I went over the details of my month-long contract tonight. I'm going to go in on Tuesday to watch how the job is done, and then start on Wednesday. That isn't much time to learn - and I'll be all alone right from the start. But usually that's how I learn best. When I get too much help, I tend to let other people take over and I do nothing. I'm better on my own; a sink or swim kind of girl.
I watched a teacher teach grade one the other day, and she was teaching them a writing class in which they used a method called "invented spelling", something I'd never heard of. It was extremely strange. The children learned basic English rules and then applied them to spelling words, and as long as the rule was applied correctly, it didn't matter if the word was spelled wrong. And so the teacher wrote on the board that they were using a "karat" for their snowman's nose, and "stirofome" balls for his body, and "kulerful" ribbons for his scarf. It made me twitch in my chair.
I wonder what happens to kids like me, who learn through memorization. I didn't learn to spell by sounding out words so much as I learned to recognize/ memorize words by seeing them over and over again. Through the process of "invented spelling" (is it the same as phonics?) I would have been completely bewildered to find out that the spellings I'd memorized were actually incorrect.
I know educational theory and practice evolves and changes... and surely the literacy issues we face in all schools tells us that something needs to be done. But I found this bothersome. Doesn't it make more sense to learn how to do something "right" the first time? Well, maybe I'm just too rigid.
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