As much as it pains me to confess this to my readers, it is time for me to come clean. I learned months ago that I am a flaming liberal, with a desire to “dumb-down” our children so that the government can control them. I received this truth through the writings of Phyllis Schlafly, President of the Eagle Forum.
You see, according to Mrs. Schlafly and her hand-picked research, anyone who does not exclusively use the phonics method when teaching a child to read, is a liberal that wants to keep our children dumb and prevent them from reading the Bible on their own.
Obviously, we have all had a need for phonics at one time or another, such as when I was teaching college students and would call roll on the first day of class, I would use phonics to obliterate about 30% of their names. Or if you happen to be reading Shakespeare, you would likely need phonics to muddle through “Honorificabilitudinitatibus” (if you make it through the word, you should “be able to receive honor”).
So why does Mrs. Schlafly think I’m a liberal? Because I disagree with the phonics only approach to reading – no single method works in all situations or for all students. Typically, a combination approach – whole word + phonics – has the best results. Mrs. Schlafly provides for no room in teaching a child with a learning disability or a severe language disorder any method other than phonics. As a homeschool mom to a child with both, I can testify that if I had used the phonics only approach to reading, I would have a very frustrated non-reading 7 year old on my hands. Instead, by recognizing her challenges and her learning style, I was able to apply theories of whole word reading and the language experience approach to grow and nurture a voracious reader. Hannah has even written her own short story about a beaver.
Personally, I think what Mrs. Schlafly promotes (phonics only for every child) is no better than a school that dictates any rigid learning method for each child. That is one of the greatest things about homeschooling, I know Hannah’s gifts, challenges, and learning style better than anyone. I am able to build on all of those things to grow her gifts and overcome the challenges. We are half way through first grade, and she already reads all of the words on the standard list a child needs to read at the beginning of second grade. If I had used phonics with her, she wouldn’t be reading on her own … certainly not at the level she is now … and I resent Phyllis Schlafly’s crusade to demonize any teacher or parent that uses any method or combination of methods that is not phonics only.
One other recommendation that Mrs. Schlafly makes, probably pushes me even farther “left” on her list. She states that when choosing books for our children, we must use those published before 1970 (the older the better according to her); and we must avoid books that have won any recent awards. Hannah’s only in first grade, and I look forward to reading the classics with her one day, but the books that have helped her grow as a reader for now do not fit any of Mrs. Schlafly’s criteria, nor have they harmed her love of God. Biscuit Books were instrumental in Hannah’s first steps from being a pre-reader to a reader. There are many more books that we love, and I will share the titles with anyone interested.
So, there you have it, I’m a liberal and I thought it was time that you all knew the truth.
OneMom
I learned to read quite a few years ago and my memory of preschool and kindergarten is pretty cloudy. But I seem to remember learning the whole-word approach first. Now, there’s no question my early childhood teachers were liberals… (they stopped us from playing with blocks that we were using as guns). But I really don’t think they were trying to make me unable to read.
OneMom, you’re probably more able to answer this question than any of your readers. How can anybody suggest that there are politics behind how a child learns to read? It seems rather absurd to me. As long as the child learns to read, what difference do they think it makes HOW they learned?
Kevin – if you read Mrs. Schlafly’s arguments, she suggests that the “whole word” approach means kids only learn what words we give them – thus limiting their access to information. If phonics only is learned, then they can learn all words. Of course being able to sound-out a word and knowing what it means are two different animals entirely. I had no idea how political reading approaches were until I started looking at homeschool material for Hannah several years ago (especially with her language disorder in mind). Fortunately for me, I have a dear friend with her PhD in reading, and she has been a great resource for me, as well as an affirmation that phonics isn’t right for everybody.
To start with, I have no use for Phyllis Schlafly. After seeing how she treated Mike Huckabee during his bid for the nomination, she convinced me that if she is what it means to be conservative, I want no part of it.
As for phonics, that is how our youngest daughter, Randi, learned how to read. She has dyslexia and a speech impediment, but after Tammy finished the phonics program, she can read and talk with anyone. However, if there is one thing I have learned through my years as a parent, it is that no two children are alike. What works with one doesn’t necessarily work with another. A good teacher has to be able to adapt their methods to the student.
Larry – it is interesting to me how dogmatic Mrs. Schlafly is about this topic. It was when she threw Gov. Huckabee under the bus after the values voters debate in Florida that I started checking out her website and discovered that I am a liberal. She of course has developed her own phonics materials that she has for sale through her website, which of course is the only program she recommends. With Hannah’s severe language disorder, I had to be creative and very observant to develop what has worked for her as we homeschool. More than once I had to ditch everything and start over, but we got there and she loves to read. Of course your example also shows a problem with the public school system …. they can’t or won’t adapt to individual student needs and learning styles. I shudder to think how frustrated Hannah would be in a regular classroom.
It’s that kind of thinking that wants me to have kids and only teach them math and music.
Like you said, sounding out words and knowing what they mean are two completely different things. I’m willing to bet you that if you went into an average High School classroom, have the students read a few sentences, and then ask “What does that mean?” Half of them would be unable to give an solid answer.
Reading is pointless without comprehension.
Excuse me Kevin, I don’t understand what you’re saying ….
Just kidding. Comprehension is everything!
