HomeBlog8 easy steps to kill the love of reading in every student. Kathleen Jasper July 28, 2014 35 Comments Last night, after the final bedtime story, I closed the book and started to get up from my daughter’s bed. Just as I was about to make it out the door, she pulled a book from under her covers – Olivia, a book about a tenacious little pig. I was exhausted but indulged her anyway. How could I resist? She’s going into kindergarten this year, and it won’t be long until the system turns her love of reading into a arduous task. Kids enter school loving books, begging to be read to at night. Little readers fetch books from the book basket, clutching the ones they love to their chests. Then the system begins to systematically break down that love of reading with a backwards approach to literacy. It happens slowly but surely. Want to know how to squash the love of reading in any student? Follow the 8 steps most public school systems impose on children, and you will see students turn from lovers of literacy to haters of the written word. First things first…make it a competition. Make sure there are definitive winners and losers. Implementing a competitive reading curriculum provides students the failure they’ll need to hate reading long into their high school years. Get them early. It is important to introduce laborious reading tasks at a young age, like kindergarten. We recommend assigning lots of site word recognition requirements for your youngest students. For example, tell your kindergarteners that they will have to memorize 100-200 sight words before the end of the year. That will instill a sense of urgency coupled with overwhelming anxiety, two feelings necessary for students to hate reading. Repeatedly pull students out of class to assess their reading level. This elicits apathy in students because pulling them from class is embarrassing and reinforces their inadequacy. Be sure to remove them from the classes they like most, such as art or music. Then isolate them while assessing their reading skills. Isolation and assessment is a combination students detest. Introduce words that imply students are bad readers. Use words like non-proficient and below grade level. Using deficit phrases like these will facilitate a self-fulfilling prophecy and students will begin to believe they are, indeed, terrible readers. Make the state reading test the most important aspect of students’ academic careers. Making their entire scholastic existence dependent on one reading exam will impose the stress and apprehension necessary for reading anxiety. Force students to take reading tests on the computer. It’s BRUTAL to read long, boring passages on a computer screen and a surefire way to get students frustrated while reading. Burning eyes, aching neck, and an uncomfortable seat are perfect for hours of hate reading. Making the state reading test computer-based is a bonus. Students’ ability to read and retain information is diminished when forced to read on the computer, which only ups the failure rate. Only allow students to read prescribed reading material. Removing choice from literacy is essential in encouraging a hatred of reading in students. Research shows, students who have no choice in how they engage with text, abhor reading the most. When choosing for a student, be sure to select text that is monotonous, uninteresting and non-relatable. Students will hate reading quickly once this practice is implemented. Associate reading with failure. Post students’ reading progress on the wall of the classroom, or even better, in the hallway; that way, students in other classes are privy to everyone’s reading progress. Some people like to call these data walls, but we like to call them shame walls, and they are very effective in getting young people to associate reading with disappointment and inadequacy. Be sure to use certain colors when representing reading progression, or lack there of. For example, for those who do not read well, use a color like red or orange so they are sure to understand their deficiency. Unfortunately, these 8 steps are staples in the current approach to reading instruction in American Public Schools. Although our proficiency levels have not moved in this country since the onslaught of accountability, testing, remediation and other costly initiatives designed to gauge reading, we have done an awesome job of killing any love of literacy students may have had. Once exposed to these tactics, students stop looking in the book basket and cease to ask for one more bedtime story. In fact, I venture to say children come to us as readers, but leave us hating the written word. This ultimately is our failure, not theirs. 