Thursday's Child - Is resource class hurting your child's self-esteem?

     The Paradox of Resource Class and Your Child's Self-Esteem      

     

     Is your school's curricula destroying your child's future? Ten ways to stop them now.

               In the 5^th and 6^th grades, one of my sisters was taken to resource classes after lunch every day, along with a handicapped boy. The school thought that she read too slowly, or that her grades weren't good enough, or something. Or they made a mistake and took the wrong girl.

               No one ever explained to my sister that she was going to start resource class nor why. One day a lady just came to her class and said, "I need Leah and Tom to come with me for some special reading time." She was so embarrassed; after awhile, she begged the teacher to let her come to resource on her own after lunch, without being picked up. However, she didn't – and doesn't – have any learning problems. Why my parents allowed the schools to do this to her is beyond my understanding.

               The resource teacher had my sister read out-loud for hours. The teacher supplied tedious little books far below my sister's  intelligence level and attention span. Basic sight-word booklets. She read very well at home all the time, so she was really confused about it and bored out of her mind.

               If she made a mistake, the teacher just told her what the word was and made her repeat it. Look-say at its worst. No phonics or sounding-out was used. My sister rarely made any mistakes, other than reading too quickly and tripping over her tongue. She understood perfectly well.

               The slower a child reads (sounding-out), the more intellectual s/he is; has higher reasoning skills. The faster a child reads (look-say), the less s/he understands; just jumping through hoops. Kids are afraid to read too slowly in front of the teacher and class. Sight-reading may help some of them speed up in the short-term, but they don't learn how to think, just what to think. Is this really what we want?

               My sister's neighbor, a school reading therapist, said she'd take a kid who reads slowly, and may trip on some words, over one who reads quickly but can't comprehend. It's ridiculous that schools push speed over comprehension. The speed naturally comes after the phonics rules are learned, as it should be.

Educational Errors:	Parental emPowerments:	Shannah B Godfrey:
Audio-Sequential Teaching	Find out if Your Child is a Visual-Spatial Learner	Vol. 8 It's Not Rocket Surgery!
Holding Bright Students Back	Gifted Classes, Private or Homeschooling	Vol. 7
Inducing Dyslexia	Early Reading the Right Way – TGM	Vol. 1-4
Lowering Curricula Standards & Remediation	Stopping 'Teacher Preparation' Days	Vol. 4
Mis-Diagnosing Giftedness & Boredom as ADHD	Find out if Your Child is Gifted or Creative	Vol. 7
Pushing Ritalin	Research Nutritional & alternate Natural Solutions	Vol. 4
Student-Led Discovery	Adult-Led Direct Instruction	Vol. 6
Whole 'Reform' Math	Early Math the Right Way - & less calculators	Vol. 10
Whole-Language Sight Reading	Phonics Reading only	Vol. 5
Whole-Music Instruction	Back to the Basics	Vol. 7
	Homeschool

               The paradox of resource class and your child's self-esteem is this, the Self-Esteem-First and Whole Language teaching models have failed to produce either self-esteem or basic academic skills, thereby putting more and more children into recovery, resource, reform, or remedial education. (Or forcing their parents to pay for private or commercial tutoring programs.)

               Going to a resource class usually embarrasses a child and gives other children more excuses to tease him/her. The recovery methods used often don't fix the educational problem, thus not improving the child's capabilities either. So the child is exposed to more ridicule without a viable reason for the class in the first place.

Many behavioral problems in school stem from a child feeling worthless because of needing remediation. What is supposed to help often does more damage. Behavioral problems vs. learning disability is a self-propagating "slippery slope" because each continually feeds off the other, revolving downward to decrease a child's confidence and motivation. Get your child off the slope!

               Without the horrid look-say sight-reading methods, the need for remediation would dwindle to a few needy cases. And naturally self-esteem would rise.

               Phonics deciphering skills build intellect and reasoning skills. Sight-word memorizing doesn't. Quite the opposite, in fact. How many children think they're slow when they're not? Whom does this serve?

               To illustrate, I would like to quote a section from the wonderful satire of former NRRF* North Carolina Director, Cathy Froggatt's, Whole Language at the Fork in the Road, Right to Read Report, February 1998. Read the entire, brilliant article at http://www.nrrf.org/satire_WL_at_Fork.html:

               Paradise or Perdition? "Why, Dr. Goodguess, what is the matter? You look very distraught! What has happened to your self-esteem?"

               "Well, Dr. Sampler, it's these darn words-in-isolation. You'd think there would be at least one picture clue somewhere?!"

               "Hmmm, I see what you mean, Dr. Goodguess. Oh, no! Both signs have words that start with the same letter, and the words are about the same length."

               "Professor Indoctrinate, unwilling to provide any phonics information due to her thorough disdain for such "lower order subskills," encouraged Drs. Goodguess and Sampler to use the Whole Language cueing system they knew so well. In an attempt to reassure them, she said, "Don't be upset if you can't read the signs just yet. After all, reading is developmental. In time it will all begin to click, maybe next year or the year after."

               "Now they knew they were in need of a 'real' reading expert, particularly one who had been intensely trained, preferably at Ohio State. So without hesitation, even though their self-esteem was becoming badly damaged, Drs. Goodguess and Sampler fell to their knees and began praying loudly. As if on cue, a Reading Recovery teacher appeared on the pathway. At first she was a bit intimidated to be in the presence of the founders of Whole Language. After all, she knew quite well that Reading Recovery owed its very existence (in more ways than one) to the theories and strategies taught by these very experts.

