As Murphy has it. Today, a mother stopped by unannounced at around 4 p.m, I was having a diarrhea and she had to wait for me for 10 minutes while I finished my business.:-)
She came to check us out because her client’s children were in my Spell to Write and Read class and she heard that I am married to an “angmoh”. She came with the hope that her son will be learning English from the “angmoh”, regretably I disappointed her.:-)
Then, she saw all the Montessori materials I have and asked about them. I explained to her about what we do with 3-4 years old when they enter a Montessori classroom. She was like “That’s all?” “What else do you do with them?”
Well, my Montessori albums filled about 20 two-ring-binders (3″ thick”), the curriculum covered 5 areas( Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Language Arts and Cultural) and 18 subjects, and excuse me, ‘What else?’
Do parents expect their pre-schoolers taking up rocket science this days?
The woman also asked me a question that almost everybody asked me: “Phonics? Smart Reader? Something like Smart Reader?”
“Smart Reader” is anything but smart.
And has not much to do with phonics.
First, the sounds they taught aren’t right.
Second, parroting is not reading.
Third, your neighbor’s sister’s uncle’s cousin’s son/daughter did really well through Smart Reader for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they have good visual memory, they will excel anyhow with any other programs, in fact will just learn how to read without a program like yours truly who is a true blue visual learner.
Forth, If you think all this phonics thingy are just too difficult to understand since we never learn it in school during our days, I am sure the majority of kindie teachers would too. The blinds leading the blinds, Holland is the destination.
I seriously think the amount of remedial work I have to do with children who have shown dyslexic tendencies and reversal problems had a lot to do with the popularity of the program and the lack of understanding of learning process for many kindie teachers, in another word, induced dyslexia
Will they sue me for defamation for saying that? I am very afraid !:-)
This woman, Wanda Sensari (the author of Spell to Write and Read) called a not so smart program like this: Fickle phonics in her Senate Hearing Speech.