Not About Math - Phonics and Letters

Methods change over the years. There was 'phonics' then 'whole language'.

Our 7-year old recently came home talking about phonograms (my spell check doesn't even recognize that word). "A the four letter A, E the two letter E, A the two letter A," were the phrases that were being chanted around the house and I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. But then, isn't the internet great!

In case any of you are feeling oldish and out of the loop, here is an excellent site that gives a thorough explanation of phonograms and also, how to write the alphabet (the modern way).

Phonogram Page

The Mathematics of Metaphore: x = y

I have routinely and successfully used metaphor in teaching mathematics especially when describing how the brain works. Every once in a while I find a student who resists: "Why are you talking about learning to keep your balance on a bicycle? I thought we were talking about studying for the chapter 5 test?"

I found the following video, newly added to the TED.com repertoire. James Geary is amusing as he describes the importance of metaphor in human thought.

It Makes Me Want to Shout!

"Learning to Teach to Bridge the Achievement Gap". This is the currently the biggest buzz phrase in education. It is powerfully loaded, politically correct, eduspeak. But what does it really mean?

'Closing the gap is this generation’s civil rights issue, said Charles Weis, superintendent of schools in Santa Clara County. “We know what needs to be done; we know how to do it,” Dr. Weis said at a rally for educational improvement. Yet, he added, “educators are notoriously bad at adopting others’ good ideas".'

So what are some of those good ideas? Well here is one being used in a school district in Santa Clara County:

'On a recent day in Martha Borg’s third-grade classroom, she asked three students to join her at a small semicircular table. While the other students worked in their notebooks or with tutoring programs on computers, the three sounded out some new words — like “natural,” “environment” and “tortoise” — and then read aloud as Mrs. Borg moved from one to the next.'

That is the way that reading was taught 40 years ago. It appears to be working once again. We didn't use computers, instead we practiced our math algorithms (but that was before it was called drill and kill). And guess what? Students don't know their math facts anymore, especially fractions, but at least they haven't suffered sudden death due to practicing their multiplication facts and perhaps more of them are learning to read again.

Those educators who are "notoriously bad at adopting others’ good ideas", by Superintendent Weis' standards anyway, might just be the ones who, having practiced in the field for years, know what works. In this instance, the "new" method is indeed the "old" method which was sloughed-off some time ago in favor of some new fad in reading education.

"Small groups are a part of all classes at Anderson, and students get small-group time with the teacher. The groupings cluster students of similar skills, as determined by another practice the new leadership introduced: continual assessment. The assessments then guide individual instruction."

The bold and italicized type is mine. My goodness! Another example of the reversal of a longtime trend of integrating students of different skill levels. What is being said here? That teaching small groups of similarly skilled students is effective. Don't all of us of a certain age remember reading groups 1, 2 and 3? But then they changed the names of the groups (red, yellow, and blue) so the students wouldn't feel bad if they were in a lower level group, except that the plan didn't work and all the students knew which group was reading more difficult material. Sorting students into ability groups was called "tracking", a reviled practice now, and there has been a movement to abolish it for the last 30 years.

Some of the rationale to abolish tracking was good. Too many students who had the ability to do well in school were often placed in the lower tracks. This generally correlated with race and class. Conversely, students who should never have been put into an "honors" class were placed there due to their place in society and the influence of their parents.

Teacher training programs claimed that multi-level learning groups were more effective. Of course research was cited and examples given. The efficacy of the able students helping the less-able students to master the material was touted as an idea. But if a person thinks about it for more than 2 seconds, the grand plan doesn't make very much sense in terms of efficiency or outcomes.

It is ironic that a type of program that was tossed because it was unfair is being re-introduced, under a different name of course, to "help close the achievement gap".

It makes one want to shout! I hope Arne Duncan is listening.

Test Scores and Family Income

The NYT had an interesting article about the strong correlation between family income and SAT scores.

As a society that has become more systematized, we might want to start looking at what systems middle-income and wealthy people are using at home to support their kids in school and use that information to help educate lower-income families to provide that effective support for their kids too.

Parents: Examine Your Math Attitude

Many years ago a friend of mine made a huge deal about how she hated math when she was a kid and how she couldn't even balance her checkbook. Not surprisingly, her daughter, who was in the second grade, wasn't doing well in math even though she did well in all of her other subjects.

My friend was a brilliant woman, college educated with a masters degree. Yet, she claimed to know math only to about a 3rd grade level (balancing a check book requires elementary school level math). I warned her that she was most likely passing her 'attitude' about math to her daughter.

Over the years my friend kept me informed of her daughter's progress in school. After our chat, her daughter started excelling in math, took the advanced, honors math classes in high school and finished by taking A.P. Calculus as a senior.

Parents are likely to pass their fears to their children. If your loathed and detested math when you were a youngster and you are raising kids you might want to read this article from Parenting Journals.

The moral to the story is that if you want your child to succeed in math, and you detest math, then you need to at least fake it when your kids are of formative age.