What's Wrong with American Education - Reason #3450695

Like they say over at the KTM blog: "It's always worse than you think."

Today, in what I thought was a decent first grade, I nearly stopped teaching, so gobsmacked was I by the poster hanging there above the whiteboard.  I desperately wish that I could have taken a picture of it to post here, but alas, I was never alone in the room.  It would have been highly impolitic for me to say, "I'd like to photograph your poster so I can post it on my blog as a prime example of American educational stupidity."

Thankfully, it was all text, and easy to memorize:

3 Ways to Read a Book
   1) Read the pictures
   2) Read the words
   3) Retell the story

You don't need to pinch yourself, you are indeed awake.  This is what passes for reading instruction in suburban first grade.

For those of you slow on the uptake and those progressives who wandered in by mistake (The door is over there, you can show yourselves out at any time.), I'll break down why this poster is the most fatuous thing I've seen this year.

First, let's define the word "read."  Webster's defines it as, "look at and comprehend the meaning of (written or printed matter) by mentally interpreting the characters or symbols of which it is composed."

Now using that definition as a foundation, let's return to the poster:

3 Ways to Read a Book
   1) Read the pictures - by definition, pictures are not composed of characters or symbols, and thus cannot be read. 
   2) Read the words - words are in fact made up of characters or symbols (called "letters") and can be read.
   3) Retell the story - assumes that you have already done #1 or #2 and does not involve, by definition, reading

As you can see, there are NOT, in fact, 3 ways to read a book.  There is only one.  The entire poster is both a waste of paper and a source of boundless confusion for poor, impressionable six year-olds.

Here endeth the lesson.