zenmomma *

>>The world is full of illiterate people. People that WANT to learn to
read, but have to learn differently, maybe multisensorily?>>

Do you know what the stats are on that? I'm curious.

>>We are virtually surrounded by the written word everywhere. If it were
>>true that "whole language" was successful then there should be NO
>>illiteracy at all, people would just pick up reading and spelling skills
>>just by walking down a very busy Market St.>>

I don't agree with this statement as written. What's missing here is the
nurturing environment that goes along with being surrounded by the written
word. Casey (my daughter) learned by being immersed in a language-filled
environment AND having a knowledgable nurturing person around to answer her
questions, read things to her, etc. I was not suggesting that the visual
sight of written words alone is enough. I don't even think the schools do
that.

Life is good.
~Mary


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zenmomma *

We had a funny impromptu spelling/writing moment this morning that I felt
might be good to share in this thread.

Casey was trying to decide on what to have for lunch. She did this by
sending me notes via bungie-jumping-Barbie-mail. (Don't ask!:-D) This is how
it went.

Casey: I'm hungry. What can I eat (Not bad. She spelled it all right, even
remembered the apostrophe. Forgot the question mark.)

Me: How about a PB&J or mac and cheese?

Casey: I dont wont PB&J or mac and cheese! (Oops. Forgot the apostrophe this
time and misspelled want. Used the exclamation point appropriately though.)

Me: Grilled cheese? Pasta? Chicken nuggets? (Hmmm...points off for
incomplete sentences? I got my point across with the clever use of question
marks, though.)

Casey: What cind of pasta? (One misspelled word, but note the question mark!
:o))

Me: Spaghetti or curly pasta. Your choice. (Dang. There are those incomplete
sentences again. :-/)

Casey: Chicken nuggets and applesose please!

(Casey asked for the correct spelling of "sauce" while she was eating. She
knew it was wrong, but didn't know how to make it right. But she did know
that she needed to combine "apple" with "sauce" to get the compound word of
applesauce. Although she didn't know it was called a compound word. Thus she
got the apple part correct. She also didn't want to disrupt the flow of our
little pen and paper discussion to ask for the correct spelling while
writing. We had a little spelling discussion while eating chicken nuggets
and talked about compound words and how sauce is spelled and why
bungie-jumping-Barbies tend to get the dog a bit excitied.)

So this is a kid with no formal or systemized reading or phonics lessons.
Yet she was able to convey her thoughts in writing pretty clearly. And *I*
know how much progress she's made by seeing all those correctly spelled
words that used to be more inventive.

Take from this what you will. Works for us. :o)

Life is good.
~Mary


_________________________________________________________________
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Jo Anna C. Becker

Mary,

What a fabulous example of learning through life events!! Thanks so much
for sharing it. And, by the way, we have bungee-jumping Barbies, teddy
bears and beanie babies at our house, too. LOL!

Jo Anna
-----Original Message-----
From: zenmomma * [mailto:zenmomma@...]

We had a funny impromptu spelling/writing moment this morning that I felt
might be good to share in this thread.

Casey was trying to decide on what to have for lunch. She did this by
sending me notes via bungie-jumping-Barbie-mail. (Don't ask!:-D) This is
how
it went.

Casey: I'm hungry. What can I eat (Not bad. She spelled it all right, even
remembered the apostrophe. Forgot the question mark.)

Me: How about a PB&J or mac and cheese?

Casey: I dont wont PB&J or mac and cheese! (Oops. Forgot the apostrophe
this
time and misspelled want. Used the exclamation point appropriately
though.)

Me: Grilled cheese? Pasta? Chicken nuggets? (Hmmm...points off for
incomplete sentences? I got my point across with the clever use of
question
marks, though.)

Casey: What cind of pasta? (One misspelled word, but note the question
mark!
:o))

Me: Spaghetti or curly pasta. Your choice. (Dang. There are those
incomplete
sentences again. :-/)

Casey: Chicken nuggets and applesose please!

