Changes

:::It is perhaps worth noting that there are many attempts to introduce the elements of synthetic phonics into whole language/psycholinguistics teaching - but they are so very different in their application that these are just as harmful to a child's progress as having no synthetic phonics teaching at all. Similarly, if a teacher uses a synthetic phonics approach, but her classroom library has books only written for a psycholinguistics approach, the children are being deprived of the phonically-written/aware books that they need for this method to be successful. Like any other method, poorly-taught phonics will lead to poor learning outcomes. But I'm digressing. The point here is that synthetic phonics has not been mandated at a federal level and although it is supposed to be taught as part of the Reading First initiative, it still isn't - for most schools - the main method: psycholinguistics ''is''. I admit I'm not up to date on current US legislation, but I do know that back in 1999 a Sense of the Congress Resolution, introduced by Congressman David McIntosh of Indiana, "Expressing the Sense of Congress that direct systematic phonics instruction should be used in all schools," received 224 in favor and 193 opposed, but because a two thirds majority vote was required for passage of bills brought up under suspension, the resolution was not agreed to. From what I can gather, California, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Ohio now have State legislation requiring "direct phonics instruction as a first step in teaching children to read," but in practice implementation of synthetic phonics is actually being strenuously resisted by the "educators", who are actually simply repackaging psycholinguistics under a different name, eg California's "Reading Recovery" scheme, which has begun to spread to many other states. [[Image:User Fox.png|10px]] [[User:Fox|Fox]] <small>([[User talk:Fox|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Fox|contribs]])</small> 05:46, 13 May 2008 (EDT)

:::It is perhaps worth noting that there are many attempts to introduce the elements of synthetic phonics into whole language/psycholinguistics teaching - but they are so very different in their application that these are just as harmful to a child's progress as having no synthetic phonics teaching at all. Similarly, if a teacher uses a synthetic phonics approach, but her classroom library has books only written for a psycholinguistics approach, the children are being deprived of the phonically-written/aware books that they need for this method to be successful. Like any other method, poorly-taught phonics will lead to poor learning outcomes. But I'm digressing. The point here is that synthetic phonics has not been mandated at a federal level and although it is supposed to be taught as part of the Reading First initiative, it still isn't - for most schools - the main method: psycholinguistics ''is''. I admit I'm not up to date on current US legislation, but I do know that back in 1999 a Sense of the Congress Resolution, introduced by Congressman David McIntosh of Indiana, "Expressing the Sense of Congress that direct systematic phonics instruction should be used in all schools," received 224 in favor and 193 opposed, but because a two thirds majority vote was required for passage of bills brought up under suspension, the resolution was not agreed to. From what I can gather, California, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Ohio now have State legislation requiring "direct phonics instruction as a first step in teaching children to read," but in practice implementation of synthetic phonics is actually being strenuously resisted by the "educators", who are actually simply repackaging psycholinguistics under a different name, eg California's "Reading Recovery" scheme, which has begun to spread to many other states. [[Image:User Fox.png|10px]] [[User:Fox|Fox]] <small>([[User talk:Fox|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/Fox|contribs]])</small> 05:46, 13 May 2008 (EDT)

== Constance Weaver ==

== Constance Weaver ==