POSTED ON BEHALF OF DOUG

What does the nation with the world’s best readers do??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msf2NEmAKO0
YouTube - Videos from this email

What good reading instruction looks like!
This must occur for 95% success in the early grades.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afbdHD1XswU

Doug,the students you`ve shown us,that was a lovely video,are post early reading,yes,lovely project once the foundation is laid.
I agree,phonemic awareness,phonics,once you read it,what does it mean(comprehension).
Both are crucial…the only trouble is,we skip step one ad two in our classrooms.

Powerful and moving - it applies to Canada as well…...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVgVH2O8Qr4

Educrats who advocate that guessing at words (part of balanced literacy) will teach a child to read should themselves try to learn another script by guessing.  There are many of them from which to chose   Their way of thinking defies logic, and unfortunately, our children suffer at their hands.

Joanne and company,

Quoting American sources- on flammable pyjamas and reading.  Why?

Flammable Pyjamas are the pyjamas that your grandmother wore they did not have a chemical compounds such as polybrominated diphenol ethers (PBDEs) and other chemical cousins all in the Bromine family.  Bromine was used in chemical war fare in WWI.  At the end of the war manufacturers found themselves with stockpiles and no market.  Yet Bromine compounds are slow to oxidize(burn) so why not re-market them as fire retardants?

Let’s douse infant wear and all mattresses with the stuff. The Bromine industry lobbied poorly educated legislators during the era when it was common to smoke in bed.

Bromine compounds are proven to cause neurological and reproductive harm.  They impact thyroids, are 100 times more toxic than cigarette smoke, and cause cancers.  Exposure has been linked to lower mental development and learning disabilities.  The compounds are readily absorbed through our skin.  Canada has begun the process to eliminate these non-flammable pyjamas so that our infants do not get exposed - the US (with the exception of California has not).

Flammable Pyjamas or cancer and lower mental development?  I know my choice .

Only dead fish swim downstream,  Mirka

Apparently Mirka,  pajamas and other clothing is still being douse with chemicals.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/toxic-flame-retardants-children-products_n_1324412.html

No need to wonder about Canada - clothing is still being douse with chemicals but its a global problem trying to reined in the Big Chem companies,

That said, flammable pajamas is a little like teaching children to used guessing strategies in reading and numeracy. Flammable pajamas are illegal, but that has not stopped the clothing manufacturers who are kept hopping from one law suit to the next by governments who are insisting to use chemicals provided eagerly by the Big Chem companies. Likewise, guessing strategies should be made illegal in all schools but alas will never be made illegal, since guessing strategies is part and parcel of the overall education philosophies, practices and pedagogy of the 21st century rooted in the 19th century ‘knowledge’ matrix.

At the Children of the Code - Dr. Louisa Moats - Under ‘Tragedy of Reading Failure’ - “Dr. Louisa Moats:  What drives me? It is the whole realization of the difference between what is and what could be for kid’s lives and seeing first hand, at every level of society, every age group, how reading difficulty effects people for life. Then on the other end of things, seeing at every level what is not happening that could happen to prepare teachers to address the needs of so many individuals who could benefit from informed instruction and who don’t get it because our whole educational system from start to finish is simply not set up to ensure that people do learn to read.”

Under ‘Lack of Adequate Teacher Preparation’ - ” David Boulton:  I recently interviewed a leader of a reading organization and was flabbergasted at the suggestion that the problem really wasn’t about children learning their way through the code, that children should be relying on other kinds of guessing strategies. My jaw dropped.

Dr. Louisa Moats:  Yes, but yet I find that still, the way things are now, that is the most commonly held belief.

David Boulton:  That’s what we’ve got to get at. Why is it that people hold this belief? What is it that underpins this belief? What you’re saying and what I’m hearing everywhere that I go is that we’ve got this crisis - and we can come back and talk about writing; no question they’re related and they’re both artificial code processing skills -  but they’re distinct in terms of the processing complexity and in terms of speed. With reading, the virtual assembly of the projected reading stream has to happen much faster than in writing, so they’re distinctly different, though related. “
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/moats.htm

A slide show - that concludes guessing strategies are not useful strategies for real reading.
http://www.slideshare.net/ETAI2010/reading-and-vocabulary-knowing-guessing-and-looking-it-up

So like the chemical dousing wars of what we wear, eat and breathe continues under the surface, the guessing strategies in reading instruction and learning continues under the surface. Its where the public is lulled into thinking that guessing strategies are useful in reading and chemical dousing of clothing is good for the public and its welfare.