35 Responses Naomi July 28, 2014 So, why not homeschool? You won’t regret it if you do. Reply Kevin August 7, 2014 because kids lose essential social skills Reply Mary K August 7, 2014 That’s not remotely true and has been shown over and over and over and over and over and over again. It honestly amazes me that people still use this completely made up argument. Jim Oase August 9, 2014 Which of these social skills are taught in K-12 compulsory education; ethics, morality, integrity and a rich knowledge of history? There are no pressures preventing our original common core from being taught at home in home schools. Suzanne August 16, 2014 No they don’t!! Our daughter was homeschooled 41/2 hours per day and the other activities were with others. Who do you want your children to emulate…you or others? You want them to follow your language, your morals, your manners, etc. Socialization of our children has been the downfall of public education. Gene Modin August 19, 2014 children learn essential social skills around the family dinner table Mary Lancaster August 24, 2014 Child are not getting social skills, there’s no time for that too busy testing and accessing! Annmarie Ferry July 28, 2014 Some people are lucky enough to have choices such as homeschooling, but not everyone can pull that off. I think this article points out the ridiculous reality that school becomes a place where the love of learning goes to die. It won’t happen that way for every kid, but it happens to enough of them that we need to make some serious changes. Visit any high school (not the top-level classes with intrinsically motivated kids, but the average to below average classes), and you will see what labeling does to our kids. And, that labeling all starts with test results. Reply Dawn Casey-Rowe July 28, 2014 I agree, Annmarie, labeling is horrid, but sometimes it doesn’t go the way you’d expect. In my experience as a high school teacher, often times the “low groups” outperform the “high groups.” This is because, properly motivated, low groups don’t feel academic success on a regular basis. High groups often feel entitled to A’s. I’ve done as little as said, “I don’t expect this from a group this smart…” and that was it. No more. Those classes (low groups as it were) outperformed all my “high groups” but weren’t able to get the honors credit, because their classification wasn’t as an honors class. Sadness. Reply Rosie August 1, 2014 My grandson could read before Pre k, then he started school, at some point they slid in common core with out the parents knowledge. The story goes that in the next two years this little one started to hate school, hate reading, hate learning. And most of his homework was “test prep” with insane math. I pray that common core will be thrown out of every school. My children grew up loving to read, but my grandchildren will not have this option with common core. It is my prayer that every parent finds out the truth behind the hype that is common core and stands against it. It has to go for the sake of our children. Bill Gates said it is an experiment? Our children are not lab rats. Reply Miranda August 5, 2014 This happened to my son almost exactly! He was reading before preK not perfectly but reading! He went to preK and excelled!! Then Kindergarten. He still excelled but HATED school. n He began hating reading and never wanted to do it. He only did what the teacher MADE him do. Difference? PreK is elective in our state and Kindergarten is not. Common Core was not part of PreK. We homeschool now and it is a slow process to “unteach” what they did to his love of learning. We are getting there but slowly. I blame this directly on the teacher this time. I usually don’t pass blame but she REFUSED to challenge him and instead gave him the label of classroom helper because he finished too quickly and needed something to do. She made false promises to me of more challenging work, not more work but something to challenge his mind. Never happened. She finally told me she did not want him too far ahead of the other students. Seriously!! Reply vkpeay February 5, 2015 I am so happy for your son that you are now homeschooling. What you relate about how the teacher held him back from learning and reading at his own pace was my greatest fear for my daughter. I homeschooled her from a classical curriculum and I am graduating her this year. It was not always easy although she was always highly motivated and a natural student. It is an awesome responsibility that not everyone is willing to assume. I wish you success in your endeavors with your son. Robert August 5, 2014 Except of course that Common Core is only now being implemented in the states. Is CC perfect? No. But is IS disingenuous to take the failures of No Child Left Behind and other education initiatives, and blame them on the new kid on the block. Reply Mary Lancaster August 24, 2014 Same thing with my grandson! Reply Anne August 3, 2014 I totally agree. Here’s a ninth and tenth step: Talk a lot about the importance of reading, but don’t allow time for children to browse through library shelves or to browse through “too hard” books or to reread favorite books from previous years that are “too easy” or to become absorbed in new stories. Lack of time and “leveling” also kill the reading bug. One small correction: Sight words are words that are recognized when first seen (at first sight). Reply Anne August 3, 2014 Oops — and then I goofed, too! Here ARE ninth and tenth