cover article in Time magazine on gifted education

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
Anne Rogers wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:

My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is
reading
through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2. She read 47
books
this summer for the summer reading club, independently, most of them
not to
me but to the librarians and volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.
That's clearly very bright, I've no idea whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in
1000, or what. It will be interesting to see what her interests and
talents are in 5, 10, 15 years time. I suspect she's reading by word
recognition rather than phonics, but I don't really know what later
talents these might map to - I wouldn't be surprised if it was
scientific, rather than, say, English Literature, or languages.

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics. And
I read pretty well.

Did I say that, I just said I suspected she was reading one way rather
than the other, purely for interest rather than one being better than
another. The difference I was mainly thinking of is what is the
underlying skill and therefore what talents that might actually lead to
later on.

Anne

In the way you said it "I suspect she's reading by word recognition
rather than by phonics" made it seem like you thought that word
recognition was an inferior method and phonics was a superior method
to learn to read. Some people think that is true - that everyone
should learn to read using phonics. Whereas my feeling is that
different methods should be used, because some people learn better one
way and some people learn better in another way.



True confessions, I have not followed this whole thread... I just have one
comment about this. Obviously, at least eventually, we all read by word
recognition. If we had to sound out each word we read every time we came
across it, reading would be a laborious process indeed! So instant word
recognization is an absolute necessary thing.

The schools teach a number of different "strategies" for decoding the
stories that are read at the kindy my son went to. One of the strategies was
sounding out, or phonics. When stuck on a word there were several other
strategies, including approximating using phonics to get close then garner
from context. The other was to examine the picture for clues. I tell you
that that last strategy caused a LOT of problems for one of the children in
my care. Her word recognition toolbox was slim. Her phonics skills were
poor. So she relied most heavily, too heavily, on this "strategy." She made
up lovely stories! But they weren't the ones the authors intended.

My son never "guesses" the word correctly when using this "strategy." And I
confess, I don't reinforce its use when we practice at home. It seems to
have limited value.

I think the whole language VS phonics debate has abated in the mainstream
educational ranks. I think it is recognized that many strategies are useful,
in different measures for differetn children.

Actually word recognition is way faster than sounding something out by
phonics especially if you have a good memory, but it does lead to some
other hazards - Poetry doesn't have much attraction for me because I
don't hear the words in my head. I have to slow down for that. I
can't read Russian novels very well because I get all the characters
that have same initial first names mixed up, and I never learned to
spell very well until I learned to type and actually had to look at
all the letters in a word.

I don't know what you mean by talents that might lead to something
later on.

"nimue" wrote:

Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:


My daughter was picking out words on signs before age 2, and is
reading through the easy reader section of the library at 2 1/2.
She read 47 books this summer for the summer reading club,
independently, most of them not to me but to the librarians and
volunteers at the library.

I somehow doubt that she's just average.

That's clearly very bright, I've no idea whether it's 1 in 100, 1 in
1000, or what. It will be interesting to see what her interests and
talents are in 5, 10, 15 years time. I suspect she's reading by word
recognition rather than phonics, but I don't really know what later
talents these might map to - I wouldn't be surprised if it was
scientific, rather than, say, English Literature, or languages.

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics.

That's too bad. I love phonics. I think it is without a doubt the BEST way
to teach children to read.

I disagree with that. There is no one best way. Some people never
'get' phonics. A bright child may be picking up words by sight long
before most parents or most schools would be teaching it to them. Why
should they be forced to struggle with phonics if they have already
learned the words by sight? (And the whole phonics/sight debate
assumes that you are teaching a non-pictograph language where phonics
will do no good at all)

And
I read pretty well.

I don't like phonics. There are too many exceptions at least in
English, as another recent thread pointed out. Although I will sound
out the syllables of a word if I've mis-thought what it was.

Anne Rogers wrote:


In the way you said it "I suspect she's reading by word recognition
rather than by phonics" made it seem like you thought that word
recognition was an inferior method and phonics was a superior method
to learn to read.

Does "I suspect his is a sweet potato rather than a yam" imply anything
about sweet potatoes or yams? It merely indicates my thoughts as to what
something is, not what I feel about it and the sentence could be
completed "that's good, sweet potatoes have more vitamins than yams", or
"I wanted you to pick up yams...".

Those are not parallel examples even though the words are exactly the
same. Because there's no value judgment implied in picking sweet
potatoes over yams, or at least not an important one.

If you said "I suspect she was talking on the cell phone rather than
paying attention to her driving" that would be something about which a
judgment is being made (talking on cell phone = bad: paying attention
to driving=good) and not just identification of an object.

And some people DO think that word recognition is an inferior teaching
method.

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:35:18 -0400, "nimue"
wrote:

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics.

That's too bad. I love phonics. I think it is without a doubt the BEST way
to teach children to read.

As long as the end result is fluent reading, I don't see that the
method used makes any difference. Note that children with hearing
problems or those with auditory processing disorder will not be
well-served by trying to use phonics to teach them to read. And many
other children seem to learn effortlessly without phonics instruction.




