I know, all the methods used to teach
>dyslexics are based on phonics.  Look-say is a disaster for dyslexics.
>Did your brother ever learn to read?
>

Actually, yes he did ... but he really did not start to read anything
like fluently until his teens.  In his 20s he started to actually enjoy
reading, writing and language ... and took some night school courses.

A lot of visual learners that I know definitely started improving with
maturity.

Stuart

    From a reply I wrote in another conference far away, back in '89:
    Phonics can limit reading speed, and so was discouraged as the 
    primary way to read.
    
    	:
        re: Phonics and Look-Say
    
        Let's not bash straw men here.  I doubt serious Look-Say teachers
        really try to teach English as though it were Chinese, utterly
        without hints from the letters' sounds, all words utterly distinct
        from eachother.
    
        I learnt with Look-Say.  The only drawbacks I've suffered from
        are mispronounciations and misspellings (as I would recognize the
        "shape" of a word but skip some syllables), and that was mostly
        in words I knew only from reading.
    
        Now, when we were reading in class, and got stuck on a word, the
        teacher would ask us to "sound it out", which is Phonics.  But
        we were supposed to learn to recognize the "shape" and not have
        to sound out words all the time.  That is Look-Say, and that
        was our goal.
    
        There is a good reason for this: increased reading speed (with no
        drop in comprehension).  If you "sound out" words all the time,
        you will sub-vocalize even in adulthood (move the lips and tongue
        in speach motions, but without the closeness of articulation
        needed to create sounds).  Sub-vocalization limits your reading
        speed to around 300 words per minute.  Look-Say has an upper limit
        in the tens of thousands of words per minute.
    
        Breaking the habit of sub-vocalization (and of visual fixation
        on each letter) is what speed-reading courses are all about.
    	:
    
    		-John Bishop

re: .15

Very interesting and, to me at least, persuasive.  What I hear you saying is
that phonetic skills are necessary to read, but the look-say is necessary to
read WELL.

>     I doubt serious Look-Say teachers
>     really try to teach English as though it were Chinese, utterly
>     without hints from the letters' sounds, all words utterly distinct
>     from each other.

Interesting  point.  Three oft-used examples of countries that are way ahead
of us in literacy are Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, all of which need to cope
with languages that -- at least in part -- CANNOT be taught phonetically. 
Another example, though, is Cuba, which has a language that lends itself very
well to teaching phonetically.

re:. 11

>   Feel free to rebut or comment, but my wife and I have had contact with
>    *many* children who have been messed up by see-say in public schools,
>   and have advanced up to 4 grade levels in reading within a month of the
>   introduction of phonics. No exagerration. And not discounting the fact
>   that the one-to-one homeschooling relationship probably contributed to
>   the increase, too.

>   Virtually everything can be learned more quickly and thoroughly with a
>    one-to-one tutor relationship.

     These comments seem to me to be self-rebutting, at least as far as
establishing the relative merits of phonetic learning vs. "see-say."  It's
no more far-fetched to say the switching to homeschooling and a one-on-one
tutor relationship accounted for most of the change than it is to say that
switching of teaching method accounted for most of the change.  

> How would you cope with "hydoroxypropyl"? (off a shampoo bottle). 

     This brings up a couple of interesting points:

     -    I learned, literally, from a "Dick and Jane" reader.  I'd pronounce
          it high-door-ox-ee-proe'-pill.  Could a phonetic reader tell me I'm
          right or wrong?    

     -    The pattern recognition (look-say, without the say) part of me
          leads me to question whether that word is misspelled; it just
          doesn't LOOK right to me.  "Hydro" or "hydr" is a very common
          chemical prefix; "hydor" is not.  If it is indeed misspelled, I
          submit that a person who thought primarily phonetically would not
          be inclined to question the misspelling, and would continue to
          misspell it.

     As for your friend, most folks who learned primarily by "look-say" can
cope with words having unfamiliar patterns. I suspect that she has some sort
of mental block, possibly caused by a teacher who was a "look-say" zealot who
rapped her knuckles because she tried to "sound out" a word.
     I agree with "try phonics first" if a child has had problems with
"look-say" in school; the problems could very well be that they learn better
using phonetics.  Or if it's preschool, and it doesn't work, they'll get the
"look-say" approach in school anyway.

