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"The science of reading" Oh good grief. What next, the "science of breathing"???

Only in education can we take something simple and make it out to be like splitting the atom.

Want to know how to teach kids to read? Go buy a box of magnetic letters.

As a mother, foster mother, grandmother and former teacher, I'll tell you there is NO trick or gimmick to learning to read.

In a perfect world, kids should already have the reading basics BEFORE they ever go off to kindergarten. Again, we try to blame the teachers when MOST education woes stem from what's going on AT HOME.

Want to know how to teach your toddler to read? Go to Walmart, buy a box of magnetic letters. Put them all up on the frige. Kids LOVE 'em! And every time they pick one up mommy, daddy or whoever is home, says with excitment, "What's that??? Oh that's a "B"..."B" says Ba ba babababababab, Can YOU say Bababab?" And you keep those letters up there for 2 years if you have to. But Johnny can learn them. There's only 26 letters for pete's sake.

Then you start writing 3 letter words up there; then you write word families up there (cat, hat, mat, sat, )

No tricks, no highly qualified teachers, just some letters. And if kids are arriving to kindergarten without knowing 26 sounds, then one box of magnetic letters for that teacher.

It's like handing that kid a parachute. NOW Johnny can read, then at school, he can start reading little worksheets, then what the teacher has on the board, then little books, then bigger books, and AH! Oh my! Johnny can spell! Know why?? Cause Johnny can read! The ONLY way to teach spelling is by reading. NOT from weekly spelling tests but from reading.

I feel so sorry for school-aged kids these days. All they need is the alphabet and someone to tell them the sounds. But instead today's kids are getting crapped on by scientific studies of how to teach reading. Pathetic!

Instead of millions wasted on studies and reading schemes, every household with a toddler should be sent a box of magnetic letters, and then a Dick and Jane book.

Now just slow your white butt down girlfriend.

There is to be no book about Dick and Jane in this world of diversity.

You make sure your little Johnny reads a book about Tyrone and Laquida.

DDDeana,

FYI:

Seven editions of the "Dick and Jane" textbooks ran from 1930 to 1965. They featured stories about a family and home life. Up until 1965, these schoolbooks included the well-known characters of Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot, Puff and Tim - Sally's stuffed bear.

In 1965 the African-American family was added and included, Mike and his twin sisters, Pam and Penny, and of course... their parents. This reading program used the "whole word reading system" for teaching children to read. The program included Big Books, Pre-Primers, Primers, Workbooks, Word Cards, Charts, Tests, and Records. Millions of children learned to read with Dick and Jane textbooks. Even today, children still are learning to read from these textbooks.

I do agree DDDeana that the names Mike, Penny and Pam aren't the most African sounding...

There is just no excuse whatsoever for a child to leave elementary school not reading well. Even if they have Poor /middle class/white/black/yellow or pink parents.

Its just not acceptable Dr. Grier.

Stop the excuses and do your job!

In many cases there is not enough oral guided reading. Sometimes kids just listen to a tape and turn the pages. There definitely is not enough practice with phonics with some teachers. If you can teach phonics, rhyming and make it fun children can learn to read quickly. In many cases, teachers just pass out too many worksheets with not much guidance. If you make reading a fun game, children learn much faster. Teachers today are pressed for time with lack all the grade level paperwork, testing, etc. Oftentimes, days are so rushed to really "teach" reading how it should be taught. Then again there are those teachers who just throw in unnecessary "coloring" the worksheets just to pass the time. To me, it is "do the work first then go back and color. I know you can color."

I agree somewhat with Mrs. Doubtfire. Many children did learn to read with Dick and Jane. However, today's children become quite bored with "Run, run, run. See Spot run." It works for a short while. Children want immediate gratification. You are completing in a fast moving, electronic world. You need stories that will hold children's interest.

Also in Dick and Jane, Father went to work with his briefcase. Mother stayed home with her apron. A perfect little family. Not much like today's world.

An interesting note, public schools had Dick and Jane. Catholic schools had John, Jean and Judy (same publisher). Spot, Tim and Puff were secular and the same in both sets of books. Public schools taught "sight" reading. In moving from a public school to a Catholic school early on, those children who didn't have phonics in first grade were very far behind their peers in Catholic school who had phonics taught to them from the beginning.

Reading should be fun. But just like math, you still need to teach the basics first. You can't read the total concept story if you can't read the words first.