STEPS! Reply Cathy August 3, 2014 Greetings! to whomever may read my post. I am Cathy, a mother, now grandmother, an educator and entrepreneur. I have home schooled my children – which grew into a private school and have studied education all of my adult life. I see a very important element to the solution of someone becoming educated and liberty loving and that is the adult/child illiteracy problem. For a parent to want to take control of their child’s education – which is the solution to Common Core – they have to be able to read; they have to be functionally literate. According to Reading, Literacy and Educational Statistics (2012), nearly half of America’s adults are poor readers, or “functionally illiterate.” They can’t carry out simple tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing essays for a job. Twenty-one million Americans can’t read at all, forty-five million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can’t read their diplomas. Functionally illiterate adults will not take control of their child’s education because they lack the ability and confidence. However, I believe I have a solution. I have written a reading program that an illiterate adult can use to teach themselves and their child to read – which will heal the illiteracy of two generations at the same time. If you will look at the education debacle that America is suffering from it all boils down to reading. Let’s briefly review history, Horace Mann introduced a “whole-word” method of reading to replace the tried and true sound symbol method (phonics) and wisely the Boston school masters rejected it. However, a few decades later three principle progressives Colonel Francis W. Parker, G. Stanley Hall, and John Dewey advocated the use of the whole-word method. Dewey sees the whole-word/sight-word method as scientifically correct. By 1920, the whole-word method was being used in progressive private schools, which are trying to implement Dewey’s ideas. The theory behind progressive education is that life adjustment, the development of the proper social spirit is really the purpose of education and that the traditional academic approach in which the tools of learning are first mastered is not appropriate for the new age of social consciousness. Illiteracy soon followed this new method of teaching reading. Fast forward to today, our government has used the educational crisis that illiteracy has cause as the excuse to take over education. In 1983, the National Commission on Education released A Nation at Risk, the most influential report on education of the past few decades. A Nation at Risk called for an end to the minimum competency testing movement and the beginning of a high-stakes testing movement that would raise the nation’s standards of achievement drastically. In 1985, another report commissioned by the National Institution of Education, Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading, headed by Richard C. Anderson, continued the discussion of policies for improving schools and educational practices. President Clinton and Vice President Gore made improving education a cornerstone of their Administration, working to ensure that all Americans had the educational opportunities necessary to succeed in the global information economy. On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act cementing together STW, Goals 2000 and IASA into one smooth working machine. Obama’s Race to the Top will be the final nail in the coffin for mind control over America’s youth via public school education. So what is the solution? America’s parents taking back the ownership and responsibility of the their children. Will they do this if they themselves are functionally illiterate – No, would you? Solution: both parent and child learn to read together.Those that can read but do not know how to teach reading should also use my program to teach their children to read. I have found that most educators do not know how to teach reading, hence the proliferation of illiteracy continues to this day. A good education is very simple and inexpensive. I ran a K-8 grade school at the cost of $3,000 a year per student, our 8th graders test (Iowa Basics Standardized Test) results were at College Freshmen level (grade 13) across all subjects. They could read, calculate, think and therefore write well. I would like to see my reading program in the hands of all parents – anyone is able to use this program. I am not concerned about compensation. I would like to be apart of the solution and stop the damage that illiteracy has created in America for the last 85 plus years. My father (78), a brilliant man, who can build, create, and fix anything is a product of progressive education. He did not learn to read until he went on a mission for our church in his early twenties. He has suffered his entire life with feeling academically dumb. As a young child I was going down the same path, my parents put me in a private school that taught phonics and I learn to read in one summer. I know my reading program works. I used it in my school. Could you help me make it