Clay

    Sorry, John, but I realy disagree with you!
    
    My wife learned totally by phonics and can outread any other 99 out of
    100 people you put up against her and comprehend it all. She reads
    *incredibly fast*. All the children in our homeschool support group
    above about teh age of 8 or 9, read light years past their
    contemporaries in public school (whether the public school kids learned
    phoneticlly or not, which indicates, quite admittedly, other variable
    are at work), and they were all phonetically taught. These kids read
    100- 200 page books in 1 - 2 hours! I absolutely disagree that by
    teaching phonetically it limits reading speed. I've seen *tons* of
    contrary examples. I also do not dispute that for those who can handle
    look-say and do well with it, you may find a very high reading speed.
    By the time a phonetically trained child is an adult reader, most all
    word sare recognized as units anyway. Very few adult phonetically
    trained readers sound out every word! Even our 6.5 year old, who is
    being trained strictly phonetically, and who does have a difficult time
    with reading, doe3s not sound out every word. It is only natural that
    after you've read the word "said" 25 times, you're gonna recognize the
    shape and "look" of that word, and just plain say it. Some phonetics
    programs call these kind of words "service" words. They can't be
    learned using strict phonetic rules, so you simply have to remember
    them. The reading program we use, which is based on the Distar method
    (used nationally to teach illiterate adults to read), has them sound
    out these irregular "service" words, so that if they forget the "look"
    of them, they will have the sound of them tucked away, too. So "said"
    is sounded out "saaa - iiid". When the child hears that in his head, he
    remembers that that is "sed". It has worked tremendously for our son,
    and is working well for our 4yr. old daughter.
    
    Look-say was *never meant to be used with "normal" kids!!!!!*. I will
    absolutely grant, Stuart, that fundamentals were stressed more
    pre-1920, but to say history and social studies were not taught is
    quite incorrect. Particulalry history. Not only did kids learn it, they
    wer often required to memorize huge passages of data and might be
    called on at any time to give lenghty verbal dissertations on various
    time periods in history or characters in history or causes of one
    historical even tor another. They didn't just memorize the facts, they
    were taught to analyze them and reach logical conclusions. And the
    other subjects you mentioned were taught at home, not in "school", but
    were still taught to one degree or another. yes, look-say does work
    with some kids, but it doesn't work well with *most* and it doesn't
    work *at all* with a great number more. This is not my theorizing.
    Check out books and articles such as "Why Johnny Can't Read", and "Why
    Johnny *Still* Can't REad"... They can probably do a much better job of
    explaining the fallacy of look-say than I can.
    
    Ramble, ramble, ramble. Tht's me. But I feel so strongly about this I
    can't help it. We've been propaganidized by the eduacational
    bureaucracy to believe this nonsense about look-say, and never told how
    drastically literacy rates dropped with it's widespread introduction.
    Numerous studies and reports have shown direct correlation after direct
    correlation. We do our children no favors by continuing to use this
    method.
    
    --dave--

    I appreciate all comments on this subject, especially since my kids are
    being taught the whole language concept.  
    
    Recently, I had an audiology test where I asked the audiologist about
    learning concepts for the hearing impaired vs. the normal hearing.  He
    told me that the whole language concept is what is being taught to
    educators now, at least for most educators.
    
    cindy

    re .17
    
    If you stop sub-vocalizing, your speed will increase, no matter
    how you learned to read in the first place.
    
    To test whether you sub-vocalize: say "one-two, one-two, ..." at low
    volume at the same time that you try to read some text.  If you can
    still read at your normal speed, you don't sub-vocalize; if you are
    stopped dead or greatly slowed, you do.
    
    I suspect that the wife of .17's author has learned to read with
    phonics and now uses a word-recognition scheme, as the author 
    suggests; the theory is not that _all_ people taught with phonics
    will be slow readers, but that _many_ will.  Given that the average
    reading speed of Americans is something like 100 words a minute
    (please don't quote me, this is from decades-old memories), raising
    the average person's reading speed by changing the way reading was
    taught must have seemed like a good idea during the fifties.
    