(Casey asked for the correct spelling of "sauce" while she was eating. She
knew it was wrong, but didn't know how to make it right. But she did know
that she needed to combine "apple" with "sauce" to get the compound word
of
applesauce. Although she didn't know it was called a compound word. Thus
she
got the apple part correct. She also didn't want to disrupt the flow of
our
little pen and paper discussion to ask for the correct spelling while
writing. We had a little spelling discussion while eating chicken nuggets
and talked about compound words and how sauce is spelled and why
bungie-jumping-Barbies tend to get the dog a bit excitied.)

So this is a kid with no formal or systemized reading or phonics lessons.
Yet she was able to convey her thoughts in writing pretty clearly. And *I*
know how much progress she's made by seeing all those correctly spelled
words that used to be more inventive.

Take from this what you will. Works for us. :o)

Life is good.
~Mary



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Valerie Cifuentes

I enjoyed your conversation with your daughter very much! She has a
great sense of humor too! :OD
BLESSINGS!

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
.· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ .·´ -:¦:-Valerie Cifuentes
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*
I CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT FORWARDS, CHAIN LETTERS AND PETITIONS. THEY ARE
FILLING UP MY BOX AND TAKING UP MY TIME. THANK YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING!
http://nolen.home.texas.net/valerie/Cifuentes.html
I'm A Navy Brat & Wife of HM2 Cifuentes; Active Duty Navy, & Mother of
Three Young Navy Brats!
*~*PLEASE HAVE PATIENCE AS I CHECK EMAIL ONCE IN THE MORNING & EVENING
AFTER 3:00PM AND NOT ON SUNDAY (THE LORD'S DAY.)*~*
-----Original Message-----
From: zenmomma * [mailto:zenmomma@...]
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 4:54 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] IS A SPELLING PROGRAM IMPORTANT TO SOME?
THIS IS LONG BUT I HOPE

We had a funny impromptu spelling/writing moment this morning that I
felt
might be good to share in this thread.

Casey was trying to decide on what to have for lunch. She did this by
sending me notes via bungie-jumping-Barbie-mail. (Don't ask!:-D) This is
how
it went.

Casey: I'm hungry. What can I eat (Not bad. She spelled it all right,
even
remembered the apostrophe. Forgot the question mark.)

Me: How about a PB&J or mac and cheese?

Casey: I dont wont PB&J or mac and cheese! (Oops. Forgot the apostrophe
this
time and misspelled want. Used the exclamation point appropriately
though.)

Me: Grilled cheese? Pasta? Chicken nuggets? (Hmmm...points off for
incomplete sentences? I got my point across with the clever use of
question
marks, though.)

Casey: What cind of pasta? (One misspelled word, but note the question
mark!
:o))

Me: Spaghetti or curly pasta. Your choice. (Dang. There are those
incomplete
sentences again. :-/)

Casey: Chicken nuggets and applesose please!

(Casey asked for the correct spelling of "sauce" while she was eating.
She
knew it was wrong, but didn't know how to make it right. But she did
know
that she needed to combine "apple" with "sauce" to get the compound word
of
applesauce. Although she didn't know it was called a compound word. Thus
she
got the apple part correct. She also didn't want to disrupt the flow of
our
little pen and paper discussion to ask for the correct spelling while
writing. We had a little spelling discussion while eating chicken
nuggets
and talked about compound words and how sauce is spelled and why
bungie-jumping-Barbies tend to get the dog a bit excitied.)

So this is a kid with no formal or systemized reading or phonics
lessons.
Yet she was able to convey her thoughts in writing pretty clearly. And
*I*
know how much progress she's made by seeing all those correctly spelled
words that used to be more inventive.

Take from this what you will. Works for us. :o)

Life is good.
~Mary


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http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.


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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

schuyler_waynforth

--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., "zenmomma *" <zenmomma@h...> wrote:

>
> >>We are virtually surrounded by the written word everywhere. If
it were
> >>true that "whole language" was successful then there should be
NO
> >>illiteracy at all, people would just pick up reading and
spelling skills
> >>just by walking down a very busy Market St.>>

