Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld
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Written by Sam Blumenfeld
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Thursday, 09 February 2012 11:52 |
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 What is a good teacher? How do you recognize that rare individual? One of the problems Bill and Melinda Gates have had in making grants for education reform through their billion-dollar foundation is that no one seems to know what makes a good teacher. Indeed, Gates stated: “The single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching.” But no one could tell him what made a good teacher. But since I spent 12 years — 1932 to 1944 — in public schools, I think I have a good idea of what a good teacher is, and I wish to pass on to Bill and Melinda and the coming generation of teachers some of the wisdom I have acquired.
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Written by Sam Blumenfeld
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Tuesday, 07 February 2012 08:54 |
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In my last column I stressed the need for the adult, self-teaching reader to be able to break up multisyllabic words into their syllables, so that the reader could see the phonetic structure of the word. The sight reader tries to find little words that he can recognize in multisyllabic words, which might give him a hint of what the word says. He is looking for a small, recognizable picture in the big word. But because that method is so inefficient, the reader is more likely to misread the word.
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Written by Sam Blumenfeld
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Thursday, 02 February 2012 11:59 |
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Can a dyslexic actually cure himself of his reading disability? Yes. Anyone who wants to do so can learn how English's 26 letters stand for 44 irreducible speech sounds, just as anyone who wants to learn to read Russian would have to learn to recognize the 32 letters of the Russian alphabet and the sounds they stand for.
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Written by Sam Blumenfeld
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Monday, 30 January 2012 09:20 |
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Some time ago I received a letter from England that was written by an intelligent, accomplished and motivated adult who had a “reading problem.” He had been taught to read by the look-say method and exhibited the usual symptoms of dyslexia, and he wanted to know how to cure his disability.
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Written by Sam Blumenfeld
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Friday, 27 January 2012 09:20 |
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For decades, I’ve been telling my readers that the federal government ought not to be in the education business and that constitutionalist members of Congress are duty bound to close down the Department of Education. The Cabinet-level department was created during the Carter administration as payback for the National Education Association’s help in getting him elected.
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