cover article in Time magazine on gifted education

"Stephanie" wrote:

"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

That's always the case no matter what the subject is.. My SIL's first
child appeared to be having trouble with reading so my SIL got some
kind of packet or kit to help her child learn and spent 45 minutes
each day on it. My niece became much better at reading. But I think
that was mostly because her mom spent the time with her one on one,
and not because the actual materials were good or bad. IMHO my SIL
could have done almost anything to do with reading for 45 minutes a
day and the child would improve. (Given a normally intelligent child)

I think this was equivalent to what the Kumon people do now.

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.

When my dd#1 was little, I got a "teach your child to read" kit (which
I probably still have somewhere. The basic part of this kit was
flashcards with names of things on them which we were supposed to
distribute in appropriate places (like CHAIR or WALL).

After thinking about it, I decided not to use it and never got it out
of the box - even though that was the way I taught myself to read.

My mom wrote in my baby book that we had driven to my grandparents
house in the Philadelphia suburbs from Baltimore. Now my dad worked
near the infamous Baltimore Block (cf Blaze Star - strippers and
bars). I had apparently asked what the bars were. So when I saw the
bar sign in Philadelphia, after spelling it out, I said (with a
discouraged sigh) something to the effect of "Oh dear, they have them
here too"

Anne Rogers wrote:

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

Yes I inferred from your statement that you thought phonics was
better. I still do not believe that you were just indicating your
thoughts. You may not wish to admit that you were making a judgment,
but that was in there.

Because your whole statement was:

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.

Stephanie wrote:
"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.

How do you propose to do that in a class of 30 students?

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

--
nimue

"Let your freak-flag fly, and if someone doesn't get you, move on."
Drew Barrymore

Rosalie B. wrote:
"Stephanie" wrote:

"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

That's always the case no matter what the subject is.. My SIL's first
child appeared to be having trouble with reading so my SIL got some
kind of packet or kit to help her child learn and spent 45 minutes
each day on it. My niece became much better at reading. But I think
that was mostly because her mom spent the time with her one on one,

Bingo. You're right.

and not because the actual materials were good or bad. IMHO my SIL
could have done almost anything to do with reading for 45 minutes a
day and the child would improve. (Given a normally intelligent child)

I think this was equivalent to what the Kumon people do now.

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.

When my dd#1 was little, I got a "teach your child to read" kit (which
I probably still have somewhere. The basic part of this kit was
flashcards with names of things on them which we were supposed to
distribute in appropriate places (like CHAIR or WALL).

After thinking about it, I decided not to use it and never got it out
of the box - even though that was the way I taught myself to read.

My mom wrote in my baby book that we had driven to my grandparents
house in the Philadelphia suburbs from Baltimore. Now my dad worked
near the infamous Baltimore Block (cf Blaze Star - strippers and
bars). I had apparently asked what the bars were. So when I saw the
bar sign in Philadelphia, after spelling it out, I said (with a
discouraged sigh) something to the effect of "Oh dear, they have them
here too"

--
nimue

"Let your freak-flag fly, and if someone doesn't get you, move on."
Drew Barrymore

Anne Rogers wrote:
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,

Something about that sounds so arrogant. Maybe you and she didn't mean it
that way. Still, that belief sets up a system that devalues phonics and
exalts (the absolutely idiotic, imo) whole language. I learned to read with
phonics. I have always tested in the 99th percentile for reading and
comprehension; I read so fast that when I was young people used to ask me if
I had taken the Evelyn Woods course (that was a speed-reading course). Of
course I hadn't; I just read very quickly, but I used to joke and say I
taught it! Anyhow, phonics worked wonderfully for me and I am certainly
not slow and have no learning difficulties (in English -- math is another
story). That said, I wonder how I would have done had the wretched whole
language approach been used in my school. I think phonics works best for
the vast majority of children and whole language only works for a few. I
say use what works best.

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

Yeah -- that's because it's best for nearly everyone. I would wager that
those for whom it does NOT work wouldn't benefit much from whole language,
either. I am not one for religious wars, but when I think about whole
language and phonics, I can see killing in the name of phonics (just
kidding! Calm the **** down!).

and even though
you still want to be able to spot those with difficulties and they'll
still be slower,

Yeah -- these are the kids who would have had reading problems regardless of
which approach was used -- and phonics still benefits these kids more than
whole language.