               "Fortunately, her extensive training allowed her to quickly regain her composure and to focus on the reading problems the gentlemen were experiencing. "I am sure I need not remind you, gentlemen," she began, "that comprehension and meaning-making are of primary importance when reading a word you have not seen before. You must just answer the question: 'What would make sense here?'"

               "With the path behind them filling up with people impatiently awaiting their turn to pass through the fork, Drs. Goodguess and Sampler cried out in despair, "What we desperately need is more context!" (The context-clue of 'Pandemonium', the capital of Hell in Milton's, Paradise Lost, didn't help. Neither would 'Purgatory'.)

               "Just then they heard the soft-spoken voice of a child. A little six-year-old boy walked up to them, looked at the sign on the right and said with great pride, "I was taught to read with explicit, systematic phonics. I can sound out any word. The sign on the right says 'Paradise' and that's the way I'm going." And off he went."

               "Drs. Goodguess and Sampler looked at each other with knowing smirks. Their need for context had surely been met. Dr. Goodguess whispered excitedly, "Did you hear him say 'explicit, systematic phonics'? The path he took must be the road to Perdition! Quickly now, let's take the other path!"

*The National Right to Read Foundation (NRRF).

               Take a look at spelling bees. Virtually all winners of spelling bees spell by phonics. They are able to hear the sounds in the words and take them apart. They can build words from root words, adding prefixes and suffixes, so they can also deconstruct them for spelling. Phonics makes it easier to remember which spelling goes with which homonym, too. These children don't have to memorize thousands of sight words.

               They have been able to make sense of words on a foundation of phonics rules, and can decode new words, with only about 42 sounds. That is just sheer genius. It is higher-order thinking. It even makes it easier to remember irregular spellings.

               On Twitter, I recently saw a spelling-bee-preparation method based on sight-words, and I cringed. No, no, no! Stop this insanity!

               Have you or your children ever taken piano lessons? Students are taught each note's name, sound, place on the piano and in the musical staff, individually before putting them together into chords, measures, and complete songs. Once those are mastered, they can move on to more complex pieces and learn to add nuances to the music with soft and loud, slow and fast, slurring or staccato, etc.

               Wouldn't it be ridiculous to learn piano the Whole Language way? The piano student would have to learn whole songs by sight, guess through context, cooperation, comprehension, and meaning-making. And yet my Canadian friend Pavel, a music teacher, says this is happening in schools now. How many whole songs can a child memorize by sight? Not many. But any student who has a foundation of individual notes can build up to any and every tune out there. It is the same with phonics and reading.

               A great way to enhance your child's mind is to have him or her participate in the national spelling bee. The deadline is usually in October, each year. Encourage your child's teacher to enroll your school (or homeschool group) for a fee with the E.W. Scripps Company. You can also enroll your child and buy spelling practice supplies. http://www.spellingbee.com.

               The local, spelling-bee sponsors conduct community spelling bee programs, usually in cooperation with school officials for public, private, parochial, charter, virtual, and home schools. The champion of each local spelling bee sponsor's program qualifies for participation in the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Each year they grant a limited number of local spelling bee sponsorships.

               Between August and October, schools enroll for participation in the program for the next season. During the fall and winter, schools conduct spelling bee programs at the classroom, grade, and/or school level, and send their spelling champions to the next level of competition as designated by their local spelling bee sponsors.

               Homeschool expert, Hartman Rector, Jr., in an interview with The LDS Home Educators Assn Newsletter, Issue #31, Nov 1999 http://www.ldshea.org/Notes/Hartman%20Rector.htm, said:

               "There's no question in my mind that about 14 minutes with mother is equal to all day in the public school. That’s what they determined when William Bennett was director of the Department of Education under President Reagan. He tried to determine how much time it would take with private tutoring for a child who had been injured and couldn’t attend school. All it takes is 1 ½ hours a week to keep a child up with his class. That’s about 20 minutes per day!" [Children usually learn faster from their own mother than from a teacher.]

               "That's why 14 minutes with mother is worth more than a day in school.  Because of the love and relationship that exists between a mother and her children, she is the best teacher of children." [I'm sure this is true of good fathers, too.]

               "(What about mother burn-out?) That happens because they try to put on a public school in their home. They even use public school materials. That doesn't work. You've got to adapt to what will work. I'm convinced that Glenn Kimber has gone a long way down the road to getting past this burnout problem. He suggests teaching three days a week, four hours a day, and no homework. Homework was devised by Dewey to make kids hate school. He didn't want students to love learning.

               "Don't teach on Monday. You need Monday to get over Sunday. That's when you do your housework, learn about Tide in, dirt out and if you put yeast in, bread rises. Then when [your kids] go on [their own] they're not helpless. …kids who came out [to college, e.g.] knowing how to cook and mend were better qualified to survive well.

               "The afternoon is open for students to play in the band or sports with local high school, if they want to. Friday is field day; you've got to know how the fire department and the police department work. I'm convinced this is a great system."

               "I'm convinced that home-schooled kids can finish high school and be ready for college at an average age of 15. That's too young to go to college, so you take college correspondence courses."

               Even for those of us who aren't currently homeschooling, Mr. Rector's words carry a lot of weight. We can do things at home to help our children, whether they attend public, private, or home school. In fact, all the HELPS at the end of each chapter of It's Not Rocket Surgery! by Shannah B Godfrey can be utilized by anyone, regardless of his/her situation.

http://thegodfreymethod.com