Why John Still Can't Read...

Objectively, there are about 30 countries whose kids have outdistanced us on their academic achievements . In India alone, there are more kids on a rigorous countrywide Advanced ed schedule than there are all the kids in school in the US. Also their bottom quartile is still hiher achieving than is ours.
The international "testing" is not controlled by the US and some "feelgood" wonks. Its an objective rating system that shows us to be slowly outdistanced.

As far as "going to the moon", that was then, this is now and tomorrow.

This isn't saying that we're doing spectacularly well, just that we're not doing nearly as badly as many people seem to think, either.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/09/27/100927taco_talk_lemann

No. You are most definitively wrong.

My six year old reads just fine. She can read a story on her own. She enjoys reading funny stories and and gets the jokes in Shel Silverstien poems she reads flawlessly. She can answer questions about stories she reads and repeat the story in her own words. She reads instructions on the computer screen in games that are largely text based. She is able to follow written instructions perfectly to solve the games.

She can not pick out the subject in a sentence. This doesn't hurt her one bit, and it doesn't prevent her from enjoying any of the benefits of reading.

She will inevitably be forced to pick out subjects and objects and dependent clauses. Sadly this will not be for the wonder and great curiosity that are intrinsic in to humans. Instead it will be because adults will manipulate her with test scores and grades. This will push her the learning drudgery that will replace what right now is a natural, joyful and creative act.

But this is only because grown ups think that enjoying a good story or laughing at a written joke or the wonder of discovering new worlds and ideas is too much fun to be considered "education".

I'm scratching my head over what you think this has to do with me.

Where do you teach? Why are making one child, albeit yours, a sign that everything is smooth as silk?

There are remedial text books published for college developmental courses with chapters and worksheets and web sites organized to help legions of people do what I do: teach people who want college degrees and professional certifications that the subject of a sentence is never the object of a prepositional phrase.

Why are you telling me that what I have done for the past five semesters doesn't exist?

Anyone who thinks that the subject of this sentence -- Mary put the sugar into the canister -- is sugar can not read. I have given students quizzes made up of simple sentences just like this one and the one about John's laundry after writing sentences and practicing exercises and these kids still can not find the subject. They can't find the verb either.

They are tested as they enter the school, then they are placed in remedial writing and remedial reading.

So, where do you teach? What is your experience?

I'm not max but I think it's very possible for someone to read and understand the sentence "Mary put the sugar in the canister" without knowing what the subject and the verb or anything else is.

Children understand all sorts of speech without knowing the grammar.

How is reading "Mary put the sugar in the canister" that much different from hearing "Mary put the sugar in the canister"?

If they can read the words and understand the meaning how can you say that they don't know how to read?

I'm not trying to be argumentative but I really don't understand.

When I was in school we didn't diagram sentences until the 8th grade. I'd been reading and understanding for years and years by then.

Most of those same people can not answer questions on the reading immediately after finishing. They can not answer Who did what? Reading levels are determined by a person's ability to answer questions on what they read.

Does it make sense for these students to be in both remedial reading and remedial writing if they can read? (I declined to teach remedial writing because it would upset me too much. However, I make certain that my students search for the details in things they read. My 101 students will read at least one example of every kind of essay -- compare and contrast; narration; definition; argument, etc.-- even if they never write in that style. They need help in ferreting out details.

During my elementary school years, we diagrammed from third grade until ninth or tenth but not beyond. We also wrote more in the third grade than these kids do as college freshmen. My current class of remedial students was surprised when I told them that none of their first paragraphs were sufficient. They were told that four or five sentences make a paragraph.

You wrote that you read and understood for years before you diagrammed. That is the individual case: you understood. These kids don't. I'm surprised that diagramming was started in eighth grade. As I said above, we did it from the third grade. We also completed the same sort of grammar exercises many of my students can not successfully accomplish. "Draw one line under the subject of the following sentences and two lines under the predicate."

I bet you worked the same sort of drills at a younger age. We did them as elementary school students until each child finished the grammar text every year.

Last semester, I asked my intermediate students what a sentence is. One answered, "five words." The definition, "a sentence is a group of words having a subject and a predicate expressing a single complete thought," was unknown to them.

Read your own words Plainoldme. Everything you are saying is hyperbole.

