Quote Originally Posted by littlelolligagged View Post
But that's just it. In the United States today homosexuals are still treated like second class citizens, on the basis of their sexual orientation. The ability to do so is even codified. Maybe you don't consider it to be a big deal, but you aren't likely to be denied parental rights because the other parent is the same sex as you, either. In the 1960s a white person wouldn't have thought twice about the discrimination a black person felt on a daily basis.
OK, but the issue doesn't deserve the liberulz outcry that it's getting, not a book, or a grade school course.


Phonics helps people learn to read. I can't figure out what your issue is with elementary school children being taught to read.
Nope; phonics confused the hell out of me. I basically just monkeyed what everyone else was saying in class because it didn't make sense to me at all.

I ignored your "connection" between lead poisoning and phonics because it was nonsensical at best.
...
So let me try again, dear! These both highlight failures of the school system. It's clear that phonics teaching, even more so based on using a separate phonics "language", is not effective. Yet it's taught. Schoolbooks are filled with bad facts that aren't checked; yet they are sold to schools and used. That's the connection.



http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/de...age/index.html

Note that the phonics link above was found simply by typing "phonics efficacy" and going to the first link that discusses studies of the general population. (number 2; the first one talks about phonics for deaf people or something...) Now, here are two quotes!

To support such a claim, one would have to show that there are substantial numbers of children who have learned to read without extensive phonics training (this is easy to find), and also substantial numbers of children who cannot "learn to read by reading," who require extensive phonics instruction. The existence of this second group has never been demonstrated...
A consensus of experienced practitioners will tell us if it is worthwhile to tell children that the a-e combination is pronounced with the long vowel and the final e silent (except when the final syllable is unaccented - then the vowel is pronounced with a short-i sound, as in "palace," or the combination is "are," with words such as "have" and "dance" as exceptions). How many of us who easily and fluently read words with the a-e combination were ever aware of this rule?

And let me ask you this: just how are we doing with phonics anyway? Almost every kid nowadays cannot or will not acknowledge the difference between "no" and "know", or "their", "there", and "they're"... this never was the case before. Of course, there are other factors, but this points to the failure of teaching phonics as a policy.