available to the public? Illiteracy is the cause – literacy is the solution for a freedom loving citizenry. Otherwise people will demand to be taken care of, because they can not and will not take care of themselves. Reply Mara March 8, 2015 I teach parents for a living. I am always hunting for curriculums. I’d love to learn more about your reading program. Reply karen holmquist March 9, 2015 Interested in your reading program, any chance it is available. Karen Reply karen holmquist March 9, 2015 I would love a copy of your reading program, I am very interested in seeing how it works. karen Reply Tina August 4, 2014 I would like to see a listing of eight ways to help children love reading. Can you post that. Give me a list of “Do’s” as well, please. Reply Dedra August 5, 2014 Read to them……and read to them with joy Let them see you reading and valuing reading Take a favorite book and act it out Make it a rule that everyone goes to bed with a book Twenty minutes of reading every day will grow readers Turn off the tv and read Go to a book store and spend time looking at interesting books Go to the library and get them a library card But again, because it can’t be said enough….VALUE READING and they will follow your example Reply Lisa August 10, 2014 I’d like to know where you get your information from. I happen to teach kindergarten and when my kids leave my room, they can read and they love to read. Before you assume every classroom in America is the same, maybe you should visit one instead of making assumptions. I’m tired of non educators “blogging” about what they think is best for every child. One incident turns into a rant about what is wrong with the entire education system. There are millions of teachers who work very hard to instill a love of learning into each of their students. I suggest you stick to positive ways to influence children instead of negative. Linda Kaler August 4, 2014 I teach, attempt to teach, special education students at a middle school. It breaks my heart that so many struggle with reading, written expression, and math. I am open to ANY suggestions. Reply Lorna Doone August 4, 2014 They need more oral opportunities. Kids love to read plays and act them out. Integrate the curriculum so that they are doing a play which is teaching science or social studies content. I’ve found my LD kids are fabulous at giving speeches and doing oral things. These can be tied to reading, when the interest level in the activity is high. Reply Bob August 4, 2014 So when do we blame our wonderful government? People act like it’s the educators who are at fault. Educators take their marching orders from the elected politicians. Ask any current teacher whether they agree with education in America. Please. If they tell you they support what’s happening, then blame can be placed at their feet. Otherwise, get to know the politicians we continue to elect into office. Reply Lorna Doone August 4, 2014 I’ll add one more I’ve observed as an arts teacher at the elementary level. Ban students from carrying books with them from class to class because it is a ‘discipline problem’. What bunk. Students who may not need much time to complete an assignment or who are disinterested in a particular subject or task will read instead. Is this such a crime? Why can’t they read in the lunch line…what’s the big deal, anyway? Some teachers and administrators are just to anal about organization and appearances. I ask, what looks worse… a bunch of kids reading during every spare minute they have or kids horsing around and getting noisy and ‘in trouble’ because they are bored out of their skulls? Reply Stephanie August 7, 2014 I love this post but it also makes me sad. For those who can’t homeschool we have to pick up the pieces that the public school leaves behind. I have friends whose 3rd graders had migraines and upset stomachs last year because they were so worried about reading tests. The only thing I can think of to offset the bad example is to be a good example. I wrote a tongue and cheek post this week and teaching your kids to love reading. Spoiler alert….read to them, a lot. No matter what the age. http://hugskissesandsnot.com/help-your-child-learn-to-love-reading/ Reply Sally Rosloff August 7, 2014 “She’s going into kindergarten this year, and it won’t be long until the system turns her love of reading into a arduous task.” Just curious what you are planning to do about this as it’s hard for me to believe, based on this article, that you would actually allow that to happen. Reply Kristi August 7, 2014 I don’t want to anger anyone, but if you disagree with this article then you should know that you are poorly informed about the public (and also the private) (and also some of the home) school system. As a student, I know from experience that we start to hate reading. Not because we want to rebel or because we get older but because its not a pastime or a hobby or even enjoyable. We don’t have fun reading when unrelatable books from fifty years ago are shoved down our throats. Reply Jim Oase August 9, 2014 Our stories tell our