Review request: phonics

Post #26,909 by Arkadiy 2/1/02 4:29:22 PM Reply	Review request: phonics Anyone tried to teach 4 year old kids to read? I have a feeling that the age is right, but what tools do I use? Are phonics the way to go? Something else? If phonics, do I need a kit? If yes, what kit is best?
Post #26,910 by Yendor 2/1/02 4:33:40 PM Reply	Time. Lots of time. Like teaching a dog tricks when it's young, IME, teaching a kid to read requires time and dedication. I've never done it myself, but my parents read to me incessantly when I was very young. My first memory is of sitting on my mother's lap while she was reading Dr. Seuss's "The King's Stilts" (or whatever that book is called) to me. All this phonics stuff didn't exist when I was a kid, and I learned to read quite well. I understand that at least one of our members' kids is at least equal to that (if not better than that, though I've never met the kid in question.) I don't think I've ever heard said member mention the use of phonics with his child, but again, the child is likely the exception to about every rule we could come up with. Either way, my recommendation still stands. It's a large time investment, phonics or not. -YendorMike "The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by the skeptics or the cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who dream of things that never were." - John F. Kennedy
Post #26,970 by ben_tilly 2/2/02 11:01:28 AM 2/2/02 11:03:04 AM Reply	All this phonics stuff what? 26 years ago when I landed in my mother's grade 1 class she taught everyone to read using, you guessed it, phonics. And it was (very much) not a new-fangled approach back then. It, in fact, dates back in the English-speaking world to when spelling first began to be standardized in English. In other languages it goes back further and is more popular. For instance nobody would even think of using another method of teaching spelling in German. To get an idea of the true age of the use of phonetic techniques for spelling, the word dates back to the Phoenicians to whom credit goes for the idea of having an alphabet with letters corresponding to sounds to use for writing. You might remember the Phoenicians, they were the people that the Romans later destroyed in the Punic wars (eventually razing Carthage to the ground and ploughing it with salt so that nothing would grow back). Cheers, Ben PS I grew up with hearing my mother rant about the stupid "whole word" movement. She thought the fact that she took the bottom grade 1 class, and routinely got them reading at a grade 4-6 level by the time they left should speak volumes enough about the effectiveness of her techniques... PPS D'oh. How is that for a stupid user trick. First miscalculate how many years, and then double-post? :-( Edited by ben_tilly Feb. 2, 2002, 11:03:04 AM EST Expand All History
Post #27,001 by tonytib 2/2/02 4:18:38 PM Reply	Minor note: your history is off in both time and place Phoenicians lived in roughly modern day Lebanon (Tyre, Sidon, etc) around say 800 - 1000 BC (I'm guessing here...but for example King David traded with the Phoenicians) The Punic wars were the wars between Rome (Scipio Africanus was most important Roman general) and Carthage (general, Hannibal; location, in North Africa, around Libya IIRC); IIRC Carthage was destroyed around 150 BC. IIRC (my memory is a little hazy and I'm too lazy to look it up), Cato was the Roman Senator who insisted on Carthage being destroyed. Tony
Post #27,011 by CRConrad 2/2/02 5:41:45 PM Reply	Ben's kind'a right: Carthage was founded a Phoenician colony
Post #27,022 by ben_tilly 2/2/02 7:06:01 PM Reply	Exactly, and... The Phoenician empire was broken by Alexander the Great in 333 BC (332 for Tyre), and the name Phoenecia was finally lost in 64 BC when it became part of the Roman province of Syria. But Carthage had become the center of Phoenician trade several centuries before that, at about the time that Babylon captured Tyre in the 6'th century BC. That is why I marked the destruction of Phoenician power by Carthage's destruction in 146 BC by Rome. Cheers, Ben
