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Title: Unspeakable Acts, Unnatural Practices : Flaws and Fallacies in "Scientific" Reading Instruction by Frank Smith ISBN: 0-325-00619-9 Publisher: Heinemann Pub. Date: 04 August, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)
Rating: 4
Summary: Food for thought
Comment: This book provides food for thought and a different perspective on issues that many educators take for granted. The author questions the basic assumptions underlying the concept of teaching reading through phonics, providing logical and intelligent reasons for his position. He argues that systematic phonics instruction makes reading more difficult for many students. Phonics, he explains, is simply too complicated a system, pointing out that even a small vocabulary of 6,000 common English words requires over 200 rules to account for all the ways that individual letters are related to individual sounds. Thus, he says, "Being required to master phonics before one can read is the wrong intervention at the wrong time."
The author appears to favor a more natural approach to reading instruction; one reason I gave the book 4 rather than 5 stars is that he really doesn't outline a specific program or alternative. He raises some excellent questions, but readers will have to go elsewhere for specific answers.
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Title: The Book of Learning and Forgetting by Frank Smith ISBN: 080773750X Publisher: Teachers College Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Reading the Naked Truth : Literacy, Legislation, and Lies by Gerald Coles ISBN: 0325003378 Publisher: Heinemann Pub. Date: 13 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: The Glass Wall: Why Mathematics Can Seem Difficult by Frank Smith ISBN: 0807742414 Publisher: Teachers College Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Reading Without Nonsense by Frank Smith ISBN: 0807734721 Publisher: Teachers College Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: What Really Matters for Struggling Readers: Designing Research-Based Programs by Richard L. Allington ISBN: 0321063961 Publisher: Pearson Education Pub. Date: 30 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $31.00 |
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