    		-John Bishop

    
    This subject is definitely interesting ...
    
    One shouldn't confuse whole language teaching with the teaching of
    reading.  Whole language teaching is really only a mechanism which
    integrates reading, writing, expression and creative language under
    the same umbrella.  You can teach reading by either phonics or sight
    under a whole language program.
    
    Children who have difficulty reading often have their difficulties
    emphasised under the whole language approach, and their difficulties
    are often not picked up early enough because the emphasis on creative
    expression often masks other problems.
    
    Sight reading is the only way to read FAST.  One can learn words
    ponetically by phonics and after sufficient exposure to the word,
    it becomes a sight read word, just as a sight reader will do it.
    
    What phonics and phonetic reading do is to provide a mechanism to
    be able to read unfamiliar words.  There is a drawback to this ...
    it means you can read a word without knowing its meaning.  For
    many years I read without knowing meanings of lots of words and always
    assumed contextual meanings.  What sight reading does is to tend to
    force you to associate meaning with shape and sound of a word in
    order to read.  So sight reading does have an advantage.
    
    What is really required is an integration of sight reading and
    phonetic reading.  One system alone is really not good enough.
    
    As to my comments about what teachers pre 1920 taught ... I wasn't
    being literal ... but remember at the age of teaching a child to
    read (not after) the primary subjects were reading, writing and
    arithmetic.  There are FAR more subjects taught in the primary
    years to children these days.  I was in primary school in the
    mid 50's and I remember well days spent on reading, writing and
    arithmetic and little else.  I remember well that even then,
    children were strapped for being slow readers.  And teaching in
    the earlier part of the century was definitely more draconian!
    
    My kids today haven't got a CLUE as to work I had to do in school at
    their ages.  School today looks like day camp by comparison!
    
    
    I am not altogether certain that sub-vocalization is a sure way of
    determining whether one is a phonetic reader or not.  I also skim
    read and can roar through books.  One problem I have is that when I
    am tired, I will read a passage, realize that I haven't retained
    sufficient to relate what I just read and do a rewind.  I then read
    the passage again at normal speed.  In order to ensure I have 
    adequately understood what I am reading, especially in difficult
    passages is sub-vocalize.  For example, as I write this piece, I am
    subvocalizing to ensure that I am writing what I really mean to write.
    
    Stuart

    Just a comment on part of .20, not trying to argue...
    
    > What phonics and phonetic reading do is to provide a mechanism to
    > be able to read unfamiliar words.  There is a drawback to this ...
    > it means you can read a word without knowing its meaning.  For
    > many years I read without knowing meanings of lots of words and always
    > assumed contextual meanings.
    
    I see this as an advantage!  I'm sure you were at least circling in on
    the meaning of those words, sneaking up on them as it were.  What's the
    alternative (assuming the reader is alone with the book)?  Seems to me
    if the reader has not been taught phonics/phonetics/aw-heck-sound-it-
    out, then the mystery word in question might as well be a solid block. 
    *No* meaning, until an accomplished reader can be summoned to the
    translation task.
    
    > What sight reading does is to tend to
    > force you to associate meaning with shape and sound of a word in
    > order to read.  So sight reading does have an advantage.
    
    To me that assumes the reader has a human translator at the ready, every 
    time s/he encounters a mystery word; dictionaries might help a little,
    but I would think they'd be a total loss in the pronunciation
    department (how does the schwa figure into a visual-learner's life?!).
    And gee whiz, I'm pretty sure I associate meaning with the shape and
    sound of a word (I don't think the two methods are mutually exclusive).
    
    Just some postprandial musings FWIW.
    
    Leslie 

I learned to read by "look-see" with a good amountof phonetics thrown in.  My
children have done their first learning experiences in French and now read
also in German and English.

