Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
We have a sketpic:
Tens of thousands of pupils are being falsely diagnosed with dyslexia because parents and schools failed to teach them to read properly, according to a leading academic.
Professor Joe Elliott, of Durham University, said parents whose children have trouble with reading often push for the dyslexic ‘label’ simply to secure extra help for them.
But in fact there are many children who simply struggle to read and require help at an early age.
He voiced his concerns as figures suggested a steep rise in the number of children being termed dyslexic.
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Morgan, you’re a father; what’s your take on this? I confess I find the sudden “discovery” of dyslexia coincident with the precipitous decline in literacy to be highly suspicious.
I think of myself as highly literate, albeit self-taught. I definitely wasn’t born able to do this; someone gave me the fascination to figure it out in grade school (which is why I can spell “”definitely”, among other things.) Am I the only person who railed about SpellCheck even before it produced another umpteen generations of college grads who can’t spell?
- rob | 04/07/2009 @ 23:41Oh, and by the way…one of my all-time favorite bumper stickers:
DYLSEXICS UNTIE!!!
- rob | 04/07/2009 @ 23:55Morgan, you’re a father; what’s your take on this?
My take on it is that a big reason society is falling apart is that people can’t just plain fail at things through lack of effort anymore. Everything is hard luck, darn-lookit-what-happened-to-me.
Where reading is concerned, a big part of your ability is going to have to do with whether or not you learned how to do it at a young age. Just like playing the violin or something. In other words, learn to read by four, you’ll have a completely different level of ability compared to if you learned to read at seven. And if you are weak because you learned to read at seven, damn right it’ll feel like there are wires in your brain that are crossed. That’s because your brain was “designed” by evolutionary forces to do more primal things like ducking when you see something coming at you, or urinating when you have to…thousands of years before it was “designed” to read.
If you think this is turning into a rant directed at lazy parents who don’t read to their kids, you’re right. These “dyslexic” kids seem to me, by & large, to be growing up in “American Idol” households, in which reading isn’t valued.
- mkfreeberg | 04/08/2009 @ 00:00I heat sexylaid.
- smitty1e | 04/08/2009 @ 04:31I have 3 children. The eldest could read with about a 200 word vocabulary at 2-1/2 yrs old. Her choice. My youngest was reading on the 2nd grade level in kindergarten. The middle child? He had the same reading aloud the other two got, but didn’t get how to read. He got reading specialist help in primary years, and still lagged. By 5th grade he thought he was stupid. We enrolled him in a school for Dyslexics and/or gifted children. As a result, I saw what a competent program could do. As I retired from the Navy, I took their summer teaching program, then homeschooled that boy for 7th and 8th grades and brought him to grade level. In high school he didn’t progress and scored in the 19% in language skills on the state test. I pulled him his junior year and re-homeschooled him. He went up to the 62% on the test. He’s in the military, is married and has a child of his own and is doing well now. Dyslexia is real. Brain scans show that different processing is taking place, it’s basically a sequencing problem. As to an overused diagnosis? It would not surprise me. If your child is struggling and you have the choice of him being 1 of 25 kids in a class with no extra help, or in a small class environment with teachers and aides with extra training, which would you choose? Funny, what works with many dyslexics, also helps other people who struggle. It’s a very systematic approach to teaching phonics and spelling. It’s not the only approach that can be effective with poor readers. I sub in special ed classes, and some kids need a different method. A more pictorial recognition of words, not how to sound out the words. Please do NOT tar all parents as being lazy when their child has been diagnosed as being dyslexic. I worked with my son, ineffectively for years, 2 hours a night of heartbreaking effort on language arts homework minimum, then found that more effective instruction (still with hard work since he was older… 20 min of daily intervention in 1st grade is equivalent to 2 hours intervention in 5th grade) made all the difference in the world.
- hcplumas | 04/08/2009 @ 23:06