history, our stories are our parables. The reason one of my teachers told me ‘learn history or be doomed to repeat it’. Our Pilgrims, a name not given them until after the Civil War, came to the New World in search of freedom of education. Our schools don’t tell the Pilgrim story in that light therefore the lesson is lost. When the Geneva study Bible became common place people begin to question the King of England. His answer to this challenge, outlaw meetings to study the Geneva Bible. (A Bible with notes on the verse in a separate column. Notes that related to governing and living. The first Bible with numbered verses. The precursory, 90% copied, and called the King James Bible.) Nor are students taught that until 1623 the colony nearly starved while living under what would later named communist communal conditions, setup by their financing contract. It was their brave change to free enterprise in 1623 when they decided on Land Division that produced the famous, plentiful Thanksgivings that were to become federal holidays nearly two centuries later. Our schools do not teach why “folding money” is not in the Constitution. Or how the creation of National Banks sent our nation into cycles of feast and famine resulting in the Federal Reserve. Or how WWI and the newly passed Federal Reserve Act resulted in the “Debt Ceiling”. Our schools teach so little about out nation’s story. That old stuff from 50 years ago that is being repeated again today because you, and when your parents were in schools, aren’t allowed to read those old original documents. To learn those lessons. Reply Jim Oase August 9, 2014 For me this essay “I, Pencil” was an eye opener. How could something so simple require so many specialists and get made without a single mastermind directing its production? Then came compulsory K-12 education with its emphasis on a universal education, a one size fits all, production line approach to education. As companies shutter their doors and jobs chased talent our nation wonders why. Why hasn’t our education system produced the basic talent needed to effectively function in society? Why are our students graduating impoverished of skills and knowledge? Our education experts tell us more rigid, standardized curriculums producing fewer individual talents is the answer. After decades of failing education our parents, themselves products of this education system, no longer have sufficient educations to question those experts. With that in mind read I, Pencil by Leonard Read http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html “Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.” ~ Adolf Hitler “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” ~ Adolf Hitler Reply » What would you do if you weren’t in school? February 19, 2015 […] we ate our breakfast, she read me her favorite book, Olivia and the Fairy Princess. Then she said, “Can we go for a bike ride, […] Reply Judi Hughes March 8, 2015 SIGHT WORDS! Not site words! Reply Kathleen Jasper March 8, 2015 Thank you Judi. No need to shout We’ve fixed the error. Have a great day. Reply Leave a Reply Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. 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Mary K August 7, 2014 That’s not remotely true and has been shown over and over and over and over and over and over again. It honestly amazes me that people still use this completely made up argument.
Jim Oase August 9, 2014 Which of these social skills are taught in K-12 compulsory education; ethics, morality, integrity and a rich knowledge of history? There are no pressures preventing our original common core from being taught at home in home schools.
Suzanne August 16, 2014 No they don’t!! Our daughter was homeschooled 41/2 hours per day and the other activities were with others. Who do you want your children to emulate…you or others? You want them to follow your language, your morals, your manners, etc. Socialization of our children has been the downfall of public education.
Mary Lancaster August 24, 2014 Child are not getting social skills, there’s no time for that too busy testing and accessing!
Annmarie Ferry July 28, 2014 Some people are lucky enough to have choices such as homeschooling, but not everyone can pull that off. I think this article points out the ridiculous reality that school becomes a place where the love of learning goes to die. It won’t happen that way for every kid, but it happens to enough of them that we need to make some serious changes. Visit any high school (not the top-level classes with intrinsically motivated kids, but the average to below average classes), and you will see what labeling does to our kids. And, that labeling all starts with test results. Reply
Dawn Casey-Rowe July 28, 2014 I agree, Annmarie, labeling is horrid, but sometimes it doesn’t go the way you’d expect. In my experience as a high school teacher, often times the “low groups” outperform the “high groups.” This is because, properly motivated, low groups don’t feel academic success on a regular basis. High groups often feel entitled to A’s. I’ve done as little as said, “I don’t expect this from a group this smart…” and that was it. No more. Those classes (low groups as it were) outperformed all my “high groups” but weren’t able to get the honors credit, because their classification wasn’t as an honors class. Sadness. Reply
Rosie August 1, 2014 My grandson could read before Pre k, then he started school, at some point they slid in common core with out the parents knowledge. The story goes that in the next two years this little one started to hate school, hate reading, hate learning. And most of his homework was “test prep” with insane math. I pray that common core will be thrown out of every school. My children grew up loving to read, but my grandchildren will not have this option with common core. It is my prayer that every parent finds out the truth behind the hype that is common core and stands against it. It has to go for the sake of our children. Bill Gates said it is an experiment? Our children are not lab rats. Reply
Miranda August 5, 2014 This happened to my son almost exactly! He was reading before preK not perfectly but reading! He went to preK and excelled!! Then Kindergarten. He still excelled but HATED school. n He began hating reading and never wanted to do it. He only did what the teacher MADE him do. Difference? PreK is elective in our state and Kindergarten is not. Common Core was not part of PreK. We homeschool now and it is a slow process to “unteach” what they did to his love of learning. We are getting there but slowly. I blame this directly on the teacher this time. I usually don’t pass blame but she REFUSED to challenge him and instead gave him the label of classroom helper because he finished too quickly and needed something to do. She made false promises to me of more challenging work, not more work but something to challenge his mind. Never happened. She finally told me she did not want him too far ahead of the other students. Seriously!! Reply
vkpeay February 5, 2015 I am so happy for your son that you are now homeschooling. What you relate about how the teacher held him back from learning and reading at his own pace was my greatest fear for my daughter. I homeschooled her from a classical curriculum and I am graduating her this year. It was not always easy although she was always highly motivated and a natural student. It is an awesome responsibility that not everyone is willing to assume. I wish you success in your endeavors with your son.
Robert August 5, 2014 Except of course that Common Core is only now being implemented in the states. Is CC perfect? No. But is IS disingenuous to take the failures of No Child Left Behind and other education initiatives, and blame them on the new kid on the block. Reply
Anne August 3, 2014 I totally agree. Here’s a ninth and tenth step: Talk a lot about the importance of reading, but don’t allow time for children to browse through library shelves or to browse through “too hard” books or to reread favorite books from previous years that are “too easy” or to become absorbed in new stories. Lack of time and “leveling” also kill the reading bug. One small correction: Sight words are words that are recognized when first seen (at first sight). Reply
Cathy August 3, 2014 Greetings! to whomever may read my post. I am Cathy, a mother, now grandmother, an educator and entrepreneur. I have home schooled my children – which grew into a private school and have studied education all of my adult life. I see a very important element to the solution of someone becoming educated and liberty loving and that is the adult/child illiteracy problem. For a parent to want to take control of their child’s education – which is the solution to Common Core – they have to be able to read; they have to be functionally literate. According to Reading, Literacy and Educational Statistics (2012), nearly half of America’s adults are poor readers, or “functionally illiterate.” They can’t carry out simple tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing essays for a job. Twenty-one million Americans can’t read at all, forty-five million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can’t read their diplomas. Functionally illiterate adults will not take control of their child’s education because they lack the ability and confidence. However, I believe I have a solution. I have written a reading program that an illiterate adult can use to teach themselves and their child to read – which will heal the illiteracy of two generations at the same time. If you will look at the education debacle that America is suffering from it all boils down to reading. Let’s briefly review history, Horace Mann introduced a “whole-word” method of reading to replace the tried and true sound symbol method (phonics) and wisely the Boston school masters rejected it. However, a few decades later three principle progressives Colonel Francis W. Parker, G. Stanley Hall, and John Dewey advocated the use of the whole-word method. Dewey sees the whole-word/sight-word method as scientifically correct. By 1920, the whole-word method was being used in progressive