In the "it is always worse than you think" category, I had someone from the education department recently tell a story where she expressed frustration with a kid for trying to sound out the word when "the picture is right there." Why they think this teaches reading is beyond me.
For passersby: "it's always worse than you think" is a family motto.
ReplyDeleteThat and "no common sense-y."
Oy
ReplyDeletemuddled thinking!
ReplyDeleteAn expert reader often predicts the meaning of unknown words from context. But we're predicting the meaning, not the pronunciation.
ReplyDeleteSure, and kids who read a lot early often mispronounce words they've only seen written!
ReplyDeleteActually, Catherine, I think you are on to one of the reasons educators like balanced literacy. It speaks to one of their beliefs -- that there is no difference between the way an expert and a novice engage the material. Fluent readers often do only read the first few letters. I know I do, and it gets me in trouble if two characters have similar names, or if I misread a word with a common prefix. However, that doesn't mean it is the best way to teach a novice. This is just another example of wanting students to act like mathematicians or scientists (or the ed school version anyway), rather than like novices.