I had a conversation with a few parents and their daughters at the local grocery store back in July. Any educator would have been taken back by the parents and their 18 year old daughters what they thought of the useless guessing strategies. None of it was flattering to the public education system, and more so when we moved into the nuts and bolts of the public education system model that insists that learning must come with the most inefficient and laborious processes that prevent students from reaching their full academic potential. Then the conversation moved into math and the useless guessing strategies…..............

Ergo the quote - ” “The nearly universal practice of teaching children to guess at words to one degree or another, based on the theory of psycho-linguistic guessing, is wrong. There isn’t too little evidence or it, there is NO EVIDENCE FOR IT. The entire myth of the three cues is nothing but folklore without so much as a single study to support it. There is clear and convincing evidence showing that all of it is wrong, going back to and including Goodman’s first study that he misunderstood and misinterpreted. Yet, it persists like an engorged tick that can’t be pulled loose.”

The theory of psycho-linguistic guessing has already been proven wrong in the reading and cognitive science research, but nevertheless it still lives on in the 21st century schools. Another paper by Dr. Moats called ‘Whole Language Lives On: The Illusion of Balanced Reading Instruction
http://www.ldonline.org/article/6394/

Dear Nancy - you state, in your post above that .......  lordie , I just give up…...  you give an American link that uses American sources in your first line in an attempt to dismiss my point.  Ironically you make my case ( I love when that happens).  Nancy you continue to confirm two critical things:

1.  This group is confused about the critical differences between Canada and the US .

2.  This group of edu-scolds is not able to make a sensible contribution to the education reform movement. 

Happily, I CAN,  and do . 

cheers—-checking out for the next 10 months to do the* real*  work in education and education reform .
Mirka

Oh Mirka, the typical MO - ignore the content and no I did not dismiss your comments, I actually had given your chemical dousing more weight, by providing evidence that chemical dousing is occurring and its global wide.

If one relies only on Canadian evidence, one will never find it since most research are under the ‘closed shop’ or buried so deep, that the scientists need access clearance to read the research. Secondly, the Canadian media follows their marching orders from the official sources, and every once in a while, a news organization breaks the chains to report the realities such as installation of 1 pencil sharpener costing Toronto taxpayers a grand total of $165.00.

As I said, guessing strategies much beloved by the current crop of educators continues to ignored the scientific evidence - that guessing strategies are not very effective in learning to read, in reading and in mathematics.

Thirdly, the overall model of the public education from one country to the next, the differences lies in the way that education is funded and delivered to the students. What remains a constant, across the globe are the education philosophies and pedagogy being taught in the teacher faculties that are rooted in the 19th century ‘knowledge matrix’. Where do you think the guessing strategies arose from?  It can be traced to Dewey himself, and have been refined by the 20th century education gurus and practitioners. 

What critical differences would that be?  Below a video cartoon outlining the typical experience of a parent advocating for their child to obtained a psycho-educational assessment. Its bang on for its authenticity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6fcIqUHz8Q

Its global wide. From the British dyslexia organization called Dyslexics.org - a gem from one of the education gurus - Hargreaves - “n a recent letter to the TES (11/08/12) a head teacher wrote, ‘If it is true that the new curriculum will put into statute that children must be taught to read through phonics, I can see no option but to leave the profession I have lived and loved for 30 years because it goes against my principles and flies in the face of all my experience’‘. It can be safely assumed that multi-cueing for word decoding is still occuring at this head teacher’s school.