Actually, Tammy homeschooled both of our daughters. Our local public school refuses to teach phonics at all and if Randi had went to that school, I have no doubt she would still have major problems with her reading, comprehension, and speaking. The schools seem to get it into their heads that their method is the only right method and will not budge from it.
By the way, Randi just finished her high school and received her diploma. She graduated with a 3.7 GPA.
Super job Randi! If you told me that Tammy homeschooled the girls, I don’t remember that (seems like I would). Schools are not equipped to adapt to individual learning styles. They want little stepford children that are all in the middle of the developmental bell curve. Gifted and challenged kids can really struggle in a lot of public schools.
I’m with you. It’s rather ridiculous to think that all children will benefit the most from any one learning method, no matter how many other children have used it successfully!
What a very interesting discussion! I grew up on phonics and being a little anal, loved it. I loved moving through the different colored levels. A great motivator for me. LOL
My daughter learned the whole word method. (No learning disabilities there but she is has a kenestetic learning style) Anyway, she knew the words she knew but any time a new word came along, she was completely stumped. So in 3 grade, she learned phonetics as well.
I actually think that learning needs to be crafted to the child’s learning style. For instance, Rachael (my daughter -25 now and 14 weeks pregnant!) is a kenestetic learner. These kind of learners are also known as tactile learners who learn by doing, they usually write things down as a teacher says them or have to listen to music or the tv while doing home work.
Anyhoo, she always needed to be doodling or doing something while the teacher was teaching and it got her into so much trouble because they didn’t understand or cater to her learning style.
We ended up taking her out of school and she completed High School through an accredited High School on-line graduating with a 3.8.
I guess my point is, I highly doubt you are a liberal or any of us here. What you are is a great parent.
As for Schlafly, I think she thinks to highly of herself sometimes. I agree with you. The Parent knows their child best!
Please excuse my spelling. Wow was that bad. I took a pain pill and it obviously is affecting my spelling. My apologies. Jeepers!
Mostly I’m with Larry … I don’t have a lot of use for Schlafly after her dishonest approach to the Huckabee campaign.
Moving past that …
I don’t see how any rational person could take this seriously! Whole word teaching is liberalism? Huh?
This is an interesting conversation here about reading and I can’t resist jumping in. I have a Masters degree in Reading, Language, and Literacy so I have a few opinions about reading instruction too. While colleges of education generally teach teachers that whole language is the best method, research actually supports phonics in the context of reading real literature. Reading scores have continued to fall nationwide as phonics was effectively taken out of the early elementary classrooms so much so that many school systems are now turning back to systematic phonics instruction.
As for Schlafly, I am so disappointed in her comments about Huckabee that my respect for her is greatly diminished.
As for politics in education, the NEA is one of the most political bodies in the country. My first year teaching in public schools, I was harassed because I refused to join the NCAE (North Carolina’s branch of NEA). For the record, teachers join for legal support, not because they necessarily agree with any stances of NEA. Most teachers have no idea how the money that they send to NEA is actually spent. NEA drives much of what is taught in Teacher Ed programs so the politics is inserted from that angle. Teachers are so fearful of lawsuits (of course no one ever sues any individual, but the system) fearmongering occurs from the top levels down to the local NEA reps to force teachers to join the unions because the unions need the money provided from membership dues. So it is my opinion that there is much politics involved in education, and yes even in phonics instruction because that’s what the new teachers are taught in Teacher Ed programs in universities. Whether dumbing down of education is planned, I’ll leave to conspiracy theorists to document, but it has and is definitely occurring whether it is planned or not. Voddie Baucham has some interesting stats on public school performance here:
http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/Blog/Entries/2008/12/19_The_Continuing_Collapse%3A__December_EDITION.html
“Let’s take, for example, the wonderful news that our fourth graders scored 11th out of 36 countries in math (based on the NCES chart). But in the 2003 administration of the TIMSS our 4th graders came in 12th out of 25 in math.
Where a country ranks depends to a large extent on who participates. [Please note that the NCES site indicates that there were 36 countries that participated in 2007, not 35 as reported in the posted article] Obviously, there are some changes in participation in comparison with the 2003 test.
What are they? Well, in 2003 11 countries did better than the US. All of those countries participated in 2007 except Belgium, and all that participated in 2007 except Hungary continued to have higher scores than the US. In addition, a country that participated in 2007, but not 2003, beat the US by a substantial margin – that wealthy, educational powerhouse – Kazakhstan.
If you look at the rest of the 2007 participants, you see that three educationally relatively weak countries from 2003 – Cyprus, Moldova, and Philipines – that you would expect to continue to score below the US didn’t participate in 2007. But…the 2007 test added many more countries like this (e.g. Ukraine, Kuwait, El Salvador, Yemen, Colombia, etc.”
We continually get beat by countries that have little money to spend on education like Kazakhstan. Obviously, throwing money at the problem hasn’t solved it yet. But we continue to try the same solutions and expect different results. Hey isn’t that the definition of lunacy? Or maybe just Washington politics. . .
Very frustrating indeed. . . which is why we homeschool our children.
Kerry, still love reading your blog even though I don’t comment very often.
Brenda
Brenda – always good to hear from you. The NEA is an animal I’m not ready to stand against today. I understand the importance of phonics, but I assume as a teacher you recognize that one method won’t work for each child. Schlafly is over the top with this one, but it was an enjoyable post for me to write.