About the only way to learn to read French is phonetically.  But in this case
is is no longer "one letter = one sound" but "one sound = many combinations of
letters".  This was horrible for me.  When they were in kindergarten, they 
would come home and tell me they had to have a picture of something with an
"...." sound (usually indicated as a phonetic syllable like an "o" attached to
an upside down "e" or whatever :-)  Since I always misprounce French, I'd
send them off to school with the wrong sounds :-)  Classroom walls are covered
with groups of letters that make specific sounds.

After about a year of learning to read these sounds, they then start writing 
words.  Here it gets really tricky because, although they know all the letters
(they practiced writing them of course) and they can more or less pronounce
all the sounds, French orthography is purely "look-see".  And it has to be
perfect.  French school teachers do not take to mispellings or misplaced 
commas :-)

Now they have to read and write in English and German.  They tend to start of
phonetically but using French phonetics.  They "listen" (maybe just in their
head) to what it sounds like and then figure out what the word is in English
or German.  I have no idea what their friends who are not native speakers of
these two languages do.  By the way, English is "more phonetic" than French and 
German is very phonetic.  If you hear a word you can spell it.

After a year or two of "phonetic transfer" (my invention :-), they become more
and more "look-see" readers in the other language.  I suspect this is also
the case in French.

Regarding the note a while back about Koreans, Taiwanese and Japanese having a
high literacy rate: this is true but Japanese do not really read well until
they are in their teens.  The ramp up curve for ideographic languages is
much greater than for ones with a phonetic base.  I personally believe that
their success in literacy is due to the high value the society puts on 
education.  When I was growing up in Iowa in the fifties, we also had a very
high respect for education.  Iowa's literacy rate at the time was over 99%, 
the highest in the nation (from a World Almanac my parents had).

Cheryl

    ramblings again...
    
    1) I'll grant that the fastest way to read as an adult, is to sight
    read. I'll readily agree that you can't read fast if you must sound out
    *every* word you read. I never said you could... I said that virtually
    all phoneticaly trained children actually sight read as adults... hence
    the high comprhension and speed.
    
    2) My point was that phonetically trained *beginning* readers have been
    proven in more than one study (at least one of which I rmember being
    undertaken by a strong proponent of see-say, who was flabbergasted to
    find the results did not bear out his opinions) to do better earlier,
    do better later, and continue to do better as adults. When a child is
    toaught see-say, it can be incredibly confusing and demanding to learn
    to differnetiate between "bell, ball, boll, bale, bill, bile, dell,
    dale, doll, dole, dill". You *must* have somne means of sounding out
    the differences. Someone (John?) said that teachers who taught see-say
    didn't teach it in a vacuum, but when a child stumbled over  a word,
    they would be told to "sound it out". Well, for Pete's sake, that is
    Phonics! And if they haven't been *taught* phonics however can they
    know to sound a word out??? Oh, true, some bright kids will cathc on to
    the idea of the sound a word makes and they letters they see are always
    the same, but not all kids will, I doubt even *most* kids will, at
    least not early on. And there is the rub! Kids who don't read well
    right off, as phonetically trained kids usually do, can become
    discouraged, labeled, picked on, and basically convinced they *can't*
    learn to read. Even though, with continued pounding away be see-say,
    they probably would eventually become reasonably good readers.
    
    3) I profusely apologize for clumsy fingers! Yes, Stuart I spelled
    "hydroxyl" as "hydoroxyl". Please forgive me. But, if you didn't know
    "hy" was pronounced "hi", you wouldn't even know how to begin to start.
    I doubt if you memorized the shape of each of the parts of those words,
    you knew how each would "sound"... because of phonics!
    
    4) And, no, that woman I know who can't pronounce people and place
    names has no sort of block, as you call it. She also misreads many
    words that crop up in everyday reading, if they *look* alike. And then
    has to stop, go back and figure out where her mistake was, because
    often the sentence doesn't make sense with the wrong word. And *that*
    slows her reading down a whole lot! She never learned any type of
    phonetics, and is one who never intuited the connection between the
    look of letters of groups of letters, and the "sound" they make.
    