Post #27,025 by a6l6e6x 2/2/02 9:23:56 PM Reply	On Malta, I was told they were of Phoenician decent. Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Post #27,165 by GBert 2/4/02 10:03:58 AM Reply	Re: Exactly, and and... ... the Roman word for the Carthagineans, "Puni", from which we get the term "Punic", has the same root as the (greek) "Phoen" in Phoenicia. Folks at the time were very aware that Carthage was part of the phoenician world. One of the most obvious turning-points of history was the roman defeat of Carthage. Rome and Carthage very closely balanced militarily -- either one could have gone on to take over the hellenistic world and dominate the subsequent history of the West. Whatever Rome's faults were, its subjects and allies in Italy endured 20 years of war and invasion and defeat rather than join Hannibal's carthaginean army against a militarily impotent Rome. If Tenochtitlan had inspired even half that loyalty among its subjects in central Mexico, Cortez wouldn't have had a prayer... just a thought. On the other hand, had Carthage won, today's Mexico City might have been founded as a phoenician colony 2000 years ago... Giovanni
Post #27,181 by boxley 2/4/02 11:02:47 AM Reply	They were, see book of Mormon My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,212 by ben_tilly 2/4/02 12:54:49 PM Reply	But would the Carthaginians... have managed to have their empire last until 1453 AD like the Romans did? Cheers, Ben
Post #27,215 by boxley 2/4/02 12:58:48 PM Reply	Dont know enough to answer but the phonecian diaspora helped map trade routes that eventually led Cristobal to these shores. Thor Hyerdal and his Ra expedition showed the possible expansion of these peoples to the Americas. thanx, bill My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,243 by GBert 2/4/02 3:54:25 PM Reply	Re: But would the Carthaginians... Could a putative phoenician empire built after a defeat of Rome in 200 BC have lasted until 1453 ? I don't know of course, but I personally doubt it. Roman administration had a lot of common sense and was well respected; it was politically very inclusive; most folks over the centuries were proud to be roman citizens and were very sorry to see it go. All in all, the roman empire was a pretty rare thing: a long-lived union of very diverse peoples over a large area that inspired devotion and identification. Giovanni
Post #27,246 by a6l6e6x 2/4/02 4:03:22 PM Reply	Pax Romana! Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Post #27,262 by ben_tilly 2/4/02 5:06:03 PM Reply	I find it strange that... The Italians are known for producing one of the best administered empires in history, but are also known for very haphazard administration of government today... :-) /duck Ben
Post #27,370 by boxley 2/5/02 10:59:36 AM Reply	they dont let them use wheat sheaves anymore :) My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,546 by GBert 2/6/02 4:42:33 PM Reply	A regime joke Even during Fascism -- bundles or no -- Italy was not particularly well administered. Here's a fascist regime joke my father remembers. Consider the following 3 qualities. If any two are present in the same person, the third is necessarily excluded... 1. Honesty 2. Intelligence 3. Being a Fascist Giovanni
Post #27,545 by GBert 2/6/02 4:25:21 PM Reply	It is a little strange ... Those ancient romans do seem more german than italian as far as organization goes. The Italian style of administrative chaos has matured over centuries of foreign and local misrule, graft, corruption and cynicism in the presence of incredible cultural wealth, and is indeed one of the wonders of Europe -- but even it pales in comparison to the millennially aged product that flourishes on the Indian subcontinent. Giovanni
Post #27,653 by Arkadiy 2/7/02 11:32:16 AM Reply	If I get it right... ...current crop of Italians are mostly descendent of barbarians that overran Rome.
Post #27,560 by CRConrad 2/6/02 6:48:12 PM Reply	Just look at the EU Commisioner, mr "Roman" Prodi A descendant of the "Ugly Americans" of two millennia ago speaks: Roman administration had a lot of common sense and was well respected; it was politically very inclusive; most folks over the centuries were proud to be roman citizens and were very sorry to see it go. All in all, the roman empire was a pretty rare thing: a long-lived union of very diverse peoples over a large area that inspired devotion and identification. Many people are still proud to proclaim -- some even with their very name! -- that they "are Romans". Personally, being a German and all, I prefer to include the mediaeval "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" in the concept, and see it as a way of saying "I am a European". Christian "Romanus sum!" Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #27,611 by a6l6e6x 2/7/02 1:24:49 AM 2/7/02 1:26:05 AM Reply	Re: Holy Roman Empire Not Holy. Not Roman. Not an Empire. Talk about marketing! :) Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny Edited by a6l6e6x Feb. 7, 2002, 01:26:05 AM EST Expand All History
Post #27,626 by CRConrad 2/7/02 6:39:18 AM Reply	OK, neither Holy nor Roman; but why/how wasn't it an Empire?
