Myth 10. Let the child ‘discover’ reading.
Truth: Instead, follow The Godfrey Method exactly as found in the book, "A Funny Boy Was Prince River." The unique picture-letters are the first part of making phonics connect with a child (which squiggly line makes which sound). The second part is the way they are taught, which is just as important. Child-led discovery is not teaching the right way: early and by direction instruction.
Some misguided educators say that children naturally pick up language, and therefore reading, on their own. This is not completely true. When children of different cultures play together, they sometimes create their own language by blending the different ones. But they were taught language first by their parents. However, this doesn’t happen with reading. Reading must be taught directly. And feral children, those left to survive on their own from a young age who hear no language, never learn to speak, even when rescued later. Without others to teach them language, they do not develop it on their own.
My colleague Donna told me that her son’s elementary school in Michigan taught reading with a child-led system that did not teach the spelling rules of phonics. The teachers didn’t want to ‘hurt’ the kids’ self-esteems and let them write however they wanted. But that’s exactly what they did – hurt self-esteem. Being unable to read or write well shakes a child’s confidence to the core.
Several years later, Donna had to go to the junior high for a conference. While there, she heard several mothers talking about having to take their teens to Sylvan Learning Center for tutoring because they were so far behind. One mother was especially angry, not only because she had to pay for Sylvan’s tutoring but while there, she heard the registrar say, “We see this all the time. We have a lot of junior high students coming to us because of how they were taught in elementary.” The mom was furious! She had to pay to remedy how the school messed up her son. Sadly, the elementary was still teaching the faulty theory even after years of proven failure. (What I want to know is, Why aren’t schools beating down the doors of Sylvan Learning Center to find out how to teach correctly? Obviously the knowledge is out there.)
Will your kids be ready for the jobs of the future? With TGM more children will graduate high school and go to college. The jobs of the future require an education and that requires reading. Reading ability affects your kid’s future and the future of our nation. We all hear reports of China and India becoming the next centers for technology and innovation. We’re running behind as a nation in engineering, science, math, and technology. And they all start with reading.
Meg Whitman said, “Being near the bottom in education is a tragedy for our kids and a threat to our future. To restore our prosperity and do right by our children, we need to better educate them in the basics… to prepare them to excel in the workforce.” The days of succeeding without reading are over.
You can find colorful, enchanting picture-letters in my books, A Pretty Girl Was Alpha Bette, or A Funny Boy Was Prince River.
You can find even more ideas and information about in my book series, It’s Not Rocket Surgery! (How to put your children on the launch pad of life and watch them soar.)
Remember those times in your life when you’ve thought, “Where does learning really begin?” I have always believed that teaching starts in the home and that you can and should stimulate your child’s mind for learning long before school starts. My Dad taught me to read when I was only 3 years old. So I followed suit and, even though I was a busy, working mom of 14, I always spent time showing my children phonics cards, numbers, colors, etc., from the time they were about 18 months on. My older children learned phonics just fine by repetition and memorization.
Then came along my son who at 4 years old could not, no matter how hard he tried, conceive of how squiggly lines (letters) on a page could mean anything, nor memorize which squiggly lines made which sounds. No matter how many times we repeated them, he just couldn’t grasp it. Of course as a mom I worried that he would have trouble in school, fall further and further behind, and not be ready for the technology jobs of the future. I had to help him!
I knew I had to find a way to make such an abstract concept make sense to him, to become more logical. I needed something he could recognize and wrap his mind around, something for him to link the letters to their sounds. I felt inspired to make each letter look like something that started with its sound, creating my unique picture-letters. I also developed a special way of teaching them to ‘keep it simple for success’ (KISS).
Suddenly my son had phenomenal victory with learning his phonics and quickly progressed to reading before kindergarten. Family and friends saw his success and became interested in trying my method with their children. So I wrote down the rationales and rules for teaching my method properly, to guarantee triumph for other users. My sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors, and preschools have used my method with hundreds of children, all with amazing results.
http://thegodfreymethod.com/blog/top-ten-myths-reading-myth-10
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