private schools, which are trying to implement Dewey’s ideas. The theory behind progressive education is that life adjustment, the development of the proper social spirit is really the purpose of education and that the traditional academic approach in which the tools of learning are first mastered is not appropriate for the new age of social consciousness. Illiteracy soon followed this new method of teaching reading. Fast forward to today, our government has used the educational crisis that illiteracy has cause as the excuse to take over education. In 1983, the National Commission on Education released A Nation at Risk, the most influential report on education of the past few decades. A Nation at Risk called for an end to the minimum competency testing movement and the beginning of a high-stakes testing movement that would raise the nation’s standards of achievement drastically. In 1985, another report commissioned by the National Institution of Education, Becoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading, headed by Richard C. Anderson, continued the discussion of policies for improving schools and educational practices. President Clinton and Vice President Gore made improving education a cornerstone of their Administration, working to ensure that all Americans had the educational opportunities necessary to succeed in the global information economy. On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act cementing together STW, Goals 2000 and IASA into one smooth working machine. Obama’s Race to the Top will be the final nail in the coffin for mind control over America’s youth via public school education. So what is the solution? America’s parents taking back the ownership and responsibility of the their children. Will they do this if they themselves are functionally illiterate – No, would you? Solution: both parent and child learn to read together.Those that can read but do not know how to teach reading should also use my program to teach their children to read. I have found that most educators do not know how to teach reading, hence the proliferation of illiteracy continues to this day. A good education is very simple and inexpensive. I ran a K-8 grade school at the cost of $3,000 a year per student, our 8th graders test (Iowa Basics Standardized Test) results were at College Freshmen level (grade 13) across all subjects. They could read, calculate, think and therefore write well. I would like to see my reading program in the hands of all parents – anyone is able to use this program. I am not concerned about compensation. I would like to be apart of the solution and stop the damage that illiteracy has created in America for the last 85 plus years. My father (78), a brilliant man, who can build, create, and fix anything is a product of progressive education. He did not learn to read until he went on a mission for our church in his early twenties. He has suffered his entire life with feeling academically dumb. As a young child I was going down the same path, my parents put me in a private school that taught phonics and I learn to read in one summer. I know my reading program works. I used it in my school. Could you help me make it available to the public? Illiteracy is the cause – literacy is the solution for a freedom loving citizenry. Otherwise people will demand to be taken care of, because they can not and will not take care of themselves. Reply
Mara March 8, 2015 I teach parents for a living. I am always hunting for curriculums. I’d love to learn more about your reading program. Reply
karen holmquist March 9, 2015 Interested in your reading program, any chance it is available. Karen Reply
karen holmquist March 9, 2015 I would love a copy of your reading program, I am very interested in seeing how it works. karen Reply
Tina August 4, 2014 I would like to see a listing of eight ways to help children love reading. Can you post that. Give me a list of “Do’s” as well, please. Reply
Dedra August 5, 2014 Read to them……and read to them with joy Let them see you reading and valuing reading Take a favorite book and act it out Make it a rule that everyone goes to bed with a book Twenty minutes of reading every day will grow readers Turn off the tv and read Go to a book store and spend time looking at interesting books Go to the library and get them a library card But again, because it can’t be said enough….VALUE READING and they will follow your example Reply
Lisa August 10, 2014 I’d like to know where you get your information from. I happen to teach kindergarten and when my kids leave my room, they can read and they love to read. Before you assume every classroom in America is the same, maybe you should visit one instead of making assumptions. I’m tired of non educators “blogging” about what they think is best for every child. One incident turns into a rant about what is wrong with the entire education system. There are millions of teachers who work very hard to instill a love of learning into each of their students. I suggest you stick to positive ways to influence children instead of negative.
