triticale - the wheat / rye guy

Quote For The Day

Children used to learn to read one letter, or, at least, one syllable, at a time, and to furnish forth a complete word by piecing togethrt its component parts. Now, rumor says, the method is to encourage them too grasp whole words, long or short, at once, by instantaneous observation, or, as often happens, by an effort of the imagination. When the word grasped is the word the letters spell, that is observation. When it is some other word, that is imagination. The development of either faculty is considered by contemporary educators to be useful.

The sad thing is that this wasn't written recently. I found it in a book written in 1900, Lucid Intervals, by Edward Sandford Martin, which I found while using the Milwaukee Library's wonderful search facility in hopes of finding something else entirely. If the author were around today, he would, from his style, probably be a blogger, and he would surely be appalled to find that educators still find value in students not comprehending what they read. Posted by triticale at May 17, 2007 04:49 PM | TrackBack