Time Article - What Teachers Hate about Parents (x-posted)

In article ,
dragonlady wrote:

There is at least one education guru (can't remember who) who recommends
not teaching kids to read until they are 10. He maintains that MOST
kids will pick it up organically if they are read to and exposed to the
written language a lot -- that they will learn written language the same
way they learned spoken language

Bah! Humbug! This implies that reading is an innate skill, like walking or
talking. It isn't; it's no more innate than driving a car is.

As a corollary I offer the suggestion that dyslexia might actually be a normal
variation in human ability, just like my own lack of coordination.

-- but that the few who don't aren't
ready for the formalized type of "teaching reading" until they are that
age.

I'd agree that for those who find reading difficult, it might be put off for a
few years without ill effect (apart from the adjustments required to other
parts of the curriculum). OTOH if a child is teachign himself to read
earlier, I don't see any reason to withhold that skill from him.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"In Melbourne there is plenty of vigour and eagerness, but there is
nothing worth being eager or vigorous about."
Francis Adams, The Australians, 1893.

In article .com,
says...


Banty wrote:
In article , toto says...

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 10:25:22 +0000, Penny Gaines
wrote:

Banty wrote:

4 x 8 .... ? I dunno... I think it's somewhere between 28 to 36.
No,
it's not 36 because that's 6 x 6 and I know that one. Okay lemme
see: 8
+ 8 = 16. 16 + 16 is, um, (6+6 is 12, air fingers to carry the 1
...
1+1+1= 3...). Got it!

I break it down to 2x8x2 = 16x2 = 32. Always have.

4 x 8 = 32 - I know that one. It is when it comes to things like

8 x 7 = (7**2) + 7 = 49 + 7 = 56

You mean (7*7) + 7 don't you?

That's the Fortran (and probably other languages) way of expressing
"7 to the second power", which would be "7 squared".


You could also do (8*8) - 8 = 64 - 8 = 56. of course.

There are many ways to do this if you don't have some of the
facts memorized.

You could also do (10 - 2)* 7 = (10*7) - (2*7) = 70 - 14 = 56,
for example since the 10's and doubles are often the easiest
ones to remember.

Oh, but if you're on a time trial with math facts, all this
cleverness doesn't
help as much as having the facts down cold. And having the facts
down cold in
life gets you...... gets you...... Help me out here, Dorothy

Banty

It gets you higher scores in tests that allow you to do things that
result in taking more tests where you can get higher scores...I think
this has some logical conclusion, I'm just not sure what it is.

That's IT!

And, you can do that little sniff if someone around you hestitates slightly
if an arithmetic product comes up.

Banty (sniff the state of education these days!)

dragonlady wrote:

I used to figure the tip and then leave an extra $1 per kid -- more if
they'd been particularly messy. And add more if the service had been
particularly wonderful. About the only thing I'll lower the tip for is
if they don't keep my water filled after I've asked them to, or if I
have to wait for the bill for a VERY LONG TIME with cranky kids....

Doesn't that drive you insane? You would think it would be
in their best interests to get the table turned over and get the
ticking time bombs out of the restaurant. My other pet peeve is
when they put very hot things or sharp knives or what have you
right in front of the baby. Hellooooooo.....

Best wishes,
Ericka

On 28 Feb 2005 21:16:42 -0800, "shinypenny"
wrote:


Seveigny wrote:
They work for me but I taught my youngest daughter a different
method--mind
maps or webs.
~cate

Please tell.

jen

Here's a pdf file explaining topic webs

http://www.heckgrammar.kirklees.sch..../topicwebs.pdf

Note that there are other ways of organizing these.
I used them not for writing papers so much but for brainstorming
subthemes and ideas to use for the themes in teaching in a
preschool classroom. In that case, you can put the major topic
in the middle and simply branch out to different subtopics to
see where it will take you. With my preschool kids, we could
brainstorm and then decide what area the *kids* liked best
and might enjoy focussing on. Most themes are so broad
that narrowing them down is really helpful.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

Julnar wrote:
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 23:07:54 -0500, Bob LeChevalier
wrote:
Knowledge is increasing exponentially and the other countries that are
already ahead of us educationally are improving their educational
performance as much as we are. Gotta keep on the treadmill of
competition or we'll get further behind, and then bye bye luxurious
American lifestyle.

