higher math and science
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In a message dated 5/4/02 6:05:21 PM, edje4him@... writes:
<< If you want to be able to communicate your ideas, you really need
to know how to write and spell... >>
When she has ideas she actually wants to communicate, she'll start getting
some real practice.
Is she online much? That's where my teenaged boys are learning to write--in
instant messages, role playing games and reading and answering questions
about video games.
<<How many of you have unschooled through high school? I'd like to know how
you got across the higher maths and sciences...>>
We're in the process.
The ideas and concepts are peppered through their regular lives. We're not
doing "courses," but as things come up in discussions or in movies or TV or
whatever, bits and pieces are fitting together. They have large but
scattered amounts of scientific vocabulary. When and if they do "study" one
field in earnest, it will be a matter of fitting the concepts they already
have into the formal framework, and learning some more (not ALL of it, not in
any area I can think of).
Today Holly asked me to come and watch something on PBS with her. It was a
part of a series on the brain, dealing with language, and how language is
relearned after a certain kind of surgery (removing the left hemisphere).
There was an eight year old being shown as an example of dyslexia. Their
proof that he had a serious reading problem was that he was failing to sound
out long words. He was eight. Some of the words were:
therapeutic
masculine
scientific
inventive
(I'm sure about the first two; Holly said she saw the other two, and so I
don't swear to them, but they're likely and of the same sort--I just didn't
write fast enough.)
Those are not words most eight year olds use. Words they know, they can
recognize or figure out. Not being able to pronounce a word you've never
seen or heard happens to all KINDS of people, at any age.
Yosemite
Persephone
Hermione (the most common recent...)
By any normal clues or rules, those will NOT be pronounced "correctly" by
anyone who hasn't heard them pronounced. Same with many surnames--the
pronunciation is passed on verbally, and can't be deduced by the written word.
So anyway, that was something Holly wanted to share with me. We sat for
nearly an hour, discussing parts of it during and after, sharing examples she
knew from some toddlers she has spent a lot of time with, me telling her
stories of her language acquisition, and her brothers'.
And the show said "Reading never just happens." I looked at Holly and she
kinda smirked. She knew something scientists don't know.
Those folks will never see reading just happen, because they won't leave it
alone long enough for it to "just" (over the course of a few years) happen.
Human speech doesn't "just happen" either--it takes a few years, but over the
course of a few years, with supportive feedback and ample opportunity and
example, it happens.
Sandra
<< If you want to be able to communicate your ideas, you really need
to know how to write and spell... >>
When she has ideas she actually wants to communicate, she'll start getting
some real practice.
Is she online much? That's where my teenaged boys are learning to write--in
instant messages, role playing games and reading and answering questions
about video games.
<<How many of you have unschooled through high school? I'd like to know how
you got across the higher maths and sciences...>>
We're in the process.
The ideas and concepts are peppered through their regular lives. We're not
doing "courses," but as things come up in discussions or in movies or TV or
whatever, bits and pieces are fitting together. They have large but
scattered amounts of scientific vocabulary. When and if they do "study" one
field in earnest, it will be a matter of fitting the concepts they already
have into the formal framework, and learning some more (not ALL of it, not in
any area I can think of).
Today Holly asked me to come and watch something on PBS with her. It was a
part of a series on the brain, dealing with language, and how language is
relearned after a certain kind of surgery (removing the left hemisphere).
There was an eight year old being shown as an example of dyslexia. Their
proof that he had a serious reading problem was that he was failing to sound
out long words. He was eight. Some of the words were:
therapeutic
masculine
scientific
inventive
(I'm sure about the first two; Holly said she saw the other two, and so I
don't swear to them, but they're likely and of the same sort--I just didn't
write fast enough.)
Those are not words most eight year olds use. Words they know, they can
recognize or figure out. Not being able to pronounce a word you've never
seen or heard happens to all KINDS of people, at any age.
Yosemite
Persephone
Hermione (the most common recent...)
By any normal clues or rules, those will NOT be pronounced "correctly" by
anyone who hasn't heard them pronounced. Same with many surnames--the
pronunciation is passed on verbally, and can't be deduced by the written word.
So anyway, that was something Holly wanted to share with me. We sat for
nearly an hour, discussing parts of it during and after, sharing examples she
knew from some toddlers she has spent a lot of time with, me telling her
stories of her language acquisition, and her brothers'.
And the show said "Reading never just happens." I looked at Holly and she
kinda smirked. She knew something scientists don't know.
Those folks will never see reading just happen, because they won't leave it
alone long enough for it to "just" (over the course of a few years) happen.
Human speech doesn't "just happen" either--it takes a few years, but over the
course of a few years, with supportive feedback and ample opportunity and
example, it happens.
Sandra