Doug Mann wrote: > 5) The reason some of your 3rd grade students are reading at a > first grade level is that they were not learning how to decode words in grades > one and two. Phonics instruction was either extremely ineffective or didn't > happen at all. This is a problem for a lot of 3rd grade teachers because > the districtwide reading curriculum is based on the look-say method. > Mark here: Oh come on Doug! Now you seem to be saying that any differences in reading skills between kids is due to poor teaching? There are no differences that arise due to differences in intelligence, environment, or study habits? This is similar to your comment to Lynnell that if a teacher teaches something the kids will learn it. I know that my kids have been taught lots of stuff that didn't take - maybe your kids are geniuses, but most of us aren't so blessed.
It's these sort of nonsensical comments that make me scared of a school system following your precepts. If you were in charge of the school system it seems that teachers would be judged primarily on the achievement gap between his/her students, not the actual advances by each student, since any gaps could only be explained by deficient teaching. Doug again: > Commonly used remediation strategies (e.g., drill and kill) are generally > more effective as behavior management tools than as learning strategies. Mark here: My Sixth Grade son never has learned his addition facts very well, because his First and Second Grade teachers apparently shared your belief that drill doesn't work. This has caused him problems ever since in learning higher Math skills, since it's hard to do estimating and word problems correctly when you are concentrating on just doing the computations. Luckily his Third Grade teacher did believe in drill, so he knows his multiplication pretty well. Mark Anderson Bancroft _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