Luxurious lifestyle? Americans work more than any other
industrialized nation and it's just getting worse. That isn't
luxury-- just a gilded cage.

But we have more "things", so that makes us wealthier! And more of us
actually own our own homes. And some small number of us get to retire
at 40 and complain about taxes on their investment income. It's a
gilded cage, but we own it.

lojbab
--
lojbab
Bob LeChevalier, Founder, The Logical Language Group
(Opinions are my own; I do not speak for the organization.)
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org

shinypenny wrote:


Seveigny wrote:
They work for me but I taught my youngest daughter a different
method--mind
maps or webs.
~cate

Please tell.

You probably need to see one to understand them.

Basically, you start by writing the topic in the centre of a page,
and drawing box off it. Then you think of the sub-divisions, and
sub-divisions off those, and write them off the other sub-divisions.

You can use colour or pictures or CAPITALS or whatever, to spark off
different ideas.

These two links probably give more ideas:
http://www.peterussell.com/mindmaps/mindmap.html
http://www.mind-map.com/EN/mindmaps/how_to.html

I think they are probably very effective for visuals learners to use.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

Banty wrote:

In article , toto says...

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 10:25:22 +0000, Penny Gaines
wrote:

Banty wrote:

4 x 8 .... ? I dunno... I think it's somewhere between 28 to 36. No,
it's not 36 because that's 6 x 6 and I know that one. Okay lemme see: 8
+ 8 = 16. 16 + 16 is, um, (6+6 is 12, air fingers to carry the 1 ...
1+1+1= 3...). Got it!

I break it down to 2x8x2 = 16x2 = 32.**Always*have.

4 x 8 = 32 - I know that one. It is when it comes to things like

8 x 7 = (7**2) + 7 = 49 + 7 = 56

You mean (7*7) + 7 don't you?

That's the Fortran (and probably other languages) way of expressing
"7 to the second power", which would be "7 squared".
[snip]

Yep, that's what I was thinking.

Oh, but if you're on a time trial with math facts, all this cleverness
doesn't
help as much as having the facts down cold. And having the facts down
cold in
life gets you...... gets you...... Help me out here, Dorothy

Gets you more chances to get a job as an astronaut. At least it did
according to the books I read in the 1980s, which were probably published
in the 1970s.

Depressinly, one of my kid's newly published books talks about how
"when you are grown up there will be people living in space". It
sounded just like the books I read when I was growing up. And they
were wrong :-(.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

On 28 Feb 2005 23:43:38 -0800, "sf" wrote:

sf
posting from google due to computer problems)

And google must be having problems too. I got 4 of this post.
vbg


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 04:23:13 GMT, Rowley
wrote:

It was a advertisement about a poster.



Don't know if there are any leason plans to go with it or have
been developed around it - I was too busy today to check to see
if I can find any.

Martin

Thanks, Martin. I am interested. I don't know if I will research if
further now, but I may order the poster for future use.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 21:00:39 -0800, Rick Fey
wrote:

I'll get slammed for this, but I don't believe that content is that
critical at the elementary level, despite the trend to beef up academics
in kindergarten. I don't want to turn elementary schools into
departmentalized Junior Middle Schools, but that's the way it's going.

I agree with this to an extent.

I would like to see the specialists come to each classroom rather
than having the children move from room to room. This is somewhat
harder for the teachers, but *if* each classroom is equipped with
all the *things* that each teacher needs, then it can be done. When
I was in elementary school, our music teachers moved from class
to class, we did not go to the music room until 4th grade when we
might be taking an instrument. We did go to art or gym because
the classroom was specially equipped. This might also be good
for science if there was a specially equipped math-science room
though with all of the manipulatives and lab equipment.

It's hard to determine what works best. I think integrated curriculum
does work well, but only in the hands of someone who really teaches
the math in the context of the other lessons. It seems that most of
the time, writing and reading *are* integrated across the curriculum,
but math and science are not.


--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits