Learning to read

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33154, 19 February 1973, Page 12

Learning to read

Sit, —The true reason for failure in learning to read is that the children are taught by stupid methods at school. I have recently taught a nonreading six-year-old bey to read. At first, he was allowed home from school an hour early on a Friday afternoon and he progressed rapidly. He enjoyed learning how to sound out the three-letter words in my phonetic sentences, and the thrill of being thought clever again. Then his headmaster forbade the early Friday, even though it was a library period, and said the tuition was too much like ballet lessons. With the later time and no spelling homework from school, he slowed down; but he came up from “below average” to “average” in reading and he changed from “aggressive” to “well behaved.” Alphabet and phonetic methods are superior to word recognition and guessing.—Yours, etc., REFORMER. February 16, 1973.