Elementary School was mostly a bust for me, though I did pick up the "3Rs". Much of the history I was taught was just plain wrong, or so further studies seemed to indicate.
Elementary School was mostly a bust for me, though I did pick up the "3Rs". Much of the history I was taught was just plain wrong, or so further studies seemed to indicate.
Fortunately my two grandmothers, both teachers, taught me phonics at age 4. My first grade class was the last class in the Denver public schools to get phonics before everything turned to "word (non) recognition" and the long slow decline in literacy created by all the edumacashunil refirmers began. The Ed.D. is a degree that should go in the garbage heap with the MBA.
I was reading before kindergarten and public school used ITA (Pitman) alphabet and spelling. I was excused from class then and allowed to read books without Pitman/ITA. For me, ITA was like having to learn s different alphabet. In Catholic school, we learned phonics, which in my view works best. I will say however, that students with reading disabilities, such as dyslexia, might require extra help to leam, and they may need tutoring to enable them to learn to read well.
I grew up in a Omaha. Our neighborhood had about 5,000 people in it and about half were Catholic. There Catholic Church had a K-8 school but most of the parents sent their kids to the public school. I'm not sure why but I do know that corporal punishment occurred in the Catholic school.
When I was in 9th grade the Catholic high schools in Omaha had a math tournament for all of the Catholic schools and one public school. Our math team from the public school won every trophy. My partner was Jewish and he proudly took the trophy home which had a statuette of Mother Mary on it and put it on their mantle. It was years later before I understood the irony of the situation.
TC, I don't know what they system is called, but I learned to read from a book called "Nose is not Toes" where one word was read and the other green. I think I was in my 5th year when my Mom (a writer, a poet, and eventually and briefly a high school English teacher before settling in as an adjunct reader and sometimes instructor at our local college) taught me to read.
I was thrilled to go to school and read, and was sorely dismayed when the only "reading" on our first day involved me being able to read an illustration sign that said "Lemonade, 5 (abbreviation of cents with the c and a line drawn through it)".
Elementary School was mostly a bust for me, though I did pick up the "3Rs". Much of the history I was taught was just plain wrong, or so further studies seemed to indicate.
Fortunately my two grandmothers, both teachers, taught me phonics at age 4. My first grade class was the last class in the Denver public schools to get phonics before everything turned to "word (non) recognition" and the long slow decline in literacy created by all the edumacashunil refirmers began. The Ed.D. is a degree that should go in the garbage heap with the MBA.
I was reading before kindergarten and public school used ITA (Pitman) alphabet and spelling. I was excused from class then and allowed to read books without Pitman/ITA. For me, ITA was like having to learn s different alphabet. In Catholic school, we learned phonics, which in my view works best. I will say however, that students with reading disabilities, such as dyslexia, might require extra help to leam, and they may need tutoring to enable them to learn to read well.
I grew up in a Omaha. Our neighborhood had about 5,000 people in it and about half were Catholic. There Catholic Church had a K-8 school but most of the parents sent their kids to the public school. I'm not sure why but I do know that corporal punishment occurred in the Catholic school.
When I was in 9th grade the Catholic high schools in Omaha had a math tournament for all of the Catholic schools and one public school. Our math team from the public school won every trophy. My partner was Jewish and he proudly took the trophy home which had a statuette of Mother Mary on it and put it on their mantle. It was years later before I understood the irony of the situation.
TC, I don't know what they system is called, but I learned to read from a book called "Nose is not Toes" where one word was read and the other green. I think I was in my 5th year when my Mom (a writer, a poet, and eventually and briefly a high school English teacher before settling in as an adjunct reader and sometimes instructor at our local college) taught me to read.
I was thrilled to go to school and read, and was sorely dismayed when the only "reading" on our first day involved me being able to read an illustration sign that said "Lemonade, 5 (abbreviation of cents with the c and a line drawn through it)".
My grandmother taught me with "A boy's History of U.S. Grant" published in 1871 - with all the words broken out in syllables.
Remembering that, I think I realize how it was I got into History early on.