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

--
nimue

"Let your freak-flag fly, and if someone doesn't get you, move on."
Drew Barrymore

Yes I inferred from your statement that you thought phonics was
better. I still do not believe that you were just indicating your
thoughts. You may not wish to admit that you were making a judgment,
but that was in there.

So now I am liar? Thanks, that's a very polite thing to say to someone,
I was making no judgement at all, just commenting from the way Donna had
said she had learned to read that it was probably, at least initially,
via word recognition, the fact I then mused about what later skills
these might lead to was merely a musing on the connection between later
skills and early skills, that the links aren't necessarily obvious ones,
so for example early skill in counting doesn't necessarily imply later
skill in mathematics and the way a child who acquires reading naturally
might well be linked to certain talents later on and different ways of
acquiring reading naturally (rather than being taught), may correlate
with different talents. How can an observation about how an individual
acquires something naturally be a judgement on one being better than
another, it's not a case of one being better - merely that they may
imply different talents.

So please, don't accuse me of being liar.

Anne

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:05:11 -0400, "nimue"
wrote:

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.

How do you propose to do that in a class of 30 students?

It's called differentiating learning and it is done all the time in
elementary school classrooms. It's not always easy, but it is being
done.

http://members.shaw.ca/priscillather...entiating.html

1. Differentiating the Content/Topic

Content can be described as the knowledge, skills and attitudes we
want children to learn. Differentiating content requires that students
are pre-tested so the teacher can identify the students who do not
require direct instruction. Students demonstrating understanding of
the concept can skip the instruction step and proceed to apply the
concepts to the task of solving a problem. This strategy is often
referred to as compacting the curriculum. Another way to differentiate
content is simply to permit the apt student to accelerate their rate
of progress. They can work ahead independently on some projects, i.e.
they cover the content faster than their peers.

2. Differentiating the Process/Activities

Differentiating the processes means varying learning activities or
strategies to provide appropriate methods for students to explore the
concepts. It is important to give students alternative paths to
manipulate the ideas embedded within the concept. For example students
may use graphic organizers, maps, diagrams or charts to display their
comprehension of concepts covered. Varying the complexity of the
graphic organizer can very effectively facilitate differing levels of
cognitive processing for students of differing ability.

3. Differentiating the Product

Differentiating the product means varying the complexity of the
product (http://www.rogertaylor.com/reference/Product-Grid.pdf) that
students create to demonstrate mastery of the concepts. Students
working below grade level may have reduced performance expectations,
while students above grade level may be asked to produce work that
requires more complex or more advanced thinking. There are many
sources of alternative product ideas available to teachers. However
sometimes it is motivating for students to be offered choice of
product.

4. Diffferentiating By Manipulating The Environment or Through
Accommodating Individual Learning Styles

There has been a great deal of work on learning styles over the last
2 decades. Dunn and Dunn (http://www.learningstyles.net/) focused on
manipulating the school environment at about the same time as Joseph
Renzulli recommended varying teaching strategies. Howard Gardner
identified individual talents or aptitudes in his Multiple
Intelligences theories. Based on the works of Jung, the Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator (http://partners.mce.be/wbt/mbti/personal.htm) and
Kersley's Temperament Sorter focused on understanding how people's
personality affects the way they interact personally, and how this
affects the way individuals respond to each other within the learning
environment. The work of David Kolb and Anthony Gregorc's Type
Delineator follows a similar but more simplified approach.


--
Dorothy

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

The Outer Limits

In article ,
Rosalie B. wrote:
Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Herman Rubin wrote:
snip
Someone who puts learning first is
not going to get along with the one who wants to play
tiddlywinks, or even baseball.

What's up with perpetuating this myth that all
gifted kids are non-athletic nerds? Gifted kids might
not want to play baseball (or engage in any other particular
activity), or they might rather enjoy it. Among my kids'
gifted peers, some are extremely athletic. Others avoid
it like the plague (but are just as in need of at least enough
physical activity to be healthy and strong). A number of
studies have suggested that early mobility (sitting, crawling,
walking) is characteristic of very young gifted kids, just
as is early literacy and numeracy. If that is so, why would
we assume that later in life, gifted kids are (or should be)
all about the core academics and not possibly *also* about
the arts, sports, or other non-academic activities.

