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MEMO TO: CLAY TRAVIS AND BUCK SEXTON Topic: LET’S SAVE READING From: Bruce Deitrick Price When Rush Limbaugh died, almost everybody agreed that he was unique and no one could replace him. But two hot shots? That's a more realistic proposition. In fact, you two have done a great job. You are probably the best deal the country could get. I'm a big fan. I praise you so that I can now point out a strange counterintuitive failure. Two self-described “history nerds” don’t explain the biggest story of the age. Why? Bolsheviks (aka the Communist International) waltzed into our school system and stole reading. Now we have 50 million functional illiterates—that’s the boondoggle we somehow embraced. Time to lance this evil boil. Making children memorize many thousands of sight-words is probably the biggest, stupidest con of any age. Compare Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme that let him steal $18 billion as the media stared blankly. Bogus reading theory is vastly more destructive. After 1920, lots of saboteurs infiltrated American media, wealthy foundations, and most importantly our educational institutions at all levels. The strategy was so tempting. All they had to do was preach a lot of folderol and thereby put a crimp in how children learn to read. The entire civilization has been pushed into decline by making children obey three simple lies. Students must never sound out words; instead they must memorize them as graphic designs. Whenever words are not recognized, students must guess or skip ahead. This hocus pocus is the epitome of dumb, and leads to illiteracy. Marva Collins, the queen of reading, established her school in a bad part of Chicago and announced that she would teach every student to read by Christmas of the first year!!! How could she be so confident? Because reading taught properly is easy. (Imagine an artist blending yellow with blue to make green. That's a close parallel with all of phonics.) Students spend a month learning the names of the letters And then a month or two learning the sounds of the letters. Then a month or two learning the blends of those sounds. That's it. (See Reading Is Easy, a three-minute video hailing seven reading experts; Marva is #5. ( https://t.co/XlEbkrtvL1 ) If you don't trust me or Marva, find your own expert. But get busy. You have the power to shut down this tragedy. Millions of children go to school every day hating every minute of it because no one tells them how to read English. They are like American tourists adrift in Kazakhstan, not knowing a word of the local language. The nonsense taught in our public schools is poison, not cure. But why do we tolerate this mysterious insanity? Phonics is as easy to understand as a sunny day. Here are some examples of how it works: Consider the word blend. It’s a single sound. But that one sound is obviously the result of adding together or blending five different sounds: b-l-e-n-d. It's so simple, so obvious, but the average American has no idea how reading works. That's because our schools stopped teaching it many decades ago. Admittedly, the word phonics might be confusing. Maybe we should use the term blend-reading. That, in any case, is what real readers do. (Note that you can change e to i and you get blind. Or you could start with the sound end, put an l in front and get lend; and put a b in front of that and get blend. The whole thing is much more like Tinker Toys than most people realize.) Bottom line, the English language is a vast array of mnemonic devices or reminders. Words tell us how they should be pronounced. When you encounter an unfamiliar word, simply attack it one letter at a time, from left to right). (By the way, “phonics” is essentially a Greek word meaning sounds. Reading English is all about sounds. Sight-words, on the other hand, are like giving a thirsty person a big bag of potato chips.) I was a novelist and artist with no particular interest in education, but got drawn into the Reading Wars because they’re like an ultimate mystery thriller where you see multitudes of dead people, blood everywhere, but nobody can figure out what went wrong. And the mainstream media get Oscars for pretending to be oblivious. Millions of teenagers in high school and college have never read a whole book. American students aren’t taught how to read. Instead, at huge expense, they are taught how not to read. Parents of young children need to understand this betrayal. Please spread the news. Redux — READING IS EASY (very short video) https://t.co/XlEbkrtvL1 (For reading instruction, consider only short, bare-basics approaches such as Hazel Loring’s BLEND PHONICS. Mix with stories, poetry, limericks, knock-knock jokes, puns, cheers, songs, and verbal fun, things like You Scream, I Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream.) ————————————————————- NB: Chapter 2 in this book is titled Reading Wars. It gives an excellent 17-page analysis of the whole mess. Word-Wise Education 757-455-5020 ( Let’s Fix Education podcast; https://t.co/Iu6TVhGl3p literary site; Mensa; Ivy; Virginian-Pilot; Norfolk Academy; Virginia Beach; Princeton Alumni Magazine; Old Dominion University ) ===================================

educatt's tweet photo. MEMO TO: CLAY TRAVIS AND BUCK SEXTON

Topic: LET’S SAVE READING

From: Bruce Deitrick Price

When Rush Limbaugh died, almost everybody agreed that he was unique and no one could replace him. But two hot shots? That's a more realistic proposition.

