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Tuesday, August 7, 2007
My husband Paul showed me the comment on the
"battle of phonics vs whole language reading." As a first grade teacher I
used that wonderful and well labeled reading program called "the eclectic
method." That meant that I taught each child according to his or her own
skills and methodology. I also discovered that (anecdotally speaking) a
child who reads before first grade seemed to be a whole language reader, and
those who had to be taught needed phonics. In most of my classes of 32 first
graders (later 20 thanks be to CA ed code) approximately 30% were sight
readers, 65% were phonics readers and the others (one or two per class)
needed other outside resources. No sight reader ever lost by learning
phonics also.
When the pullout reading specialist at my
first site discovered that I was bootlegging phonics (during one of the
whole language only eras) by using songs from Sesame Street--You take a c,
that's K and an a t at, you put them all together and they spell cat--she
slipped me a wonderful phonics system called "Letters are Signs for Sounds."
We used that "just for fun" just in case an unsympethetic administrator
walked through.
My site's principal figured out what I was
doing that first year and channelled several children who needed phonics to
learn to read, into my classroom and swapped out a couple of fluent readers
for them. It didn't bother me, because he told me that all he expected was a
year's growth in skills in a year from whereever they started academically.
I am a strong proponent of the Eclectic
Method of teaching reading.
Velma Hampson
About half the children in any reasonable
group will learn to read given any rational instruction at all. A third
will learn to read without any real instruction: just knowing that it's
possible will do it. Macaulay learned to read by standing in front of
his father as his father read Evening Prayer following the text with hid
finger. Alas, for a year he could only read upside down.
Of the half remaining, about half those
will learn to read given some instructions that include clues that let them
learn to decode words.
It's that last quarter that take a lot of
work, and without work never will learn to read.
English can be taught as if it were
Chinese or ancient Hieroglyphics, but that seems pointless. Ideographic
writing isn't easily learned by everyone. Again most of the natural readers
can learn ideographically, but many others are condemned to a long and hard
study to acquire something that everyone can learn in 70 lessons or so.
The point of systematic phonics is that it
doesn't harm anyone; and it lets everyone learn how to attack words like
polyethylene and antidisestablishmentarianism. We read largely by word
recognition once we know a word; it's that first encounter that requires
phonics. Whole language instruction encourages guessing, and that makes for
sloppy reading when wording is important.
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Man does not live by beef alone
Walking versus driving...carbon emissions.
Only ~28% by dietary energy of the mean American diet is animal based and
only ~5% is beef. Most other dietary components would seem to have a
significantly lower carbon footprint than feedlot beef. Further, if
comparing "all inputs" in the carbon footprint for beef, one should do the
same for auto travel and not simply count fuel. Thus, all energy inputs to
constructing and maintaining the vehicle (down to the car the factory worker
drove to work if you want to be as absurd as the people detailing ag fossil
fuel use); all energy inputs for replacing consumables such as oil and tires
and brakes should be included, as well as the inputs of asphalt paving, etc.
If one considers 2ndary effects, then walking increases health, reducing
healthcare consumption and carbon footprint, but increases lifespan
increasing footprint, and decreases weight which reduces fuel consumption in
both transportation modes!
Best, Ben A. Pedersen, P.E.
What puts out the most CO2: eating the
corn, or turning it into ethanol and burning it in an internal combustion
engine? I expect I could figure it out, but I am sure someone will do
it before I get a Round Tuit.
========
"I'm going to see what I can do to send every
single illegal alien back home."
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20070806/NATION/108060046/1001&template=printart
--- Roland Dobbins
========
Jerry
"Spengler" notes that Christianity is growing
hugely in China:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IH07Ad03.html
He also reports, "[S]ome Chinese evangelicals
and Pentecostals believe that the basic movement of the gospel for the last
2,000 years has been westward: from Jerusalem to Antioch, from Antioch to
Europe, from Europe to America, and from America to China. Now, they
believe, it's their turn to complete the loop by carrying the gospel to
Muslim lands, eventually arriving in Jerusalem. Once that happens, they
believe, the gospel will have been preached to the entire world."
An underlying reference: Jesus in Beijing:
How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of
Power -
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1596980257/
This promises to be interesting.
Ed
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Subject: Social Engineering - A Lesson for the Western
World
Dr. Pournelle,
A thought on one of Professor Dobbins letters:
"PATH National's organisational development manager, Mary
McDowell, said: "The "White Welsh", "White Irish" and "White Scottish" is a
technicality in law - if they are a minority, they are entitled to places on
these schemes - they are not part of the majority group, which is "White
English"."