"legions of people"
"... telling me that what I have done for the past five semesters doesn't exist?"
"Anyone who thinks that the subject of this sentence -- Mary put the sugar into the canister -- is sugar can not read"

If you make more moderate claims, maybe we can find some middle ground to agree on. When you make such absolute claims about who can or can't read, I only need one example to dispute it. This unequivocal statement you are making is clearly wrong.

Now look, I have not said that what you do is useless (other than the diagramming sentences part and I assume you do more than diagram sentences). I certainly think remedial reading is very useful for some people. And I am probably willing to admit that even sentence diagramming is useful for some people. If you are helping people to be successful in college, then I absolutely respect that.

But I can tell you with absolute certainty that exercises like diagramming sentences was more than a waste of time for me. It was one of the things that made learning a drudgery which in my case was an obstacle. Obviously there are many people who feel the same way.

You should understand the value of your job. The people who come to you presumably come to you voluntarily. They also presumably can leave on their own if they don't feel you are helping them. In other words, the people you work with are their by their own choice. And, probably there are people who need help who find other places and methods to get what they need.

I have no problem with this. In fact, you have the best type of job in education. In my opinion all education should be this way.

Forcing this on the many people who never need this type of help is more of a problem.

If we could make this available for people who want it and find it helpful, while not forcing down the throats of people who don't, wouldn't that be the best for everyone?

Your statement of my alleged hyperbole is your exaggeration. Just because you think you were bored, does not mean that the method did not work. You seem to simply be argumentative.

When we did those exercises in grade school, I was always the first to finish. In fact, I finished the grammar book ahead of everyone else each year. I used the time to read.

Your boredom was my opportunity.

Your disagreement is based on a whim. You simply feel like arguing.

No. You are being argumentative (and rather silly). Just because you did them does not mean the exercises had any value.

When we did those exercises in grade school, I skipped them. I am happy to say I was a very poor student, and I don't regret that a bit. At the time I felt these exercises were a waste of my time.

The funny thing is that now, in my forties with a successful engineering career. I look back with the advantage of hindsight and realize that I was absolutely correct.

You see, doing exercises simply because you are told to is not the point of education. The point is to learn. And as I was actively not doing the exercises that I was being told to do, I was learning. In spite of getting bad "grades", testing indicated that I was mastering the material quite well.

As I was busy being a poor student I was also learning. I was a voracious reader (outside of school that is). I already loved politics, and I had discovered my true love which was computers. I taught my self to program and was doing far more impressive work out of school than I was doing in school.

Now let me moderate my position.

There is obviously the need for generic education. The limited resources we put into education mean we need to put kids into large classrooms where we feed them a generic diet of mediocre information aimed at general needs.

But we should not pretend that this isn't a compromise. We are shoehorning kids into a one-size-fits all education where individualism is discouraged.

When I was a student I loved to learn on topics that interested me. I worked very hard to excel in math and science. I was a voracious reader and I had an interest in politics and current events. All of these needs I had to meet on my own because instead of satisfying my desire to express myself in writing, to create computer programs and to dive into science, school wanted me to diagram sentences, learn multiplication tables and memorize state capitals.

Now I don't discount your experience. I can except that for you, the type of education was great and met your needs perfectly to make you the well-rounded fulfilled person you are today.

All I ask is that you understand that this was not my experience. I found the rote part of my education to be stifling. It was an obstacle, not a benefit to my learning.

There are lots of successful people who have had the same experience that I had.

Does anyone argue with the idea that the best education (if there only were resources) is individualized to the learner?

In high school they had individualized math. They had a set of tasks which you had to finish to advance. Students did work on their own with the teacher available for individual help as needed. This was perfect for me. I learned Calculus in high school this way.

I also had an English teacher that let me read Dune instead of The Great Gatsby. This was also a great idea for helping me learn.

We had a computer elective where we were supposed to learn Pascal. I think failed this stupid course. This was odd because on my own I was creating my own quite complex games in Assembly Language (which is far more impressive) on a Computer I fixed myself. There was certainly nothing in the course that I couldn't have done easily (if I wanted to waste the time typing).

That computer class, which had us go through a set of meaningless exercises that presented mindless copying with minimal challenge was worse then useless to me.

The discussion on diagramming got me to thinking. I learned to read long before I attended school. I don't remember at what level we began diagramming but I do remember that it never mattered much to me. It really seemed irrelevent to my comprehension. I do remember phonics being a valuable tool for me in learning new words on my own and expanding my vocabulary.
I'm sure diagramming has value in the development of writing styles, however, the average person tends to stick with a particular style early on, and from there it becomes a seat of the pants kind of thing.
It matters mostly where grading is concerned, and doesn't get much use beyond the occasional critic.
Writing styles differ greatly, and particular authors break the rules as an integral part of thier style.