Off Topic, but,,,,,

Could someone please confirm the report that School Board member, Alan Duncan was in attendance at the "Rally for Racism", held about a week ago downtown by Communist Workers Party Leader, Nelson Johnson ??????????????

It seems many elected officials were present that evening,,,,rubbing shoulders with the Communists and Socialists that openly lurk in America,,,Land of the FREE....

While we're off topic,, how many Trailers will remain at Florence Elementary when the new addition is complete????????? Ten,,, Fifteen?????

Are we recieving new Trailers at Southwest Elem. and Middle schools ?????

Possible overcrowding at Southwest Elementary School?

I know just how to fix it! We'll move 100 kids from the Oak Hollow area OUT and move about 120 poor kids from the Parkview area IN. That should take care of the problem.

Man I've gotten good at this after being on the board for for 6 decades!

I'm a high school teacher, so I was never trained to teach reading. Instead, I was trained to teach comprehension, writing, vocabulary, and understanding of great literary works (Shakespeare, etc.). My focus though is getting my kids to form their own ideas and be able to communicate well orally and in writing...not a simple task. Guess what? If you can't read well, you can't write well either. I've been amazed at the reading and reading comprehension levels of my kids. I've taught many high school students who were still on an elementary level. Granted, ESOL and EC kids are now commonly mainstreamed instead of having their own classes, but it is still ridiculous how many students make it to high school without being able to read well. When I talk to my kids about it, they tell me they failed their 8th grade competency tests, but that they were moved on (True--I tutored students this year to help prepare them for their EOC's AND for their 8th grade competency tests). They tell me they've struggled for years and some years they've got extra help and other years they haven't. I don't know what exactly is going on at the elementary level (though I have heard some stories from elementary teachers), but reading issues must be taken care of at the elementary level. Waiting until the 9th grade to tell students that they can't move on to 10th grade English due to failing their English EOC, is too late (they can still move on to the next grade). Until changes occur though, I'll keep stocking my classroom library with elementary books.

Agreed. Kids can't write well unless they do read well.

Kids can't write because they are told to "just get the thoughts down". There is no emphasis on spelling, grammar, punctuation. Papers are not given back corrected that are "wrong" (couldn't hurt anyone's self-esteem.) So how do they ever learn what is right in writing?

Students don't know parts of speech. They aren't taught how to make their writings speak to people or taught imagery. Students are given a pen, a writer's journal and told to "write". I've had kids sit there for 30 minutes and write one sentence.

Later in middle school, can't spell because they depend on spell check.

When my daughter was in 8th grade, I saw tons of writing assignments on the wall in the English teacher's classroom. The content was okay, but there were many grammatical and spelling errors. They had been corrected but it was embarrassing to see what kids did not know by 8th grade.

In defense of elementary school teachers, there is only so much time in the day with very little help and planning time. Kids leave for ESOL, special ed, AL, etc. You have to fit everything in and hope all students are present. So much emphasis is put on studying for standardized tests. Learning is in group situations. It's hard to fit everything in one day. Kids aren't allowed to be "individual" thinkers at times so they don't know how to do something on their own. They aren't taught it's okay to make a mistake, fix it and move on. There isn't any feedback.

FRL child or not I still find it unacceptable that a child cannot read after leaving elementary school.

There is something fundamentaly wrong with the system if this is happenning. This is the mark of a complacent society, a complacent system and a complacent preffession.

Everyone has to stand up and say no and solve this problem now. Stop the rot!

Everyone needs to read Charles Davenports' article in N&R today.

This explains where many of our school problems begin......

This is a warning for a certain school board member.

We know you have special interests in being on the school board. We will watch you. We will listen to everything that you say. We will watch how you vote on every subject. You had better not slip. We have a mission and it will be sucessful!

My wife and I cover both ends of the educational spectrum: she has a Master's in Reading and teaches kindergarten classes which come in each August at all levels of reading preparation or beginning ability and leave often reading at a third or fourth grade vocabulary (comprehension isn't expected to jump commensurately); I teach college classes that require significant writing skills. There is, indeed, a "science" or "art" to writing, and reading, and to their instruction...at least if one does them well.

Well, well, well. According to today's HPE the Oak Hollow Mall in HP is having trouble keeping tenants. There are more vacancies now than ever before in its 11 year history.

“There’s more retail competition in the north part of High Point now,” he said (High Point University economics instructor Mike Mc Cully). “There are a lot more options for people closer to the Skeet Club Road neighborhoods.”

Isn't this exactly what the North High Point residents threatened if Dot and her cronies took away their schools?

