The
following is extracted from a conversation in Face Book with a good friend Rova
Rose, a retired medical doctor. You can find him on FB here:
This is
part one of our conversation. I’ll write my comments in the next few days.
Bob
"What Bob Rose thinks is that
"phonics rules" don't really exist, especially for our vowels, so
what counts is the sound represented in the particular word the student is
learning to write. The association is made mentally as the student "silently"
say the word (with its sounds) silently to himself as the word is repetitively
written."
· Luqman Michel You said
"The association is made mentally as the student "silently" say the
word (with its sounds) silently to himself as the word is repetitively
written." However, the very important question to ponder upon is as to why
the failure rate has remained about 20% despite teaching in whatever method?
The answer to this question will reduce the illiteracy level.
Bob Rose Luqman:
Adams has informed us that most American students finishing two years of school
still can't handwrite and identify all of the alphabet letters. Kids can't
silently say the words they write if they can't write words, and they can't
write words if they can't write the alphabet. If the schools begin to teach
fluent handwriting, as I hope they will, we'll finally have an answer to your
most important question.
Bob
Rose
Luqman:
I don't think any schools in the USA stress handwriting practice. The National
Reading Panel report to Congress in 2000 reported they couldn't find any
published articles on the efficacy of handwriting practice. A book published
for teachers by
the Bush administration after NCLD just said, "Most reading programs
contain a writing element", and the result is that most kids still can't
write and name all of the letters. In answer to your question, all teachers who
stress handwriting practice to fluency are successful, and the others have high
rates of reading failure, no matter which method they use.
· Luqman Michel How does hand
writing to fluency improve one’s reading ability which leads to reduction in
illiteracy level?
· Bob Rose Luqman: we
find that "writing fluent" means the ability to write the alphabet at
40 letters per minute (that means, the whole 26 letters in 40 seconds or less).
Once the kid can write the alphabet, writing it once daily for a few months
gets kids up to that rate. Any child over the age of four can do it, and they
love to watch their LPM rate gradually go up.
Bob Rose We
find that once "writing fluent", kids read spontaneously, just as I
describe on my posted YouTube presentation.
· Bob Rose Montessori
taught that writing fluency leads to the ability to "mentally
envision" correctly spelled words, and I think you can't remember something,
or make it "familiar" unless you can think about it. Some folks claim
to be unable to make "mental images", but a neurology expert claims
that everyone does, even if "subconsciously".
Luqman Michel I have
still to figure out how writing fluently can improve reading in the English
language. I can understand how it will help a kid studying in Italian, Tamil, Malay
or any other orthographically consistent language but not in English.
· Bob Rose Luqman: I
assume that all over the word, reading is the same physiologic process. How
handwriting fluency leads to literacy isn't really important. What counts is
just whether or not it does, and the only way to see if it does is to teach it
in schools, and see.
· Bob Rose So far, no
one has checked it out, and half of American second graders being unable to
write well is not a good sign. I've posted this idea all over the place, like
the FB page of BET (Black Entertainment TV) which has five million
"likes", so maybe someday we'll find out.
Bob Rose Professor
Patrick Groff published a paper saying that the writing idea can't be
disproved, because no one has formally studied this idea.
· Luqman Michel We must ask how
the following was possible - Scientists from State U of NY were able to reduce
the number of children who require ongoing re-mediation from the National
average of 30% down to about 2%! Why has this not been implemented throughout
the US?
Luqman Michel Of
course it not only does no harm teaching one to write fluently it should be
enforced as it is good. But that is where it should stop. It has nothing to do
with reading fluently. Bob, keep an open mind and think of what I am saying.
Writing fluently is good and should be recommended. I learnt to write well in
school.
· Luqman Michel Tell me Bob,
after teaching a kid to write a zillion times words beginning with 'o' as in
October, Octopus, or, ostracise, oblique etc you ask the kid to read 'to' 'do'
etc how will he sound these words? Bob, just think of this question and answer.
How will he read words like - ocean, open, own, etc. We will continue tomorrow.
· Bob Rose Luqman: I'm
glad you agree that kids should be taught to write the alphabet automatically.
I think I have an open mind. We'll just have to wait until such teaching is
done, and see what happens.
1 comment:
Nice to read this article.You have briefly described about"Hand writing will improve literacy".I completely agree with your point.Hand writing is an essential skill needed for students .Thank you so much for sharing this article.
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