In fact, you two have done a great job. You are probably the best deal the country could get. I'm a big fan.

I praise you so that I can now point out a strange counterintuitive failure. Two self-described “history nerds” don’t explain the biggest story of the age. Why?

Bolsheviks (aka the Communist International) waltzed into our school system and stole reading. Now we have 50 million functional illiterates—that’s the boondoggle we somehow embraced. Time to lance this evil boil.

Making children memorize many thousands of sight-words is probably the biggest, stupidest con of any age. Compare Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme that let him steal $18 billion as the media stared blankly. Bogus reading theory is vastly more destructive.

After 1920, lots of saboteurs infiltrated American media, wealthy foundations, and most importantly our educational institutions at all levels. The strategy was so tempting. All they had to do was preach a lot of folderol and thereby put a crimp in how children learn to read. The entire civilization has been pushed into decline by making children obey three simple lies. Students must never sound out words; instead they must memorize them as graphic designs. Whenever words are not recognized, students must guess or skip ahead. This hocus pocus is the epitome of dumb, and leads to illiteracy.

Marva Collins, the queen of reading, established her school in a bad part of Chicago and announced that she would teach every student to read by Christmas of the first year!!! How could she be so confident? Because reading taught properly is easy.

(Imagine an artist blending yellow with blue to make green. That's a close parallel with all of phonics.)

Students spend a month learning the names of the letters And then a month or two learning the sounds of the letters. Then a month or two learning the blends of those sounds. That's it. (See Reading Is Easy, a three-minute video hailing seven reading experts; Marva is #5. ( https://t.co/XlEbkrtvL1 )

If you don't trust me or Marva, find your own expert. But get busy. You have the power to shut down this tragedy. Millions of children go to school every day hating every minute of it because no one tells them how to read English. They are like American tourists adrift in Kazakhstan, not knowing a word of the local language. The nonsense taught in our public schools is poison, not cure.

But why do we tolerate this mysterious insanity? Phonics is as easy to understand as a sunny day. Here are some examples of how it works:

Consider the word blend. It’s a single sound. But that one sound is obviously the result of adding together or blending five different sounds: b-l-e-n-d. It's so simple, so obvious, but the average American has no idea how reading works. That's because our schools stopped teaching it many decades ago. Admittedly, the word phonics might be confusing. Maybe we should use the term blend-reading. That, in any case, is what real readers do. (Note that you can change e to i and you get blind. Or you could start with the sound end, put an l in front and get lend; and put a b in front of that and get blend. The whole thing is much more like Tinker Toys than most people realize.)

Bottom line, the English language is a vast array of mnemonic devices or reminders. Words tell us how they should be pronounced. When you encounter an unfamiliar word, simply attack it one letter at a time, from left to right).

(By the way, “phonics” is essentially a Greek word meaning sounds. Reading English is all about sounds. Sight-words, on the other hand, are like giving a thirsty person a big bag of potato chips.)

I was a novelist and artist with no particular interest in education, but got drawn into the Reading Wars because they’re like an ultimate mystery thriller where you see multitudes of dead people, blood everywhere, but nobody can figure out what went wrong. And the mainstream media get Oscars for pretending to be oblivious.

Millions of teenagers in high school and college have never read a whole book. American students aren’t taught how to read. Instead, at huge expense, they are taught how not to read. Parents of young children need to understand this betrayal. Please spread the news.

Redux — READING IS EASY (very short video) https://t.co/XlEbkrtvL1

(For reading instruction, consider only short, bare-basics approaches such as Hazel Loring’s BLEND PHONICS. Mix with stories, poetry, limericks, knock-knock jokes, puns, cheers, songs, and verbal fun, things like You Scream, I Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream.)

————————————————————-

NB: Chapter 2 in this book is titled Reading Wars.
It gives an excellent 17-page analysis of the whole mess.

Word-Wise Education 757-455-5020

( Let’s Fix Education podcast; https://t.co/Iu6TVhGl3p literary site; Mensa; Ivy; Virginian-Pilot; Norfolk Academy; Virginia Beach; Princeton Alumni Magazine; Old Dominion University )

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