Comments on: Limited-Vocabulary Readers are the Devil. Yes, THAT Devil.

By: Lady in a Smalltown

Lady in a Smalltown — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 03:26:24 +0000

I teach literacy to first and second graders. We do homogeneous grouping at my school for literacy. I encourage my students to “read” anything I have in my room. That includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, fiction and nonfiction, picture and chapter books, atlases, Guinness books, and various National Geographics and Ranger Ricks I have stolen from the library recycling bin. I don’t expect they are reading all the content, but I know they are reading the captions and short facts in the more advanced content materials.

I hate the idea that literature is being changed to satisfy our overly sensitive society. Why do we have to hide our children’s abilities or inabilities to keep them from feeling bad? (Do you watch Desperate Housewives? They actually covered this issue this week.)

I love Richocet’s comment about using vocabulary and then explaining it in other words. I do that all the time. Sometimes you have to use a word like “soporific” because no other word will do. (I would have had to look that one up.) Eventually we will have to stop teaching Shakespeare and Chaucer and anyone else who wrote before 1950 because our children will not be able to understand what they are reading. Grrr.

By: Ashleigh Burroughs

Ashleigh Burroughs — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:57:50 +0000

In pre-school, one of the teachers had to be “Mr. Ed” because his long Polish surname was deemed too difficult for the children to say. These were children who could say dimetrodon and brachiosaurus ….

I was called the walking dictionary all through school because I used the words my parents used.

My son spent 4th grade in the last row reading 900 page fantasy novels … the teacher was just glad to have him out of her hair.

Good teachers, like good nurses, make ALL the difference.

By: Mary

Mary — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:07:16 +0000

It is so wrong to do this. Thanks for writing about it.
Mary

By: Deb

Deb — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:08:04 +0000

When my oldest son was in kindergarten, he was more than ready to read. The teacher asked if she might send him to the 1st grade teacher for reading and I agreed. Everything was fine, until the 1st grade teacher told the kindergarten teacher not to send him back after the April vacation. “Why?”, the kindergarten teacher asked. “Because he’ll be too far ahead in the fall”, replied the first grade teacher.

The straw that broke the camel’s back…we decided to homeschool him. That was 22 years ago. There’s more to the the story than this. I don’t think much has changed. Though the boy, a reader through and through.

By: TS

TS — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 05:10:51 +0000

Stop making us feel ignernt, Jane! Everybody knows Charles Wallace Murray was a televangelist in the 70′s.

By: kenju

kenju — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 00:54:43 +0000

I am appalled that there are ANY teachers who think that books
ought to be dumbed down for students. Only stupid people would think that is a
good idea.

By: ricochet

ricochet — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:21:26 +0000

I read Huck Finn as a 3rd grader – and the only problem I had was I had to have my mother read the Jim parts out loud for me to understand it. I lived out west and had never heard Southern, much less Southern black dialog.

When I student taught, I was constantly berated by the college professors for using words that were too big. (I was over 50, I have a large vocabulary, I would restate sentences using other words to ensure the students understood). I contend you will never understand the words if the are not a part of your every day life: reading, hearing, using.

Now that I teach, I have reverted to using my normal vocabulary and restating the sentences so that the students know have gone back to using words that I have always used, but will make sure that they understand.

And I stop to define any word that they need defined. I make it clear that it is important to me that they hear more words.

I teach math, btw. And I used Wrinkle In Time to help them understand 2 and three dimensional shapes – and guess what a 4th dimensional shape would look like using “And he built a crooked house” by Heinlein as well.

By: Liz Ditz

Liz Ditz — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:26:52 +0000

I misread the headline to mean that people with limited vocabularies who read are the Devil….

Anyone mucking about with the works of Beatrix Potter should be hung up by their thumbs. (I so enjoyed reading them aloud to my daughter.)

BTW, Rosemary Sutcliff wrote wonderful historical novels about pre-historic & Roman Britain.

The Eagle of the Ninth cycle is particularly good for boys around 4th of 5th grade craving heroism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_of_the_Ninth

By: Kathy B.

Kathy B. — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:51:07 +0000

I agree. I wouldn’t even know what soporific means if I hadn’t read it and looked it up. The same with many, many words. I either learned meaning through context or by looking it up while reading a book. Vocabulary lessons/tests are boring, learning a word’s meaning because you want to know it is exciting.

On a similar note, I still distinctly remember first grade. The teacher was reading some silly Dick & Jane story to us; we were to look at the pictures while she read. I knew how to read, and I was bored with the story (it was silly) so I finished reading the story ahead of the class to myself. I got in big trouble and had to put my head down on the desk. (This was the most humiliating punishment a first grader could get.) I told my Mom, who went to the teacher, who said: “I can’t have the children reading ahead. Everyone has to stay together.”

By: Heidi Eaton

Heidi Eaton — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:55:21 +0000

When my daughter was in the fifth grade and wanted to read Anne of Green Gables the librarian told her she couldn’t until she was in the seventh grade! I was so angry. As a Mother I want her to stretch and grow. I, of course, bought her the book.