    5) Phonics is recognized widely by authorities on the literacy problem
    in this country, as the only solution to getting kids back on track.
    School systems are beginning a slow swing back to it, but it's slow. Do
    a bit of digging, and you'll find that school districts using phonics,
    compared to those using see-say, all other things being equal
    (economics, location, racial percentages, ethnic percentages,
    teacher-student ratios,etc.), show a *much* higher literacy rate. And I
    don't believe that the methods alone of teaching in the late 1800's
    were responsible for the nearly 100% literacy rate. Maybe you do, and I
    can't prove you wrong and you can't prove you right. There it stands.
    I'll take what I know works, what I've seen work, what experts say
    works, and not what I know often doesn't work. That's be phonics.
    
    --dave-- 

I think that to teach by either method "in isolation" is a real problem.
Sight reading is necessary for speed.  Phonetic reading is necessary for
the ability to read words not committed to "sight".  Education tends to be
like a huge pendulum and swings amongst various fashionable methods for
teaching, and for some reason, instead of learning from their mistakes
seems to be willing to repeat the same thing over and over again.

For a while we went through a phase where phonics was "the way" ... then
we went through another phase where sight reading was "the way" and now
the fashion in education is swinging back to phonics ... instead of finding
a good way of integrating the two methods.  There are so many fashions in
teaching that seem to come and go the same way.  The latest one to resurface
in parts of Canada again is open concept schools ...  My children go to
what was originally an open concept school that was compromised into a
more traditional school, but has retained some of the good aspects of
open concept ...  What is really astounding is the way these things go
around and around and around ...

The important thing to me in discussing Phonics is that if you are going
to part with lots of hard-earned cash on a system like "Hooked on Phonics"
then it is important to know if your child can benefit from it if the child
has been struggling to read.  I wouldn't begrudge a session with an
educational psychologist ... I might learn other useful things too!

Stuart

I've looked over the notes here, in LEARNING_DISABILITIES, and CONSUMER. There
seemed to be a lot of interest in this, does anyone have any feedback now?
How many have tried it? Liked it? Disliked it? My wife's cousin has a 7- or 8-
year-old daughter who is behind in her reading skills, and they are wondering
if this would be worthwhile. I don't know just how far behind she is or what
particular problems she is having.

    The daugher of my daycare provider got behind in her reading and they
    used Hooked on Phonics very successfully.
    
    Ania
    

    In a few words, how does the program work?  Is it cassette tape based,
    does it require a lot of adult interaction.  Do I have to buy it from
    that really anoying commercial on TV, or is it the kind of thing that I
    can buy used (say someone here in the conference?)  What age bracket is
    it geared towards.  (AJ is 7).
    
    Lyn

I think Hooked on Phonics may have toned down their ads a little.  I heard
a radio ad recently that actually had a disclaimer at the end.  They used
to claim to be all things to all people -- it would teach reading to 
pre-schoolers, non-natives and children and adults with reading problems.

Children with reading problems should be diagnosed by competent professionals.
Appropriate remediation should be given.  Schools are legally responsible for
this, and they should be doing it at no cost to the student.  So why buy
Hooked on Phonics?

    Gerald,
    
    Sometimes the method used by the trained professional doesn't work for
    a particular child.  since I am ultimately responsible for my childs
    scholastic success, if my child were having a problem with reading I
    would be perfectly willing to try a different method, be it, "whole
    word", Phonics, or anything else that would help my child pick up the
    concept.  
    
    When Carrie was having problems with subtraction, we took the time to
    show her another method to picture how subtraction worked in reverse of
    addition.  Since she had never had problems with any concept before,
    hshe was dropping through the cracks at school on this.  This was not
    the teacher's fault, she has 30 other pupils who also have needs and,
    as often happens with talented students, her problems were invisible.
    
    
    meg

The school has the responsibility to provide an appropriate education.
If the professional is using the wrong method for the child, they're not
living up to their responsibility.

    Gerald,
    
    I don't have time to stand on principals, and I do know that if my
    child is to succeed, I have a responsibilty to see to it that she gets
    the learning that she needs.  Anyone who thinks the schools can do it
    all, is not looking at the realities of public schools today.  In our
    inner-city elementary, class size is often up to 35 students including
    some very special children that they are trying to mainstream, due to
    the responsibility of education factors.  
    
