US public education [was re: Book recs for teaching kids to read?]
Sam Livingston-Gray
Peter, I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think
withholding knowledge from your daughter is the answer.
I had a mixed experience with the California public education system.
I was already reading when I got to first grade, and had skipped
kindergarten, so the transition was a little weird for me. As far as
I was concerned, my first-grade teacher was there to occupy our
attention for a while, then hand out worksheets. The worksheets were
to be blazed through as fast as possible so that I could go get a book
from the big shelf by the window.
I was somewhat bored for 1st through 5th grades, highly engaged in 6th
grade (my parents moved me to this school:
http://www.sanjuan.edu/MissionAvenueOpen.cfm?subpage=925 ), mostly
bored and frustrated in 7th and 8th grade, somewhat interested in a
few of my classes in 9th and 10th grades, and gave up on high school
in 11th grade.
I got the legal equivalent of a HS diploma
(http://www.chspe.net/about/). I took the test at the beginning of
11th grade, then dropped out when I [finally] got the results back.
(That was a fun test -- multiple choice, and one of the questions was
"what is 100% of 12?") I had flunked two semesters of community
college before my high school classmates graduated. (I didn't
seriously pursue college until I was 27.)
Looking back, I actually think my public school experience would've
been worse if my parents had let the system teach me to read. Being
able to read well above grade level gave me access to a much broader
range of material from the school library (science, Lewis Carroll,
Greek mythology in primary school, then tons and tons of fantasy
novels as I got older) that gave me interesting stuff to do when my
regular schoolwork was dull. That contrast helped me understand that
what was wrong was not "learning" in general, but certain aspects of
the school system in particular.
-Sam
On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 7:13 PM, Peter Van Dijck
<peterv...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have a question that's been bothering me for a while.
> We just moved to the US, and have a 4-year old. She's learning English really fast.
> In Europe, I'd just leave the reading and writing to the school. They'd start learning at 7. Then again, in Europe, you don't have 14 year olds who can hardly read or write.
> My worry with teaching her to read and write now (I'm sure she could do it, and it'd be fun), is that she'll get bored when the teacher starts to teach her for real in a few years. I don't want her to be more bored in class than she'll likely already be. (I have a fairly low opinion of US schools, I think they expect too little of the kids.)
> Does anyone have thoughts or experience to share about that aspect of teaching your kids to read at an early age before they learn to do so in school?
> Thanks!
> Peter
>
> On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 10:05 PM, Josh <josh.hei...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I recommend "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" (http://
>> www.amazon.com/Teach-Your-Child-Read-Lessons/dp/0671631985).
>>
>> The book requires you to commit 20 minutes of your day to teaching
>> your daughter. I am on the 15th lesson, my daughter learned her first
>> word in week 1 and in week 2 she is now reading short sentences. The
>> book is excellent, based on research, simple to follow, and is
>> becoming a bonding experience for my daughter and I.
>>
>> If you are serious about getting your daughter to read then this is
>> the way to go, and much cheaper than Hooked on Phonics.
>>
>> Good luck, and let us know what you choose.
>>
>>
>> On Oct 10, 9:07 pm, Sam Livingston-Gray <geek...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hello, HN parents-
>> >
>> > My three-year-old daughter has all of her letters down, and can spell
>> > her name and the names of a few of her friends. We've asked her if
>> > she wants to learn how to read books, and she says "yeah!" ...and
>> > we're not sure where to go from here.
>> >
>> > Any book recommendations? (Pretend we have very full lives and can
>> > only manage one or two books.)
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> > -Sam
>
>
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