Post #27,663 by a6l6e6x 2/7/02 1:13:56 PM Reply	Just too small in area. Alex "Of course, you realize this means war." -B. Bunny
Post #27,716 by boxley 2/7/02 7:06:13 PM Reply	Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation Fast freddie's crew. Owned Byzantium to the baltic, and they say the turks arnt eauropeans. :) thanx, bill "If you're half-evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil." Norman Mailer
Post #27,780 by CRConrad 2/8/02 9:23:25 AM Reply	By then Anatolia had been taken from Byzans by... the Turks.
Post #27,013 by CRConrad 2/2/02 5:47:10 PM Reply	So are you claiming the telephone and gramophone... ...have to do with the Phoenicians, too? Funny, I never knew the Greek word(-part) phonos, "sound", had anything to do with the Phoneicians -- but it sure as Hell must have something to do with "phon-ics" ("sounding out"). Sure, I guess it is possible that the Greeks derived their word for "sound" from the name of the Phoenicians... But I kind of doubt it. Christian R. Conrad The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
Post #27,021 by ben_tilly 2/2/02 6:52:22 PM Reply	The connection isn't a naming similarity The idea of an alphabet is usually ascribed to the Phoenicians. At the least they had the earliest one that we know of, and the others that we know of (including the Greek, Roman and eventually our own) developed from theirs. Compare and contrast to alternate forms of writing such as Egyptian hieroglyphs. The key idea that writing should represent how you would say the word is, as best we know, a fundamental advance that is due to the Phoenicians. The point is to make it easier to translate spoken fluency into literacy. In short our alphabet descends from the recognition of the value of making literacy possible through phonics by the Phoenicians. This is why I ascribe the origins of phonics as a teaching method to the Phoenicians. Any similarity of names and Greek word roots may or may not be entirely a coincidence. Cheers, Ben
Post #26,971 by ben_tilly 2/2/02 11:01:42 AM Reply	All this phonics stuff what? 26 years ago when I landed in my mother's grade 1 class she taught everyone to read using, you guessed it, phonics. And it was (very much) not a new-fangled approach back then. It, in fact, dates back in the English-speaking world to when spelling first began to be standardized in English. In other languages it goes back further and is more popular. For instance nobody would even think of using another method of teaching spelling in German. To get an idea of the true age of the use of phonetic techniques for spelling, the word dates back to the Phoenicians to whom credit goes for the idea of having an alphabet with letters corresponding to sounds to use for writing. You might remember the Phoenicians, they were the people that the Romans later destroyed in the Punic wars (eventually razing Carthage to the ground and ploughing it with salt so that nothing would grow back). Cheers, Ben PS I grew up with hearing my mother rant about the stupid "whole word" movement. She thought the fact that she took the bottom grade 1 class, and routinely got them reading at a grade 4-6 level by the time they left should speak volumes enough about the effectiveness of her techniques...
Post #27,004 by admin 2/2/02 4:29:42 PM Reply	Re: Time. Lots of time. No, we didn't use phonics with Duncan. He pretty much taught himself to read at 2 just from us reading to him. One day he started doing phonics on his own in the car, but I don't recall if that was before or after he let us know he could read. We did read to him a LOT. 3-4 books at bedtime, several during the day, whenever we got the chance and he was in the mood (which was pretty much always). Regards, -scott anderson "Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
Post #26,986 by wharris2 2/2/02 12:48:15 PM Reply	Phonics, definitely English phonics are harder than many other languages (someone mentioned German, now that's a fairly easy phonics language). But if you can puzzle out a word using phonics, you may not be reading as quickly as you can, but you can at least make it out. Whole word, if you don't know the word you're sunk. I've met people who must have been taught whole world reading. It's almost painful to listen to them try to figure out what a word is, or just flat-out misread it. It can be painful to listen to a phonics speaker puzzle out a word, but they tend to get it right rather than read it wrong. And, as with most things, more practice improves your skill. At some point maybe phonics learners switch to a more whole-wordish method (I learned with phonics but as best I can describe it now I take in paragraphs at a glance). I don't know I've ever seen a study about how fast readers really take information in. "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
Post #27,046 by static 2/2/02 11:54:57 PM 2/2/02 11:56:59 PM Reply	"whole word" adventures. I learnt to read using the "phonics" method. So did my younger brother. But my even younger sister did not; the school was shifting to a "whole word" program by then. She's only a good reader because everyone in the family is. I hear the education department shifted back to a phonics scheme within a few years. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!" Edited by static Feb. 2, 2002, 11:56:59 PM EST Expand All History
Post #27,014 by CRConrad 2/2/02 5:48:54 PM Reply	Thne primary tool you need: Any other language than English.
