Lay off!
January 6th, 2006Athor’s taken an undeserved beating and handled it like a man. He’s absolutely right and has been knocked around enough by people that have missed what he’s saying.
I would probably qualify as what he calls a “true believer” and I know he meant that as an insult. But I didn’t take it that way. I absolutely and totally believe that you can’t read unless you know phonics.
I also understand what he’s saying and it seems to me that everyone here is talking past one another. He’s also right that phonics is helpful with 90% of the English language, useless with the other ten percent and that I’m using the part that works. I learned the concept first with spiritual things – eat the meat and spit out the bones.
I before E except after C unless it says ‘ay” as in neighbor and weigh. That’s weird.
I would challenge those of you that think you disagree with Athor Pel to go back and reread his comments here. He’s made more than one salient point.
My guess would be that he’s better at what you do than you are.
Do you want a point to this post? Here ya go:
Schools are designed from the ground up to take the fun out of learning and make it seem like work. Way too many “homeschoolers” mean well but try too hard and because of that, they end up repeating the evil they’re trying to avoid. I’ll never allow anyone to make my daughters work at learning or deceive them into believing it’s not fun.
They’re already way ahead of their peers. Watch and see where they go from here! Spanish and Latin are both on this year’s to-do list. We live in Texas, so they’re both already pretty good at the former.
I’m gonna make a confession. Remember where I said,
”
Kids want to learn. It takes a teacher to make them want to stop learning.
Comment by Athor Pel — 1/2/2006 @ 12:15 pm
If the kid is asking questions and you are answering them then you are not a teacher, you are answering a question, nothing more, nothing less.
A teacher is someone that forces you memorize something against your will. Notice I did not say learn, I said memorize, because they are two separate things.
Comment by Athor Pel — 1/2/2006 @ 12:17 pm
”
Well, I’m a natural teacher and know it all. I can make a person’s eyes glaze over in a 20 seconds flat. Ask me a question and get a book as an answer. I’ve acted this way in the past because I assume everyone else has the same deep need to know. You know, that deep-seated need to know every thing about everything that DC described about himself.
I’ve gotten much better about it now. It’s taken some effort but reading John Holt helped a lot. I just try to be as succinct as possible and only answer the person’s direct question. If they want to know more they will ask more questions. Man oh man is it hard to just shut up and stop explaining and explaining. Ok, I’ll shut up now.
I just pray I can keep it under control when I have kids.
Man oh man is it hard to just shut up and stop explaining and explaining. Ok, I’ll shut up now.
I get in to extended explanations of things too Athor. I have done that since I was a little kid. If I see the person isn’t willing to learn I either:
A) Stop them and ask what the problem is. Do you want to know this or not?
B) Just shut up.
As for the rest of it, I think we were in agreement all along, we just weren’t looking at it the same way at first. Perhaps I was unclear in that I was advocating phonics as a way to learn to read, not the only method by which we continue to learn. Sure, I still have to sound out a work once in a while if it’s long and unfamiliar but I usually look at context as well as what the root of the unknown word probably is and extrapolate.
“I before E except after C” because C followed by E makes an S sound.
Ceiling!!