Right - Several of my grandchildren are quite athletic and have been
tested into G&T also. Two of them were playing on baseball teams for
children a year or two older than they were and they did quite well.
My grandson who started when he was 5 has been playing on the middle
school varsity even as a 6th grader.

Another one of them basically got himself into the G&T middle school
with his guitar playing when he had to earn money for his lessons by
himself. It wasn't something that was his parent's idea. He switched
to violin and trumpet in school of course because they don't have
guitar there. He's a freshman in HS this year, and is trying out for
the swim team and working on getting to be an eagle scout.

One of my children who tested gifted in kindergarten (but then we
changed schools and she was not in the G&T program after that) was
riding on the national level in combined training at 14 (the youngest
she could compete at that level). She did it on her own without a
coach and riding a barefoot aged pony.

Some lucky people are both smart AND athletic (and good looking)

So where are the academic accomplishments? As I have
stated before, any child who is gifted in an area and
does not have some serious learning disability which
would make it difficult should be doing strong basic
college work in that area by the early teens, instead
of not even knowing what the field is.

I seem to have the ability to separate understanding
from the ability to carry out the manipulations, at
which I am also good, and to recognize when there is
a lack of understanding. Yet I got into situations
where a small amount of explanation, which could have
been understood well before, clarified things no end.
There are a few cases where I added to the basic
understanding, but I was never unwilling to replace
a special case with the almost always SIMPLER general
concept. Nobody is going to get the idea of a forest
by examining individual trees.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

Anne Rogers wrote:


Yes I inferred from your statement that you thought phonics was
better. I still do not believe that you were just indicating your
thoughts. You may not wish to admit that you were making a judgment,
but that was in there.

So now I am liar? Thanks, that's a very polite thing to say to someone,

I meant that you might not realize that you were making a judgment -
that it was a prejudice that was under the radar, not that we were a
liar. I'm sure that you believe that you weren't making a judgment.

I was making no judgement at all, just commenting from the way Donna had
said she had learned to read that it was probably, at least initially,
via word recognition, the fact I then mused about what later skills
these might lead to was merely a musing on the connection between later
skills and early skills, that the links aren't necessarily obvious ones,
so for example early skill in counting doesn't necessarily imply later
skill in mathematics and the way a child who acquires reading naturally
might well be linked to certain talents later on and different ways of
acquiring reading naturally (rather than being taught), may correlate
with different talents. How can an observation about how an individual
acquires something naturally be a judgement on one being better than
another, it's not a case of one being better - merely that they may
imply different talents.

So please, don't accuse me of being liar.

Anne

In article ,
toto wrote:
On Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:23:06 -0400, Ericka Kammerer
wrote:

If that is so, why would
we assume that later in life, gifted kids are (or should be)
all about the core academics and not possibly *also* about
the arts, sports, or other non-academic activities.

We should not assume the stereotype, yet I think Herman was like this
as a child and therefore assumes that all gifted children are as he
was in his own youth.

Gifted children do have other interests; we encourage the
gifted musicians and athletes to develop these talents, but
we strive mightily to prevent those who are academically
gifted to develop this.

The time spent on academic trivia can be immense. I did
not have the slightest idea of algebra until age 12 whwn I
saw an algebra book; the subject was trivial to me then,
and it would have been years earlier. My learning of
mathematics was slowed greatly due to a lack of direction,
and I would say that many years were wasted.

I did have access to the library, but the Chicago libraries
were restricted by grade, and the basic stuff was at the
higher levels. I found little to read except history and
some biography, which did not interest me that much. The
science material in the early and middle grade portions of
the library were to me "kid stuff", with the ideas hidden
among what was considered age appropriate.

My son was similar, but had at least the opportunity to
get into it and some guidance. Almost as soon as he
learned to read, he became interested in the encyclopedia,
not a junior edition, and especially the physical science
sections. He was doing mathematical research early. At
least the first school he went to realized that a so-called
normal program was totally inappropriate, but the attempts
to come up with a better one failed. In the attempt, at
age 7, he was going to different classrooms for different
subjects, and he was ready for "college" mathematics.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558