Welcome to my soap box. Hope you enjoy the rant ... er ... discussion.
Certainly things are much different for our kids than they were for us. But as the candidates discussed last night (nope, this has NOTHING to do with politics), we are the most expensive country in the world in terms of education and we are trailing most countries in math and science and some other subjects as well. Why? Well, I think I have a little bit of it figured out.
We don't teach kids to listen anymore. I mean the good old fashioned auditory skill training. We've got TVs and video games everywhere in every car and bedroom in America. That means kids are constantly entertained - but visually. Don't you remember when we used to sing in the car on long trips - or even to the grocery store? Sure it was fun ... but it also taught us to use our auditory system to decipher subtle changes in sounds ... and that laid the foundation for rhyming, reading, etc.
OK -so enough about that. But .. I've been trying to find some auditory activities to do with my kids and their classmates to promote phonemic awareness .. and recalled the ELECTRIC COMPANY. Any of my cronies from the 70s remember running to your TV when you heard- "HEY - You Guys......?" This was one of my favorite parts of the show. It is so simple yet so brilliant. My kids have loved watching these "old" clips. Morgan Freeman never looked so good. If your kids like this clip, you can feel good about it - in my world, it's called "blending"and some kids really struggle doing it. I have to wonder if they would still have trouble if they could watch EC instead of Hannah Montana.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M98-5g3TYTI
life goes on... and this blog doesn't
8 years ago
5 comments:
Now that brings back memories! I will have to show Samantha it.
It was totally one of my favorite shows! Although it led me right into singing the theme song for 3..2..1..Contact. Whatever happened to those shows?
We have the EC on DVD. Unfortunately, I like it more than the kdis.
Oh, my goodness! I forgot about that part of the show!
You make some excellent points! I have many of the same thoughts...together we could change the world!
I'm with you on this, although unlike yourself, I know nothing of this "phonemic awareness" of which you speak. To me it just seems that Word World is better than Hannah Montanna, and until Caroline declares herself too old for PBS Kids, we're sticking with it. She will LOVE these EC clips.....thanks for the trip down memory lane.
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