"It is clearer that the way to teach somebody to read who doesn't have many books in their home is not to teach them to recognize whole words and holistic methods like that, that works for people who are in Montessori schools and whose parents read The New Yorker... you need phonics.”
- John McWhorter, linguistics scholar and Senior Fellow with the Manhattan Institute, during his appearance this morning on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" when asked about education in the Black community
plez sez: in my spare moments in the morning, i love to watch C-SPAN and listen to the insightful interviews on current events. i really enjoy the phone calls from around the country from the decidedly left-leaning and right-leaning listeners... there are very few calls to the independent line. this morning, i paused longer than usual while listening to John McWhorter speak about race relations in this country and his take on how things are today versus a generation ago.
my ears really stood up when i heard him make the quote above while answering a question about how to improve education, particularly for Black folk. i tend to agree that phonics is the best way to learn to read, i believe that learning to read phonetically is the reason why my daughter is such a good reader at age 5 (she has been reading for close to a year and a half). his mention of people "in Montessori schools and whose parents read 'The New Yorker'" really piqued my attention because as luck would have it, my daughter attends a Montessori school (today was the last day of her third year) and i have had a subscription to "The New Yorker" magazine for more than 10 years!
some would say that it's a coincidence... but now i wonder was McWhorter really speaking to me? or am i just being paranoid?
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