Literacy begins at home
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From the Los Angeles Times
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When my son was born, I followed ALL the recommendations. When he wasn't reading by 2nd grade, I was told to be patient. I'm still waiting! Reading to your child does not teach them to read. It is a process that requires specific instruction and cant be imparted by the spoken word, but by daily practice & mastery of phonetic concepts. Parents arent pushed to do this in any other subject because it won't work. Educators are shifting the blame for their failure of taking an assembly line approach to reading. Parents can support learning by raising them to be obedient, respectful & encouraging them to excel. Most parents do that anyway.
mrikmom @ 8:25 AM PDT, May 21, 2008
First, stop making babies when you can't afford it. If God gave us the right to have them, then you need to take of them the right way. The right way is to be with them and not say "I'm doing this for you (in the long run)". Don't rely on the government for money. Second, we need better teacher credentialing schools and curriculum and substitute teacher training.
tra @ 5:28 PM PDT, May 20, 2008
It is only in English-speaking countries that the home background makes a big difference to childrens ability to learn to read. This is because English letters often have more than one sound: On, Only, Once, Other, wOman, wOmen, mOve. Therefore only children who have been talked to and read to almost from birth, speak well by the time they start school and can already half-read many common words by sight when they start learning to read, cope fairly easily. In the early school years, parental help with reading makes a big difference too. The Sight Words page at englishspellingproblems.co.uk shows the reasons for it.
Masha Bell @ 11:07 PM PDT, May 15, 2008
As a college professor I see the results of parental neglect when it comes to literacy. Parents face ignorance, fatigue, frustration, despair, and a host of other difficulties when trying to make ends meet, working underpaid and unfulfilling jobs, and suffering under government dictates that those born in poverty find the temerity to overcome enormous odds with no support. They are blind to their own priviledge. Impoverished parents DO live in misery, and that legacy will continue unless we level the socioeconomic gap. Obama DOES have the best hope at change. His speeches exempliofy the positive rhetoric that enhances literacy.
bkperkin @ 7:26 PM PDT, May 15, 2008
Joe said that "God" made childbearing a right, not a privilege. Beware the slippery slope. Who is going to "qualify" parents -- or a single parent -- to have a child? Author of the article has exactly the right idea: Make home literacy the equivalent of a Manhattan Project. It is shocking,but not surprising to learn that disadvantaged parents speak mostly negatively to their children. (a) they are living in misery (b) they just do not know any better. It's the job of our society to expose the children to love and kindness -- if not in the home, then through community resources.
Aspasia @ 2:37 PM PDT, May 15, 2008
3-yr.old children can be taut to reed simple sensible spellings. Then they hav to start mastering up to 20,000 words ritten in unreesonable, contradictory ways. 11 difrent ritten ways of making the sound ''ee''. Pronunciation conflicts: come-home, comb-tomb, love-move, ache-brake, break-beak. For menny children, eeven with parental help, the experience is hart-braking. The hole thing cud & shud be made eesier. Most other languages hav updated, English never has. Fidel Castro now has 100% litracy in Cuba, the US has 60%. Spanish is foneticly ritten, English is nothing of the sort. Look for spelling reform on the web.
Theo Halladay @ 1:35 PM PDT, May 15, 2008
But I thought that your boyObama Hussein would solve all your problems?
dionysis @ 12:32 PM PDT, May 15, 2008
A parent is a child's first teacher. I wish more parents actually heard those words. Attention all parents, the time to act is now!"
Susan Mills @ 11:54 AM PDT, May 15, 2008
My daughter could read by age 4. To start, we spoke normal English to her from when she was born. Hence, she spoke normal English when she started to talk at 11 months. Not having to re-learn language a couple years later was a great accelerator to her learning. I put her in front of the PC at 18 months with age appropriate software to learn the alphabet. By age 5 she was reading at a third grade level and she just graduated a couple weeks ago, a year early, with a dual degree in Economics and Political Science and is going this fall for her Masters in Transportation. .
Dan @ 11:43 AM PDT, May 15, 2008
This reminds me of the conclusion of the Coleman Report -- that the variable in a student's life that affects his or her academic performance is the quality of that student's home life.
Sierra S. @ 10:38 AM PDT, May 15, 2008
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