kitchen table math, the sequel: Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

"I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country."
-Dr. Theodore Seuss Geisel in an interview with Arizona Magazine in 1981
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3 comments:

le radical galoisien said...

I have this fantasy of teaching my (future, as I am but 17) child the International Phonetic Alphabet from young -- hence learning to consciously recognise phonemes. Perhaps this would include teaching him or her the split between English orthography and phonology as well as fun things like how the long-short vowel arrangement in Middle English used to be literally long and short. It's ambitious but not impossible given the language processing abilities of young children.

It's a thought, anyway -- I would have treasured phonemic recognition when I first came to the US at the age of 5. I plan on teaching all of the three languages that I speak, so I will feel it will be more efficient (and aid acquisition better) to have a universal approach.

March 8, 2008 at 5:57 AM
Catherine Johnson said...

oh that's wonderful!

March 8, 2008 at 3:34 PM
ElizabethB said...

I think you'll enjoy my UPP

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/upp.html

I'm redoing my phonics lessons to include UPP and make them larger and incorporate several things I've learned since I first put them online 3 years ago.

For a universal approach, you might also consider teaching by syllables with a syllabary.

http://www.thephonicspage.org/On%20Reading/webstersyllabary.html

March 9, 2008 at 12:03 AM

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