Until the early-mid 70's the expectation was that youth need to learn to do it right before they started to free style. That went by the boards, and now all we hope for is that kids can say and write something that can be comprehended. Not being copy and pasted from someone elses work would be nice as well.

I think understanding different parts of speech and the activity of diagramming sentences has very little to do with reading and comprehension and much more to do with writing and understanding how to compose/punctuate a sentence.

Mary put the sugar in the canister and then placed the canister in the cupboard.
Mary put the sugar in the canister. And then placed the canister in the cupboard.
Mary put the sugar in the canister; and then placed the canister in the cupboard.

Two of these are wrong and one is right. If you know what a conjuction is and its role in a sentence - you will be more likely to correctly punctuate when you write. It's also important for one to know what makes a clause dependent as opposed to independent and how punctuation differs in each of those instances-knowing the necessary components of a sentence is instrumental to being able to do that.

For any reason other than that - I think learning the parts of speech is not so important, as in speaking, grammar is instinctive.

But learning to punctuate sentences to be able to write what you want to communicate in the standard, acceptable way is NOT instinctive-it has to be learned.

And people do make immediate judgments about a person based on their written communication - for jobs and everything else.

(I know, I know - I started a sentence with a conjunction. That's part of MY individual style....especially when it's the last sentence and an important point - I feel it adds emphasis - though it's technically 'wrong'.

You're probably right about that expectation, I grew up in the 60s and they did try to teach us to do it right. My personal situation probably provides for a skewed view point, as far as general learning is concerned. I scored high marks in English with little effort. My reading and writing skills were already in place.
I remember how frustrating it was to listen to many of my classmates reading out loud, I would rather read it myself than listen to a butchered rendition.

I like your style. And, you are absolutely right about that.
Style is the exception that proves the point.

Thank you Wayne. I've found my style has changed somewhat since the advent of the internet (and my use of it).
I'm much more succinct and to the point.
And I employ my favorite punctuation mark - the beloved 'dash'- much more frequently when typing than I ever do writing because I'm lazy.
When you're typing and you use the dash, you don't have to capitalize the first word of the following clause-that means a lot less shifting.

In terms of what you said about having been an early and voracious reader and subsequently having your written language fall into place without a lot of hassle, I think that's a key point.

If a child, or anyone for that matter, reads alot, they see the patterns of grammar and punctuation written on a page much moreso than someone who doesn't often or never reads.
I think it's almost that simple (except for people with a reading or written language disability like dyslexia).
If you see, take note of and remember what you're reading, you're much more likely to be able to pull it up in your mind's eye through mental recall when you begin to write.

Many people who are self-directed and fluent readers are also fluent writers.
And I think simple imprinting plays a part.

Imprinting, yes, that's the word. We just know when something sounds right.I think the greater part of my limited-skills are a result of this imprinting.
I enjoy particular authors largely for their style. There is a certain cadence, to some styles, that appeals to me. The story is only the half of it, you've gotta make it enjoyable and the best styles have little to do with technical correctness.

The internet has influenced me to practice some writing again, I had gotten lazy over the years. I enjoy my time on this forum quite a lot, and there is a great value in the interactive nature of the media. I think the brevity of your internet style makes for an understandable post. I'm not much into the word salads that appear here from time to time.

I never ever diagrammed. I was a voracious reader and hated the class (in 7th grade) where we were taught all kinds of things about writing that I felt like I already knew. A friend of mine and I waged a campaign to get out of the class. The teacher challenged us to take a test -- if we passed the test, we could skip the class. We both aced the test.

I went on to get my degree in English and become a professional editor (for a time).

I'm not saying that diagramming has no place. But I don't think it's as vital as you seem to be saying here, either.

I do think diagramming is a great practice for students. It helped me a great deal in making mental connections between words - and the distinction between a general noun in a sentence and its subject. Some of us concrete-type thinkers can use a graphic organizer to hang understanding on...

I agree with aidan that the primary importance of diagramming for students is writing; there are other little tricks to aid reading comprehension.

While I don't think diagramming is quite as vital as POM does - it really IS of value.

Guess the lefties are just as horrible as the dread righties on this issue.... heh.