We lived in Japan for a year and speak only a few words of
Japanese. We watched television in Japanese and in De Englishu and
wandered around downtown Kyoto. We had neighbors who spoke no
English, so we used big hand signals and a little compact translator
for the words we couldn't understand no matter how much we waved.
And we didn't need Japanese to get around. We could recognize the
characters on the bus to get home. Often we would be approached by
someone who spoke English (once by a kind of scary guy outside
Takashima shopping center, who frothed a bit at the mouth and
invited us home with him, we had some reasonable excuse not to go).
But we didn't have complete immersion in the language. Our day to
day lives were filled with English. We lived and my husband worked
on a campus for foreign researchers in Japan. We could get American
news, and Chinese news, and Filipino news, and German news, and
British news,etc..., on the local channels (it always amazed us, or
depressed us, I guess, that American news would open with something
American even when there had been a major international story, like
the earthquake in India, while everybody else, except, maybe, Russia
would open with the international story first--and American news
didn't even cover the overthrow of the Filipino government...). If
Simon had been going to daycare he would have picked up Japanese.
And he would have begun to recognize kanji. If someone had been
cuddling up to me and reading books to me I would have begun to
recognize the language, as well. If there was a need or a desire we
would have learned Japanese. But, it is very easy to be
functionally illiterate, particularly if you have a first language
to fall back on. I could still read a novel or a book of folk tales
or a book on organic gardening in English if I so chose.

I have no recollection of learning to read. I read before school.
No one taught me. I couldn't diagram a sentence to save my
proverbial... and I have a minor in English. I don't know why I
know how to read. I can remember learning handwriting from my
mother. I was changing from an open school that hadn't taught
cursive or the times tables to a public school that required both of
those skills. We spent the summer writing a story about pioneer
children in cursive in a Big Chief notebook. And, apparently, I
have no memory of this, I learned my times tables overnight. My
handwriting is poor. My understanding of grammer is poor. I don't
need to know grammer rules to know when I've written a sentence
correctly, that's what Word is for. I get the little red or green
wavy line and I know that if I choose I can make a sentence
correctly, or I can leave it. So I split infinitives, so I end with
prepositions, eh, it isn't going to keep me out of a job or make me
unhappy.

But, constantly reminding my son of his inability to read will make
him unhappy. Hounding him with phonics, or not coming in and
reading whatever his gameboy or his computer game is requiring of
him will also make him unhappy. He doesn't need to know the rules
of phonetics. He needs attention. I am not teaching my daughter
her ABC's. They seem to be hampering my son's understanding of the
sounds letters make. I don't know if it will make a difference.
Linnaea wanders around singing "ABCLMOPSTV, now ABC" even without my
input. There is no way to demonstrate that trusting your children
is enough. My mom, when I asked her what she thought about my
homeschooling the kids, said "I trust you, even if I wouldn't do it,
I trust you." If she can trust me to raise my children to adulthood
than I can trust my children to grow into adulthood.

Schuyler







>
> I don't agree with this statement as written. What's missing here
is the
> nurturing environment that goes along with being surrounded by the
written
> word. Casey (my daughter) learned by being immersed in a language-
filled
> environment AND having a knowledgable nurturing person around to
answer her
> questions, read things to her, etc. I was not suggesting that the
visual
> sight of written words alone is enough. I don't even think the
schools do
> that.
>
> Life is good.
> ~Mary
>

Valerie Cifuentes

>>The world is full of illiterate people. People that WANT to learn to
read, but have to learn differently, maybe multisensorily?>>

Do you know what the stats are on that? I'm curious.
I'm sure you can find the resources on the internet, I have some around
here, but I'm too busy to back it up. I know you don't have to take my
word for it.
Illiteracy is rampant in my husbands family, though, so sad.



>>We are virtually surrounded by the written word everywhere. If it were

>>true that "whole language" was successful then there should be NO
>>illiteracy at all, people would just pick up reading and spelling
skills
>>just by walking down a very busy Market St.>>

I don't agree with this statement as written. What's missing here is the

nurturing environment that goes along with being surrounded by the
written
word. Casey (my daughter) learned by being immersed in a language-filled

environment AND having a knowledgable nurturing person around to answer
her
questions, read things to her, etc. I was not suggesting that the visual

sight of written words alone is enough. I don't even think the schools
do
that.

I was considering SPELLING really. I learned to spell in a non-nurturing
environment.
Ps!

Thanks for the feedback! :O)
Life is good.
~Mary


_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


~~~ Don't forget! If you change the topic, change the subject line! ~~~

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]