This is the exact battle that I have been fighting with my 8 year old boy. Backwards printing, b’s and d’s, looking at me (not the page) and guessing, scanning and the like. I do mean “battle”, but with due diligence I’m slowly winning the war.
We taught Stairway to Reading (S&R) last summer and in the fall when we could, we have been homeschooling full time since Christmas. I’m not a pro but even I can see the drastic change in my kids reading skills. Last summer they both failed the first level of the S&R test, now they are at level’s 3 and 4. With S&R they are now reading the “Secrets of Droon” book series, ½ to a full book a day with excellent comprehension and retention.

The biggest surprise is how well my daughter is doing, she has/had an IAP, a board certified “slow learner” (the boards quack’s exact words) and tested lower than average IQ. We were told by one special ed teacher to teach her life skills, in non-PC words a retard. In the short time we have been teaching her and with her hard work she is now testing at level 4.  And it`s not just reading, math was a nightmare to teach till we started with JUMP math. Math has gone from total screaming meltdowns to a “lets get it done” attitude.
There’s nothing wrong with this girl other than the fact that whole word and “they’ll catch on” teaching methods do NOT work for her.

The other week her former grade 5/6 class had to be evacuated because two boys were throwing chairs at the blackboards, my child knows these boys from her class, both have IEP`s and in her words are illiterate. For the last 4-5 years (except for this years special ed teacher who was excellent), these kids were stuck in front of a computer, twice a week for an hour, with very poor programs that the teacher didn’t know how to use. Time squandered for these children. I expect better than this from a professional organization.

Thanks for sharing your info with us, Mark.
As horrible as these anecdotes are, we need to know what this staggeringly expensive so-called public educational system is doing from day to day.

Children who experience a delay in speech, are now receiving lessons in phonemic sounds, long with their speech therapy,  before the age of 4, and where many enter the education system knowing how to read. Without the lessons, these children faced an uphill battle in learning how to read especially using the whole word approaches.There is something to be said about books like, Teach Your Child to Read in Just 10 minutes a Day. The books are very much needed, when the public education system, are more apt to blame the intelligence of a child or poor parenting for failure to become a good reader.

Frankly, from what I’ve seen and heard, I don’t think whole language works at all, and, at best, for a very small percentage of children.
Parents seem to take it for granted that they have to teach their children to read themselves, or they won’t learn at all.
When my daughter began grade two in Ontario, she said that there were no reading lessons.  (I know there were no readers, spellers, arithmetic books nor workbooks of any kind.)  She said that the children were expected to already know how to read. 
Thank goodness she had been taught phonics in grade one in Singapore, but I was very concerned for the others in her class.

I was told it was my responsibility to teach her to read, since they have provided the correct materials and instruction. Yes, many parents have brought into it, that they are responsible for their children’s education, hook, line and sinker. This includes the basic foundation blocks needed to read and write. Now tell me, why is it teachers need a university degree to teach our children, yet feel quite comfortable to download the responsibilities of the most important foundation blocks in reading and writing, down to the parents no matter their skills, abilities and resources.?  I posed that question a few years ago, and ended up getting accommodations for my child. I did not get the second half, targeted help for her reading and writing problems.

Anecdotes, that’s all we are! Anecdotes!

It is impossible for Anecdotes to have a real conversation; science does not recognize this contingency.

Charles, as you have called us anecdotes - we are further evidence that balanced literacy approaches are not effective for some of the children in our school system. Science does not neglect us. Many of the hypotheses are based on the failures of whole word and balance literacy approaches.

Hi Nancy,

I hope I haven’t offended you.  I do agree; I was alluding to certain insulting comments made elsewhere to the effect that individual experiences are only anecdotes and have no place in scholarly discussion.  They simply don’t count; they are “Un-
Facts”, told by “Un-Persons”. Only what is educationally scientific counts; are you scientific? Only if you are a trained “educator”.  If not, you are en elitist, a religious kook, or just a dumb-as-a-brick parent who knows nothing about education and shouldn’t talk about it.  By definition all of your opinions, experiences and even successes with proven methods are only anecdotes.

Read enough posts on the blog and you’ll see what I mean.

Cheers.,