Upon first examination, this seems like nothing more that
the self-induced reverse discrimination that it is. In the larger
longer-term context, this is social engineering: akin to the forced
migrations in Poland / Germany / Ukraine following WW2, while at the same
time being a forced version of the 'melting pot'. The English will have to
seek jobs in Ireland Scotland and Wales; the Welsh in England, Scotland and
Ireland, etc. In the middle term, the only people who will have an advantage
shall be the ethnically different minorities (Arabs, South Asians,
Afro/Caribbean), as they continue to grow and refuse to assimilate -
claiming minority status at the national level while actually becoming a
majority at the local level. As such, they will come to constitute the
bureaucracy. In the longer term, English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish shall
cease to have meaning as they become one through bureaucratic force, and
thus become the majority lower class. South Africa in reverse.
Not necessarily the direct replacement through fear and
violence as discussed in the Sweden link from last week, but no less
effective. Perhaps the Iron Law will stagnate and corrupt the minorities
before there ceases to be an England?
Regards, Peter Czora
========
Light Sabers and
Education
This is from the Wall Street Journal's _Best
of the Web:_
Yankee Ingenuity <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292271,00.html>
'Fox News reports on a nifty new weapon:
It looks like a big flashlight--but it's
really a nonlethal weapon designed to make you sick.
Intelligent Optical Systems, Inc., of
Torrance, Calif., has been granted a contract by the Department of
Homeland Security to develop what it calls the "LED Incapacitator,"
according to a DHS online newsletter.
The handheld device using light-emitting
diodes to emit super-bright pulses of light at rapidly changing
wavelengths, causing disorientation, nausea and even vomiting in
whomever it's pointed at.
"There's one wavelength that gets
everybody," says IOS President Bob Lieberman. "Vlad [IOS top scientist
Vladimir Rubtsov] calls it 'the evil color.' "
It looks a little like one of those "Star
Wars" light sabers: Use the Force, Puke--uh, Luke.'
http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010439
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292271,00.html
Are death rays next?
=============
On Education
And This is extracted from a Letter to the
editor of the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago:
Lowest average combined GRE scores, by
profession: 1. 896: social work
2. 913: early childhood education 3. 928:
student counseling
4. 933: home economics education
5. 934: special education
6. 950: education administration 7. 965:
public administration 8. 968: education (other)
9. 970: elementary education 10. 985:
education evaluation & research 11. 993: social science (other)
| | |
?. 1063: secondary education
M. 1066: overall mean across all fields
So, eight of the 11 lowest GRE scores (July
2001 - June 2004) are in education fields, assuming that the figures are
correct. And budding young bureaucrats are one of the others. The =outlier=
education score is all the way up at the middle of the curve. Now, it may be
that the numerical differences in mean scores are not statistically
significant or not of practical significance. It may also be that the GRE
does not test what is important for being effective in these fields. (We
could make a case that early childhood educators need empathy and a caring
disposition more than the ability for close reading of texts or factoring
formulas.) And it is always worth remembering that "half of everything is
below average." ETS "norms" the scores so that the overall mean is in the
close neighborhood of 1000. Still, it is a little startling to find almost
the entire left-hand tail of the bell curve "occupied" by educational
occupations.
Mike
I would agree that in elementary
education, temperament and dedication are far more important than sheer
intelligence. The opportunities for those out to the right of the bell curve
in graduate studies are likely to be much higher than those on the left
side, partly influencing decisions.
As to social work, surely no one is
astonished. See my essay on The Voodoo
Sciences.
=========
High Voltage Cable Inspector
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?
gid=171236&b=3&vid=814499&p=
Mike Broderick
Oklahoma City, OK
Don't watch this if you're squeamish!
========
Subject: The Company
You can view full episodes of The Company on
the TNT web site:
http://www.tnt.tv/series/thecompany/
Most of the networks are doing this now with
at least some of their shows. I hadn't heard about this one until you
mentioned it. I'll have to watch it when I have the time. TNT, along with
USA Network and other cable outlets, are producing quality programming --
something the broadcast networks are sorely lacking since the rise of
"reality" tv.
Joe Shockley
Actually no. It's all teasers. At least I
could find no way to view the first episode. I could legally have taped it
since I pay for TNT, but I didn't know when it was on (my fault I suppose).
I'm even willing to watch the commercials (except apparently it was
commercial free). But there does not seem to be an on line stream. I know
something about what was going on in those days and I would find it
interesting to watch. And I think Keaton may be our most underrated actor.
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