According to Caroline Cox, there are four principal grounds on which teachers justify their practices. They are: ‘tradition (how it has always been done); prejudice (how I like it done); dogma (this is the ‘right’ way to do it) and ideology (as required by the current orthodoxy) (Hargreaves 1996 TTA lecture p7).”
http://www.dyslexics.org.uk/should_I_have.htm

What is really remarkable is the global phenomenon of parents across the globe hearing the same reasons for their children’s reading and writing difficulties. A parent from Hong Kong to Russia to Germany to Finland to England to Canada could have a grab fest exchanging similar stories of the reasons and excuses by the public education system blaming the parents and children - its all their fault.

In the new school year Mirka, you should investigate the education policies and practices concerning grade 12 students. Talk about leaving students and parents high and dry to navigate the post-secondary on their own, and more so for LD students who have been formally accessed and documented. The documentation don’t pass the sniff test by the federal and provincial agencies in charged of the student grants. One would think that at a cost of $2000 or so, in a typical public education system,  psycho-educational assessments would be treated in the same manner as medical documents and records. Sloppy documentation at the school district level, is causing a great deal of heartache for both the parents and the LD students.

So Mirka, this year think about the beast that is above the school - the school district and their blue three-ringed binders filled with rules/regulations and education policies designed to making it a living hell not only for students but as well,  the educators at the school level. Just think how many teachers have been stopped by those above them because it was “tradition (how it has always been done); prejudice (how I like it done); dogma (this is the ‘right’ way to do it) and ideology (as required by the current orthodoxy).”

Or another way of looking at it, the school district could fund $20,000 per student, and end up with the same dismal student academic outcomes, and where the LD students will still sit at the bottom of the achievement charts.

Well said Nancy.

Nancy.

the chemical dousing that you   reference is not global.  Europe will not allow it.  Yup, progressive social democracies do not allow it.  All those following this particular discussion, who do not smoke in bed,  wondering how to avoid the health risks of fire retardants in Canada.  One word - IKEA.  You can buy mattresses from this Nordic company that will not make your kids stupid or give them cancer.

you are most welcome.  Mirka

Hi Nancy,

Just read your post above 08/19 at 10:03 .

This response is a bit of an exercise in time travel- have now seen your work.

Did you know that I have been an environmental science leader since the late 80ies?  Did you know that I have been one of the key environmental science leaders in my board for a decade?  Did you know that ..............

Your ability to google is not a substitute for context and knowledge.  It is simply a testimony to google. 

What you posted to my challenge on the pyjamas is shocking as is Doretta’s well done cheer.

all the best . Mirka

Good for you Mirka. However, you and I must be reading different newspapers and different papers. The lawsuits are all about the alleged chemical dousing.

Speaking about lawsuits, over in the education files there is plenty of lawsuits on the go initiated by parents. For the most part, reading instruction becomes a topic in the courts. Interesting reading that shines a light on whole language instruction and how very ineffective it is towards students with reading difficulties.

My point is that chemical dousing is still occurring across the globe. Ineffective reading instruction is a common feature in schools across the globe, but more importantly the common disregard by the educationalists to ignore the science-based reading research. The court cases are the testaments that the present laws in chemical dousing and reading instruction in today’s public schools that something is amiss in both fields. Perhaps the governments should be doing more inspections in both ensuring clothing meets the standards and all children are able to read well.

Mirka, you display a common attitude among the educator crowd towards others that do not hold an education degree. The attitude is quite common at the school level and is directed at parents to keep them quiet and compliant to the ways of the educators, regardless of the future harm toward the children and their education.

There is truth in the quote below, that Joanne sent in that reminds me of my experiences of the last 12 years, constantly proving that my child was just as smart as the other children to educators who thought otherwise.

“Only in education do we have to resort to panels who count studies without understanding the wider body of knowledge. Only in education do we debate if the Earth is actually round, or if it might be flat based on a different philosophy, regardless of the evidence. “

Mirka said above, “What you posted to my challenge on the pyjamas is shocking as is Doretta’s well done cheer.”

Huh? Not sure what you think I said was shocking—‘well said’ is shocking?

Also, just a brief reminder to our commenters and readers.  We monitor the comments for spam,  personal attacks, profanity, etc.  Keep it civil and please respect the opinions of others.  Thank you—SQE.