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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 14, 1955)
Education GroupDebunksMethod Of Teaching in Flesch's Book By A. ROBERT SMITH Mail Tribune Correspondent Washington The National Education Association has set out to debunk the book, "Why Johnny Can't Read," the con troversial attack on some teach ing methods which has stirred up arguments over the issue in many American comrrjuni ties. i In its monthly magazine, NEA Journal, the association of teach ers strikes back at the book's author, Rudolf Flesch, with an analysis of his contentions call ed "Why Can't Rudy Read?" Flesch contended in his book that Johnny can't read because teachers today don't use phon ics, a system of sounding out J'he letters in each word which Flesch thinks is superior. Stu dents, today look at words and phrases, which is called the word method or the look-and-say technique of learning to read. Different Methods Specified Modern educators, according to NEA, specify that different methods should be used with different children in order to -.get best results "and phonics continues to be a part of the educational arsenal." "Most of (Flesch's) book is simply personal opinion (unsup ported by any objective . evi dence), quotations out of con text, accounts of Flesch's limited personal -observations, and some amusing (though occasionally vi cious) rhetoric," said NEA. The authors of the NEA re buttal went back and reviewed the evidence on which Flesch based his findings in favor of phonics. Here is what they found: 1. Flesch reported that a New Hampshire teacher wrote a pa per in 1016 called "Phonics or No Phonics?" in which she found the "the non-phonic chil dren read with more expression and interest, but the phonic children were more careful and more accurate in reading the words on the page." NEA dug up the same report and found it reported: "The Phonic classes so concentrated upon letter sounds that the at tention was diverted from the sense of the paragraph to word pronounciation. This brought about lack of interest and fa tigue" and destroyed the pleasure which the story should yield. The reading was generally less smooth, slower and the idea confused." Phonics Group Score Higher 2. Flesch said in his book that two scholars in "An Experi mental Study of the Value of Phonetics" reported that they experimented with 100 pupils in the first and second grades, giving 50 phonics and the other 50 none. He claimed the result was that the phonics group scor ed three points higher than the non-phonics. NEA found that the same re port drew this conclusion: "Chil dren with no phonetic training make smoother and better oral readers in the lower grades." It added that "much of the phonetic training now given should be deferred till the sec ond and third grades. It appears that work in meaningful exer cises which are planned to in crease comprehension and to teach discrimintaion of words is more important than pho netics." 3. Flesch reported that "The Newark Phonics Experiment" of II ) t. JMH -nil 'H, Dr. Herlock As We Live By ELIZABETH HILLOCK. PH.D. Personality Patterns Are Not To Be Outgrown People do not "outgrow" per sonality traits. (Q) "I have been going steady with Joe for nearly a year. He is a fine young man. i tei lous, de pendable and devoted to me. He will c e rtainly be a good pro vider, but there is one thing about him that disturbs me. He is always fussing about little things. He makes such an issue of them that he gets both of us upset. For example, if the curtains in the living room of my parents' home are not just so, he will work on them until they are to his liking, even if it makes us late for a movie. Ori if he thinks something costs too much he will insist upon go ing from one store to another, pricing the same articles to see, if he can get a bargain. "I tell him little things like this are not worth all the time, effort and" thought he puts into them. But he can't see it my way and the more I talk, the more set he is in this pettiness of his. Will he get over it, if I marry him. or will he get worse?" M.L.T. (A) The fact that Joe can't or won't see things your way now would certainly suggest he has no desire to try to overcome his pettiness, even when he knows it annoys and upsets you. That is part of his personality pattern and he certainly will not outgrow it even after mar riage. It is obvious you and Joe differ about what is important and worthwhile. This is just beginning to show now as your courtship progresses. You can be sure there would be more and more pettiness for you to cope with after marrying him. No one is perfect. You must weigh the good against the bad and see which come out on top. If you think you can overlook his faults then you could safely consider marrying him. Copyright 1955, General Features Corp.) 1923 which tested 1.000 school children "concluded that the re sults favored instruction in phonics." Of Value Later NEA said this is the actual conclusion of that test by its authors: "The results clearly in dicate the teaching of phonics functions very little or not at all with beginners in reading during the first five months.. It begins to be of some value dur ing the second five months, but is of greater value in the second grade." Citing other instances in his book, "Why Johnny Can't Read," NEA matched them with similar refutations and pointed out that Flesch concluded his arguments by writing "After all this, you possibly expect me now to recite the evidence in favor of the word method. But, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, there is none." "Certainly," concluded NEA, "there is nothing to suggest that Flesch is intellectually dishon est; nothing to suggest he wants to misinform . and confuse. It must be that he truly can't read." Sfafe Employees Pick New Directors Pendleton U.PJ Oregon State Employees association ended its three-day meeting here Saturday with the election and installation of a new board of directors. The final session also adopted a budget of $64,860 based on a membership increase of 3900 during the next year. An addi tional S5000 was voted for a re volving fund to back a new auto insurance program OSEA ap proved Friday.. Elected president was. Eugene Schmidt of Portland. Other offi cers were Mark Sayre, Mon mouth, vice-president, and Ger trude Chamberlin, secretary treasurer. Board members are Edwin A. Bamfield, Salem; Cal Hobson, Salem; Dr. Lloyd LeMaster, Cor vallis; William G. Hughes, Sa lem; Don E. Barnick, Portland, and Ross Newcomb, Corvallis. New York '(U.R) Robert E. Sherwood, 59 - year - old play wright and biographer, was in "fair" condition today, a hospi tal spokesman said. Sherwood, former speech writer for the late President Roosevelt, suf fered a moderate coronary thrombosis Friday. Monday, Wovmber 14, 1955 MEDFORD (OREGON) MAIL- TRIBUNETHRU Father of S-D Day Thinks Campaign Will Cut Traffic Mishaps Sacramento, Calif. U.P.) The man who first thought of having a nationwide "Safe Driv ing Day" believes motorists will score at least a 25 per cent re duction in traffic accidents when they concentrate on safe driving for the second time this Dec. 1. On Dec. 15 last year, the first Safe-Driving day, there were 18 per cent fewer accidents involv ing personal injury or death than there were on the same day the previous year. A. J. Veglia, of Sacramento, father of "S-D Day," believes American motorists will do bet ter this year because the many organizations plugging the pro gram have had more time for preparations. Billboards Going Up Thousands of billboards ad vertising the safety campaign are being erected. Television stars have promised to remind viewers of the special day. Veglia is chairman of the ex ecutive committee of President Eisenhower's Action Committee on Highway Safety. He got the idea for S-D day while lying in a hospital bed recovering from injuries received in an auto ac cident. "Surveys showed that up to 96.5 per cent of those questioned knew the meaning of safe-driving day last Dec. 15," Veglia said. "A high percentage of those questioned said they made at least one change in their driv ing practices because of the day." t . Many cities have adopted new enforcement procedures as a di rect or indirect result of the pro gram. Veglia's home town of Sacramento recently inaugurat ed the use of radar in checking speeders. ' "A year ago people in Sacra mento wouldn't have accepted radar speed detection," Veglia said. 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