Some of you have written that you
are scared that your little ones may be mistaught at
school or, at the very least, that they will not learn the amount and at the
level they can master. I STRONGLY recommend the books listed below.
Yes, they are all by this
fellow--Siegfried Engelmann. Engelmann is a philosopher in a school of
education. The branch of philosophy is logic. He has figured out
(since the mid '60s) how to cut through all the fluff and all the irrelevant
communications and activities and get down to communicating facts, concepts,
rules, and strategies at increasingly high levels of complexity. For
example, Reading Mastery (which he designed) begins with m says mmm and ends with kids analyzing MacBeth.
By "kids," I mean fith graders.
How is this possible? Because the entire sequence is a faultless logical argument or
logical progression. Everything needed for the next learning task
has already been taught and reviewed. And everything taught and reviewed is
used in the next, and later, tasks. So, no time is spent RE-teaching week
after week, and no time is spent learning what you don't need.
Is it rote learning?
NOOOO! All knowledge systems begin with rote learning. This
symbol 4 does not TELL you that it
signifies and symbolizes //// Someone has to say This (4) means
////.
Once the needed rote learning
(e.g., meaning of symbols) has occurred, you can then USE the symbols to
communicate much more complex concepts, rules, and strategies.
Engelmann figured out that the
acquisition of knowledge is nothing but induction, and that application of
knowledge is nothing but deduction. [And I transmitted that to you in an
earlier post.] He then found that there is a simple communication
format for teaching each kind of COGNITIVE knowledge--
1. Facts.
2. Concepts. red,
color, democracy, political oprganization.
3. Rules. Exploitation fosters
opposition. When the sum is greater than 9, carry....
4. Strategies. The routine for analyzing a poem, writing a paper, developing a
model that summarizes different kinds of wars.
So, if a teacher uses the correct
format, he or she can be sure that communication will be as clear and therefore
as effective and efficient as you can get it.
And that is how Zig
Engelmann and his colleagues develop all those Direct Instruction programs--which
are field tested for YEARS before they are sold.
Engelmann once told me that he
worked five years on a program called Reasoning and Writing--I think that was
the one. The teachers who tested it told him it had logical flaws.
"So," he said, "I burned it in the backyard and started
over."
I asked him how he creates a
program (that could have 300 lessons). He said that he starts at the end
(what are students supposed to be able to do when they are done?) and works
backwards.
Let's be honest, unlike the ordinary
ed perfesser, eduguru, and fly-by-night edubook
writer (who come off badly--brainwise--when put up
against a chicken) Engelmann and his colleagues are geniuses--which means they
work REAL hard for a loooooong time.
They say you can't be a prophet in
your own country. Well, that's true here. Engelmann (and DI in
general) has been shunned by the progressive ed
establishment all these decades. Why? BECAUSE DI WORKS!! It
works so well that it becomes clear that any other form of instruction (less
logical) DAMAGES kids. So, to save themselves (because junk is what they
sell) they have to demonize DI and hide the data showing how well it
works. How do you spell f r a u d?
[You can thank George W. Bush and
Rod Paige for emphasizing systematic and explicit instruction in reading, and
next math--because DI is THE EXEMPLAR of that.]
I'm not saying that DI is the only
way to teach, and I have NO financial interest in the publisher
(SRA/McGraw-Hill), but if you want instruction that has these features--clear,
effective, efficient, high level--then DI would be your best bet.
Teach
your child to read in 100 easy lessons.
Preventing
failure in the primary grades
Give
your child a superior mind
If your kids are struggling to read
k-3, then use 100 Easy Lessons. [In fact, teach them to read before they
get to school!!] If your kids are older (grade 3 to adult) DEMAND that your
school use Corrective
Reading.
You can be sure that your kid is
not alone. It should be a school wide endeavor.
If you get the three above books,
you will know just how much your kids CAN learn and just exactly how they
SHOULD be taught. And you will be able to teach them.
In planning any operation, it is
vital to remember, and constantly repeat to oneself, two things: "In war
nothing is impossible, provided you use audacity," and "Do not take
counsel of your fears." [George S. Patton, Jr. War as I knew it,
1947.]