Post #27,207 by Arkadiy 2/4/02 12:34:42 PM Reply	Got that :)
Post #27,018 by Ashton 2/2/02 6:27:57 PM Reply	My guess is that IWE folk are not the norm. Not having experienced 'whole word' or 'phonics' - I am yet suspicious of all such simplistic solutions as imagine that small homo-saps may be homogenized and a Best Technique\ufffd determined by the TLA creators (and textbook Corporations). My own experience - that which I can recall only via a few 'vivid' snapshots of the classroom and of exchanges - is likely irrelevant to a 4 yr. old's place. I too was read to a lot, and an aunt with whom I stayed for a time, was a grammar school teacher ie. my 'epiphany' occurred prior to 'Methods' and classes. (I would also surmise that kids generally, Could learn a lot more about reading, lots earlier - given that priceless Attention that is in such short supply now.) Still FWIW - I recall an easel with large posterboard, many leaves/sheets turned over. Word-length from 4- to ~12? The sheets were progressive.. more for length I think - certainly no hypertext relevance to the sheet or succeeding ones. These were useful to my grokking the system, too - even though I was 'advanced' vs the rest. "Their/there" and such - became perfectly clear. Repetition of common words - their sound and what they looked like, was interspersed with what I now suppose was some attention to varying sounds of similar letter groups. Then reading aloud, with corrections - but not obsessively. That is, sometimes the teacher would 'praise', go on and illustrate any corrections in her own speech, but later on. (A subtlety I noted - and it may be an important detail.) But these were classes with perhaps a dozen - 20 students and Lots of teacher attention. No knives, guns, beepers or dissing, etc. Prolly like many here, I spent my 'reading' period either reading the stories at the end or in another book - unmolested by a teacher intent upon regimentation. I guess that isn't the norm now. Good luck - you may be able to divine 'how' your charges are angled to learn by trying several approaches, even intermixing the dogmas of the Pop methods. If they are interested enough to ask (any kind!) questions: you're on to something. You might even want to pick up a copy of Summerhill from library: an English school which pretty much threw out the books on 'what school might be for', and how can that be tailored for very different individuals? It's old but then - so are people. Hell.. if we Knew! how to create marvellous teachers... Cheers, Ashton
Post #27,049 by boxley 2/3/02 12:01:25 AM Reply	yup phonics sound it out progressivly My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,051 by boxley 2/3/02 12:04:54 AM Reply	flash card and mguffy readers flash cards of simple words with the pictures representing the words on the back will teach whole word recognition for 3 to 4 letter words also a spelling aid. See Spot Run the mguffy style readers or Dr Sueus is good too will repetativly repeat small words and allow a student to sound out what is coming next. Spelling is important as would wood sneek snick up on you ewe. thanx, bill My Dreams aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be
Post #27,058 by Another Scott 2/3/02 12:17:31 AM Reply	Second the McGuffy Eclectic Readers. They're quite good. The books go from pre-readers up through high-school level reading, IIRC. ISBN: 0471288896 Amazon has a couple of copies of the first volume with more expected. There are at least 7 volumes in all. It's hard to go wrong with Dr. Seuss too. I think the main thing is find books that are fun and interesting. Good luck! Cheers, Scott.

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