Knowing that changing public policy is a very slow process, the best help for our children now is parents. If you want to increase your child's cognitive intelligence, start at home with early reading the right way.
Why reinvent the wheel each generation? That’s not progress, but that's what we did with Project Follow Through. "If it's not broke, don't fix it," yet we broke a well-working system when we changed phonics for sight-words, and changed direct instruction for child-led discovery. And what we got in return was more dyslexia, more inept remediation, less readers, and an educational decline. Now the task of changing what most universities "teach our teachers to teach" - back to the phonics used since before Noah Webster's time - is vital.
You’ll hear this many times from me, “If we want to improve public education, we have to change what we’re teaching the teachers to teach.” The changes have to begin at the university and state-legislature levels. We tied teachers' hands by legislating the faulty methods into State laws. And Common Core is even worse, wanting to do this on a Federal level. Just say NO to Common Core. We are jumping "out of the frying pan and into the fire," and on purpose, no less!
We need to teach teachers phonics through the Direct Instruction method, which is a general term for the explicit teaching of a skill-set using lectures or demonstrations of the material, rather than exploratory models such as inquiry-based learning. There is usually some element of frontal instruction and a general concept of the skill or lesson, usually with a formal lesson plan or scripted teaching.
This method is often contrasted with discovery learning, student-led learning, tutorials, participatory laboratory classes, discussion, recitation, seminars, workshops, observation, case study, active learning, inquiry-based learning, practica, or internships. These sound good, but they are wolves in sheep's clothing at the elementary level.
While many support discovery learning, because they feel students learn better if they "learn by doing," there is little or no empirical evidence to support this claim. In fact, it’s quite the contrary. Fifty years of empirical data does not support using these unguided methods of instruction. Why reinvent the wheel each generation? That’s not progress.
Researcher Kauffman (2002) comments,
“Nothing is gained by keeping students guessing about what it is they are supposed to learn. In all or nearly all of the education programs in which the majority of students can be demonstrated to be highly successful in learning the facts and skills they need, these facts and skills are taught directly rather than indirectly. That is the teacher is in control of instruction, not the student, and information is given to students.”
This view is exceptionally strong when focusing on students with math disabilities and math instruction. Fuchs, et al (2008), comment, “Effective intervention programs for students with a math disability requires an explicit, didactic form of instruction… in a way that produces understanding of the structure, meaning, and operational requirements of mathematics…” More in Vol. 10 of It's Not Rocket Surgery!
Knowing that changing public policy is a very slow process, the best help for our children now is parents. If you want to increase your child's cognitive intelligence, start at home with early Direct Instruction phonics - The Godfrey Method.
http://thegodfreymethod.com/content/SeeingtheEmperorsNewClothesChangingwhatwereteachingtheteacherstoteach
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