The work of literacy campaigner Graham Crawshaw
Positive Conversations Are Vital To Children
Paul Charman talks with literacy campaigner Graham Crawshaw
Perhaps it is a new spin on the old saying about the hand that holds the ladle ruling the world. In any case, dinner conversation is a huge and vital part of a child's development, says literacy campaigner Graham Crawshaw.
Too Phonetic?
Too Phonetic?
I was speaking to my brother the other day about public schools and his comment to me was ‹We gave up on public schools when they sent a letter home with my daughter informing us that she was "too phonetic in her spelling, the school uses 'inventive spelling'".Now, this happened a number of years ago, as my niece is now an adult with children of her own, but this was the first I had heard this story. What astounds me is that this attitude is prevalent enough that they would actually put it in writing to my brother.
"This is not a technical dispute about the best way to teach reading," explains Dr. Ghate.(a senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute) "The advocates of phonics view the very purpose of education as developing the child's mind. Accordingly, they systematically teach a child the facts and principles that will enable him to decode written language. The advocates of 'whole language' view the purpose of education as developing the child's feelings. Accordingly, they denounce phonics as imposing 'an uptight, must-be-right model of literacy' that stifles the child's self-expression. Instead, they say we should begin with what supposedly interests a child--whole words and stories--and allow him to substitute other words, to guess and to otherwise follow his fancy as he 'reads.'
Unfortunately, I forgot to ask my brother if he could read the letter. Who knows what it said if it was written with "inventive spelling"
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