ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 20, 1996 TAG: 9602200105
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRED C. JONES III
I AGREE with John C. LeDoux (Jan. 26 commentary, "Schools have lost public confidence") that our country is facing the serious problem of a high rate of illiteracy. I disagree with him on the causes of the problem and his proposed solutions.
He writes that the rise in illiteracy resulted from using a teaching method he terms "whole-word." The heart of his solution is a return to a phonics-based method of teaching reading. This method involves practice and drills even he admits are "not fun."
I attended a parochial school, and labored under the very system of phonics that LeDoux supports. I see phonics alone as a flawed system because it tries to apply logic when frequently there's none.
Why are "rove," "love" and "move" spelled so similarly, yet pronounced so differently? The same applies to "rough" and "though," "go" and "to," "sore" and "sure," etc. Never was it pointed out that much of our written language makes no sense phonetically.
The rise in illiteracy has less to do with our schools and teaching methods, and more to do with the pervasiveness of television. It's more than coincidence that the growth of television parallels the rise in illiteracy. So much has been written on this subject that anyone doubting its profoundly negative impact on our society is probably someone having indeed suffered from this very influence!
My answer to the problem of illiteracy begins by not just turning off the television, but disposing of it. The concept of limiting viewing is one of the great myths of our day. Once a child recovers from the mind-numbing effect of network and cable television, he can be introduced to the world of books. His imagination will awaken, and anything the Disney Channel produces will pale in comparison. The desire to read will result in a receptive student able to learn quickly and well with only supportive help from teachers or parents.
The belief that a child would want to read and, when ready, could learn with only minimal assistance is incomprehensible today. But reading "Charlotte's Web" to a child will go further toward teaching him to read than anything ever produced on "Sesame Street." By reading "Treasure Island" to a class, a teacher will ultimately do more to eliminate illiteracy than any phonics lesson the teacher could ever cover.
There's a place for phonics just as there's a place for the alphabet. However, these and all other teaching methods take a back seat to first developing in a child the desire to read. Television has taken away this desire. As long as there's a mindless box where children vegetate in front of it, and as long as parents fail to read to their children, illiteracy will continue to rise. Don't be surprised.
Fred C. Jones III, a former veterinarian, farms in Pilot.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 linesby CNB