That isn't quite what this is about. This is really about Ethan Siegel's latest article:
Ask Ethan #32:Are our students doomed to an inferior education? In this one he answers a question from one of his readers about the changes that are being made in the way literacy skills are being taught.
He starts by discussing the change here in the USA when they went from phonics to word recognition. There was a huge clamour about it.
Then he looks at the statistics for literacy over a range of years covering the changeover. The average literacy of students showed no statistically significant differences between the 2 methods.
He reaches the conclusion that the main requirement be that they are taught, not necessarily how they are taught.
The other thing is a discussion of what children should be taught. That leads to a discussion of the fact that children should not be expected to all be good at the same things.
Basically they are all different and should be encouraged to develop a tool kit of knowledge that will be of use to them as individuals, instead of having them all be the same.
It is an interesting article.
Bill Gill