Linda Kaler August 4, 2014 I teach, attempt to teach, special education students at a middle school. It breaks my heart that so many struggle with reading, written expression, and math. I am open to ANY suggestions. Reply
Lorna Doone August 4, 2014 They need more oral opportunities. Kids love to read plays and act them out. Integrate the curriculum so that they are doing a play which is teaching science or social studies content. I’ve found my LD kids are fabulous at giving speeches and doing oral things. These can be tied to reading, when the interest level in the activity is high. Reply
Bob August 4, 2014 So when do we blame our wonderful government? People act like it’s the educators who are at fault. Educators take their marching orders from the elected politicians. Ask any current teacher whether they agree with education in America. Please. If they tell you they support what’s happening, then blame can be placed at their feet. Otherwise, get to know the politicians we continue to elect into office. Reply
Lorna Doone August 4, 2014 I’ll add one more I’ve observed as an arts teacher at the elementary level. Ban students from carrying books with them from class to class because it is a ‘discipline problem’. What bunk. Students who may not need much time to complete an assignment or who are disinterested in a particular subject or task will read instead. Is this such a crime? Why can’t they read in the lunch line…what’s the big deal, anyway? Some teachers and administrators are just to anal about organization and appearances. I ask, what looks worse… a bunch of kids reading during every spare minute they have or kids horsing around and getting noisy and ‘in trouble’ because they are bored out of their skulls? Reply
Stephanie August 7, 2014 I love this post but it also makes me sad. For those who can’t homeschool we have to pick up the pieces that the public school leaves behind. I have friends whose 3rd graders had migraines and upset stomachs last year because they were so worried about reading tests. The only thing I can think of to offset the bad example is to be a good example. I wrote a tongue and cheek post this week and teaching your kids to love reading. Spoiler alert….read to them, a lot. No matter what the age. http://hugskissesandsnot.com/help-your-child-learn-to-love-reading/ Reply
Sally Rosloff August 7, 2014 “She’s going into kindergarten this year, and it won’t be long until the system turns her love of reading into a arduous task.” Just curious what you are planning to do about this as it’s hard for me to believe, based on this article, that you would actually allow that to happen. Reply
Kristi August 7, 2014 I don’t want to anger anyone, but if you disagree with this article then you should know that you are poorly informed about the public (and also the private) (and also some of the home) school system. As a student, I know from experience that we start to hate reading. Not because we want to rebel or because we get older but because its not a pastime or a hobby or even enjoyable. We don’t have fun reading when unrelatable books from fifty years ago are shoved down our throats. Reply
Jim Oase August 9, 2014 Our stories tell our history, our stories are our parables. The reason one of my teachers told me ‘learn history or be doomed to repeat it’. Our Pilgrims, a name not given them until after the Civil War, came to the New World in search of freedom of education. Our schools don’t tell the Pilgrim story in that light therefore the lesson is lost. When the Geneva study Bible became common place people begin to question the King of England. His answer to this challenge, outlaw meetings to study the Geneva Bible. (A Bible with notes on the verse in a separate column. Notes that related to governing and living. The first Bible with numbered verses. The precursory, 90% copied, and called the King James Bible.) Nor are students taught that until 1623 the colony nearly starved while living under what would later named communist communal conditions, setup by their financing contract. It was their brave change to free enterprise in 1623 when they decided on Land Division that produced the famous, plentiful Thanksgivings that were to become federal holidays nearly two centuries later. Our schools do not teach why “folding money” is not in the Constitution. Or how the creation of National Banks sent our nation into cycles of feast and famine resulting in the Federal Reserve. Or how WWI and the newly passed Federal Reserve Act resulted in the “Debt Ceiling”. Our schools teach so little about out nation’s story. That old stuff from 50 years ago that is being repeated again today because you, and when your parents were in schools, aren’t allowed to read those old original documents. To learn those lessons. Reply
Jim Oase August 9, 2014 For me this essay “I, Pencil” was an eye opener. How could something so simple require so many specialists and get made without a single mastermind directing its production? Then came compulsory K-12 education with its emphasis on a universal education, a one size fits all, production line approach to education. As companies shutter their doors and jobs chased talent our nation wonders why. Why hasn’t our education system produced the basic talent needed to effectively function in society? Why are our students graduating impoverished of skills and knowledge? Our education experts tell us more rigid, standardized curriculums producing fewer individual talents is the answer. After decades of failing education our parents, themselves products of this education system, no longer have sufficient educations to question those experts. With that in mind read I, Pencil by Leonard Read http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html “Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.” ~ Adolf Hitler “He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” ~ Adolf Hitler Reply
» What would you do if you weren’t in school? February 19, 2015 […] we ate our breakfast, she read me her favorite book, Olivia and the Fairy Princess. Then she said, “Can we go for a bike ride, […] Reply
Kathleen Jasper March 8, 2015 Thank you Judi. No need to shout We’ve fixed the error. Have a great day. Reply