More power to you NHP!! Let's see if Dot can find a way to bus you to the mall for your shopping needs.

Because, of course, WE wouldn't be caught dead shopping alongside THOSE people....

It's bad enough our teens try to dress and talk and act like THEM....

what people Freddy? old people. that's all you see at HP mall the old blue hair High Point ladies, Central alumni waiting to save the old downtown

to "fan of good guys" I thought the same thing when I read this article. I hope Mayor Becky remembered the promise of the people whose kids were stolen, the ones the HP politicians help steal. as one NHP resident said "they may tell some of us where our kids will go to school, but they won't tell me where to spend my money" she never goes into downtown HP. she switched all her doctors to Greensboro too

Way to Go - BLOCK OF MANY!

I can't wait for Fantasia's movie to come on Lifetime August 19 about the "City of the Dead"

fyi Freddie our children go to school with "those people" (if you meant the majority minorities)Welcome to Southwest High, the most diverse school in Guilford County. We like it that way.

Freddy--I refuse to spend any money in any establishment in High Point and I am a lifelong resident.

We told the board we would boycott High Point businesses if they abducted our kids, not because of anyone's skin color, or the way they dress or talk, but because of the Communist attitudes of the High Point members of the BOE.

I do, however, write a check to a private school in High Point. Does that count?

Oh, did anyone notice that the name mentioned in the Enterprise article was Vickee' Armstrong. Remember her speech at Providence Place? She was awesome!

Like Oak Hollow, FS Mall in G'boro has also lost quite a few tenants. More of an industry issue than the policies championed by a county commissioner.

Fantasia deserved more from the community she grew up in and rightly decided to leave it.

I agree that Fantasia deserved a better education, however she did have the OPPORTUNITY for a better education, but chose to get pregnant and leave school. Sometimes the choices that we make in life aren't the best, and we end of paying for it. Fortunately Fantasia has a talent that will take her farther than most of us can imagine. The majority of dropouts don't have that talent or option. No one can make people realize that education is the key to the lock of poverty, and until they wake up and realize it then I'm not sure any educational program will change the circumstances of the poor in this country.

Debora,

Well said!

I recently got a "CBL Mall" gift certificate. Not knowing what a "CBL Mall" was I called the number on it to find that the malls in the area owned buy this corporation are Oak Hollow in Hell Point, Randolph Mall in Asheboro, and Hanes Mall in Winston. I would drive to Asheboro or Winston before I'd ever spend a dime in Joke Hollow Mall.

Even those rich Emorywood kids prefer coming up to NHP now.

So the new Friendly-cum-Wendover-makeover is a response to Four Seasons' downturn. What precipitated this lowered attendance by Northwest Greensbororians to High Point Road?

Maybe we should just go the way of Omaha: three separate school districts, one for each of the three largest "races". If you look at demographic maps of the area, it shouldn't be hard to apportion. "White" parents, especially, have expressed a desire for "local neighborhood schools", and made increasingly outrageous bids for houses with Northwest/Grimsley and, to some degree, Page addresses. Of course, how would property tax money be divvied up?

On the other hand, Warren and Tayagi, in their book The Two-Income Trap, suggest we go to a voucher system and a first-come-first serve enrollment, vitiating the draw to the "good school neighborhoods". This would mean one could live in a less expensive area, say, the Southern or Eastern parts of Greensboro, and still get your child into Grimsley, or even Northwest, if they wanted to ride 10+ miles (as I myself traveled in NW CT, to a city school with --- egad --- much higher numbers of minorites than the little hamlet I lived in. Served me well enough. Of course, I'm no physician or physician's son...just another working stiff son of a farmer/construction man).

Freddy, it could be that the new Friendly upper scale stores are more attractive to the better heeled NW type folks than FSeason provides. There's some good restaurants going up out there, that Chang place is awesome. I've also heard that as a result of some aggressive rent increases by the FS new owners, some of the nicer, especially lady stores, at FS might be migrating to the Friendly area. You and I know that the babes control the monetary clout in our economy and where they shop is where it's happening.

Back on subject. My child is an excellent reader, courtesy of the GCS as well as great parenting which goes hand in hand. One without the other will more than likely result in a lack of success for a child.

Bad parenting also results in illegitimate children.
Illegitimate children often leads to bad parenting.
Bad parenting results in illegitimate children.

The circle of life continues.

I blame white people and I challenge "white supremacy".

I blame Malcolm X.

I have to mention how ridiculous it is to think there are 26 sounds in the English language.