Isn't there enough to confuse kids in this world without the schools doing it as well?

Now I can't remember how we were taught to read in my day (i have trouble remembering yesterday), but it seemed to work for my generation and the ones immediately preceding and succeeding it. I believe it may have been the one they propose to introduce again but I might be wrong about that.
Then round about the 60s & 70s a plethora of education experts materialised, all touting their methods and no doubt their books and copyrighted information. Suddenly kids had to be subjected to a revolution every few years because everything was all wrong before.
It's no wonder we have ended up at the wrong end of the literacy stakes and there are an increasing number of kids apparently unable to read at all or write their own names.
The first thing we do is not kill all the lawyers but the education experts instead.
I may have been mistaken about this too, but when I saw our esteemed PM reading to some kids the other day it looked to me as if she were reading some kindergarten level book while the kids were something like year 2 or 3.
Now, my grandson, I only have one (we breed sparingly and infrequently . . .unfortunately), has been able to read books like that since he was about 3 in prep class,
Why? Because, as I understand it and am eternally grateful for, they teach them the same way they did in my day.
Not that some of the kids still don't have problems. My daughter helps out with things  like reading and is able to see what's happening.
Invariably, the kids who are not achieving come from homes where there is not one book in the house . . .except maybe the phone book & that's going soon. So they have a few hours at school but they are not read to at home and they don't get to pick a book up.
Still I guess books are old hat like I am.

PS It's not just literacy that has gone downhill. Mathematics too is a problem. I heard this morning that 5-6 years ago about 12% of girls were doing senior maths but now it's down to about 8%. Without senior maths you can't do sciences successfully. (About 40% of the cryptographers at Bletchley Park were women on the other hand, not that they get a mention in the movies etc except as typists or something)
Again here the problem of continuous revolution comes in. I remember when one of my kids was at school there was a period where they used a system called "rods" or "cusinaire" was it? That lasted 3 pr 4 years, What a stuff up!

My school years were from 1963 to 1973, and my generation seemed to be able to read and write quite well.

I did have a small (?) advantage, though, in that I could read and write before I started school. For this, I
can thank my parents and family.

I feel that one of the greatest gifts a parent can give to their child is a love of books and reading, and
always feel strange when in a house with children but no books.

To this day, I go no-where without something to read.

BTW, I remember the Quisenaire rods, we had them then, and my step-son was still using them at school in the 1980s.

They seemed to work well for those whose intellect is more 'visual' than 'cerebral'.

Kat wrote on Feb 26^th, 2013 at 10:17am:

My school years were from 1963 to 1973, and my generation seemed to be able to read and write quite well. I did have a small (?) advantage, though, in that I could read and write before I started school. For this, I can thank my parents and family. I feel that one of the greatest gifts a parent can give to their child is a love of books and reading, and always feel strange when in a house with children but no books. To this day, I go no-where without something to read. BTW, I remember the Quisenaire rods, we had them then, and my step-son was still using them at school in the 1980s. They seemed to work well for those whose intellect is more 'visual' than 'cerebral'.

Agree.

Our little read over 80 books for homework in prep and has read a homework book a day since starting grade 1.

Parents can/must have an impact on their kids learning.

Obviously Gillards program is having instant effect. I saw a man today in his 50s enjoying a coffee and reading a Dora the Explorer book.

I truly hope it wasnt extending him

:D :D :D :D

There has been a move in higher education in the last few years to (re)install 'back to basics' courses. These include basic academic writing requirements, how to construct an argument, research evidence, analyse texts, formulate thesis statements etc.

I am not sure what happens in high school. Was this ever taught? Is it meant to be taught in high school? They didn't in the early 90s.

how to construct an argument, research evidence, analyse texts, formulate thesis statements etc.

My comments were obviously directed to the teaching of basic reading & writing, infants & primary school matters basically. I think the skills you refer to are at the least senior primary school and high school issues.
You are right about the "back to basics" courses, but they haven't in fact, not even now, gained much ground.
The problem with going back to teaching reading by phonics is that the present contingent of teachers - and even their lecturers - have in the main no experience of it and would have to be retrained.
In the meantime, kids continue to struggle on with "whole of word recognition" and such discredited theories.

I agree that some students are coming through with bad grammatical habits. I am not sure of the curriculum in high schools, so I can't comment if it's a teacher issue or a student issue. In higher education, by opening it up to everyone, and by lowering entry requirements, you inevitably end up with students who simply shouldn't be there. Whether they are just letting students through who shouldn't be there or that there really is a lower standard of student graduating, I am not sure.

Both I think. Thankfully, when it counts, as in medicine, they do their best to maintain the best of standards.

One thing I will say about higher education, though, is that there is a lot of emphasis on "moral education" over learning basic academic requirements. This is why you end up with a whole help of "useful idiot" types graduating who like to tell everyone what is morally right and wrong, but do not possess the intellectual arguments/evidence to support their positions.