    Taking responsibility for my children is helping, not only my child,
    but other children to succeed.  If you look at the differences between
    public and private schools, one of the largest differnces is parental
    involvement in the childs education.
    
    Meg

>    I don't have time to stand on principals...

Sitting on principals may be more effective than standing on them.

I think we're in complete agreement that parents have to take responsibility
for their children's education.  The question is what form that takes.
You can shell out a hundred bucks or so for a program of dubious value,
or you can fight the school system for what the law entitles your child to.

I have entered notes in here before on Hooked on Phonics and how it may
be totally inappropriate for some kinds of learners ...  To be honest, if
I forked over more than a few bucks for it, and it didn't work, then I would
be thoroughly cheesed off.  Fortunately, I knew full well that it would NOT
have helped my eldest to read ... so I didn't try and we pressed the school
to work to find out why she was struggling with written language.

The key to knowing whether a phonics program will work is to work with your
child fairly briefly on a couple words with multiple endings ... like BOX

	BOX-ER			Boxer
	BOX-ING			Boxing
	BOX-ES			Boxes
	BOX-ED			Boxed

If your child struggles with this and has a hard job seeing the relationship
between the roots with multiple endings as written and the word written whole, 
(as on the right) then phonics is probably not for the child, because they
are probably a visual learner.  No amount of phonics training will help the
visual learner.

One of the other keys to the visual learner is that they may skip words in
reading, and insert words that aren't there.

There are other learning styles (I am reluctant to say disabilities ... because
many are not disabilities in truth) that phonics will not help.

My visual learner daughter, now 12, cannot get her nose OUT of books now ...
they have replaced TV as an impediment to doing homework!!!  She really
struggled ... but we accepted that she was going to take longer to read
fluently and never pressured her to achieve ... we tried to encourage her.

I can see both sides of the coin in wanting to help your child read, but
I watch those hooked on phonics ads, where the child is reading huge words
she doesn't understand, solely because she knows how to sound the phonyms.
This is not really reading.

Yes, the school system should be giving your child the help he/she needs, but
it is important that you work with them in identifying a problem early enough
and that you work in a style that helps the child and complements the
teacher.

I remember all too often when young, getting help from my parents which
was totally at odds with what my teacher was doing.  It left me totally
confused at times, and it removed my faith as a child in the teacher, which
made her job all the more difficult.

So, before forking over big $ on educational aids, talk to the teacher ...
you may be able to help simply by making reading time a game where your
child reads occasional words from the book.

Stuart

    Hooked On Phonics folks were at the Home Show in Worc this past
    weekend.  The setup they had was for grade school through high school
    and cost $225.00.  This included cassette tapes books and I believe a
    video.  I didn't stay at the booth - a friend got the whole run down,
    he was interested in their Spanish set.

    The replies here point out something which I left out earlier, and that
    is parental cooperation. The child's maternal grandmother, who spends
    quite a bit of time with her, feels that the parents are refusing to
    admit that the girl is not reading well. Therefore, any suggestions of
    assessment or remedial strategies are very difficult to discuss. The
    parents are great parents, it's just a matter of denial (My kid has
    problems? No way!). What makes this a little bizarre is that the mother
    is now a certified elementary teacher. Hopefully she can be more
    objective about other people's kids.

    The parents are open to bringing in additional learning tools (just
    don't say "remedial"). The grandmother recently bought them a MAC that
    has full multimedia capability, although last I heard they were being a
    little restrictive about it, and there was something about not wanting
    her to learn how to touch type (??? ya got me). I have stated my
    opinions about kids and computers elsewhere, so I won't rathole it here
    (other than to say: YES!!!! and let them "play" all they want with the
    things, the learning will come on its own if you have some half-decent
    software).

    Anyway, the grandmother was looking at Hooked On Phonics as an
    alternative supplement, trying to bring more arms to bear on the
    problem. I think she is willing to try anything that is not a total
    waste of money and would not risk causing other problems. But I think
    she understands that the parents are probably the biggest impediment.
    She just has to find ways of working around that without burning her
    bridges.