--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 07:25:37 -0400, "Sue"
wrote:

If she was truly gifted, she would have the social skills
down, but she doesn't.

This is entirely untrue. Gifted children can be notoriously uneven in
development in many different areas. It's called asynchronous
development.

http://giftedkids.about.com/od/famil...synch_help.htm

For example, a gifted five-year-old can be discussing the problem of
world hunger one minute and the next minute throwing a tantrum
because he has to go to bed.

********************
A gifted child who is years ahead of his or her age mates is not
always years ahead emotionally or socially. Advanced intellectual
ability simply does not enable a child to manage emotions any better
than any other child.




--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
Anne Rogers wrote:


In the way you said it "I suspect she's reading by word recognition
rather than by phonics" made it seem like you thought that word
recognition was an inferior method and phonics was a superior method
to learn to read.

Does "I suspect his is a sweet potato rather than a yam" imply anything
about sweet potatoes or yams? It merely indicates my thoughts as to what
something is, not what I feel about it and the sentence could be
completed "that's good, sweet potatoes have more vitamins than yams", or
"I wanted you to pick up yams...".

Those are not parallel examples even though the words are exactly the
same. Because there's no value judgment implied in picking sweet
potatoes over yams, or at least not an important one.

If you said "I suspect she was talking on the cell phone rather than
paying attention to her driving" that would be something about which a
judgment is being made (talking on cell phone = bad: paying attention
to driving=good) and not just identification of an object.

And some people DO think that word recognition is an inferior teaching
method.


The thing that I cannot and never have understood is how do you teach word
recognition? Either you recognize a word or you don''t. If you don't and you
come across it in your reading, what do you DO? I don't really understand
that. Thanks.

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:35:18 -0400, "nimue"
wrote:

Why do you think that word recognition is a less valid method of
reading? That is the way I was taught - I never had any phonics.

That's too bad. I love phonics. I think it is without a doubt the BEST
way
to teach children to read.

As long as the end result is fluent reading, I don't see that the
method used makes any difference. Note that children with hearing
problems or those with auditory processing disorder will not be
well-served by trying to use phonics to teach them to read. And many
other children seem to learn effortlessly without phonics instruction.




One weakness in the system that comes to my mind is the ... preference of
the teacher! I wish all learning could be aimed at the needs of the
children. Luckily my kids seem to be fine with the phonics route, because I
would be in a huge conundrum if I were to try and teach word recognition /
whole language. I simply would not have the first idea how to do it, since I
dont get it myself.






--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:46:16 GMT, "Stephanie" wrote:

Either you recognize a word or you don''t. If you don't and you
come across it in your reading, what do you DO? I don't really understand
that. Thanks.

Word attack strategies are taught:

If you don't know a word, what should you do?

1. Look at the pictures.
2. Try to sound out the word.
3. Look at the beginning letters.
4. Look at the ending letters.
5. Look for a smaller word in the word.
6. Skip the word and read the sentence to the end.
7. Try to guess! What word makes sense? Does your
guess look like the word you see?
8. Use the words around it.
9. Go back and re-read. Does it sound right?
10. Put another word in its place.
11. Ask a friend or an adult.
12.Look in the dictionary

A more detailed look he
http://www.readinga-z.com/more/reading_strat.html


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

Rosalie B. wrote:
Anne Rogers wrote:

In the way you said it "I suspect she's reading by word recognition
rather than by phonics" made it seem like you thought that word
recognition was an inferior method and phonics was a superior method
to learn to read.
Does "I suspect his is a sweet potato rather than a yam" imply anything
about sweet potatoes or yams? It merely indicates my thoughts as to what
something is, not what I feel about it and the sentence could be
completed "that's good, sweet potatoes have more vitamins than yams", or
"I wanted you to pick up yams...".

Those are not parallel examples even though the words are exactly the
same. Because there's no value judgment implied in picking sweet
potatoes over yams, or at least not an important one.

If you said "I suspect she was talking on the cell phone rather than
paying attention to her driving" that would be something about which a
judgment is being made (talking on cell phone = bad: paying attention
to driving=good) and not just identification of an object.

And some people DO think that word recognition is an inferior teaching
method.

what about "I suspect this lump is cancerous not benign", you could say
the exact opposite thing (if it were true), "I suspect this lump is
benign not cancerous", one statement would be bad news one good news.
Just because some people think something you disagree with, doesn't mean
everyone does and what I said, whilst it could be the first sentence
someone said then moving on to saying one or other was inferior, what I
said was simple observation which you added a whole load on to.
Anne

I don't like phonics. There are too many exceptions at least in
English, as another recent thread pointed out. Although I will sound
out the syllables of a word if I've mis-thought what it was.

My mum is a teacher, she told me the reason phonics is generally
considered better is that it seems to work better for kids who are slow
or have learning difficulties, so rather than teaching all children by a
non phonics method and then finding out who can't do that a couple of
years later and then having to teach them via phonics, you teach
everyone it right from the start and even though you still want to be
able to spot those with difficulties and they'll still be slower, you've
given them the foundations of the tools at a much younger age, generally
resulting in a higher average reading age than other methods do.

Cheers
Anne