Letters: DeWine should properly fund schools, let educators decide how to teach reading

Letters to the Editor: DeWine should properly fund schools, let educators decide how to teach reading

Gov. Mike DeWine wants to “retrain” teachers in the “science of reading.” Apparently he knows more than the educators who have taught thousands of children to read.

Research has shown that the first step to reading success is for the child to feel that he/she can read. This occurs by reading short passages with picture cues. Then the teacher introduces phonics, using words in meaningful passages. Many students learn letter sounds, consonant blends, digraphs, diphthongs and more in isolation, but that is very frustrating for some children. Since English is not phonetically regular as long as we have words like “answer,” “sugar” and thousands more,  just sounding out words (using phonics) will not be sufficient. A mixed approach using context clues, phonics, visual memory and more while reading for meaning often works. No one approach fits all.

I worked in a school where teachers generally had three reading groups and then gave extra attention to the one or few whose skills were below or above any group. They had good success using a mixed approach of instruction. That school was forced to teach by drills on phonics the following year. It was not successful.

If Gov. DeWine is concerned, how about getting the legislature to fully and fairly fund schools as the state was ordered to do in 1997? Getting books into homes that lack books could help, along with parent training to read to preschoolers regularly. It would also help to allow teachers to use their skills and creativity instead of forcing so much time on testing. It is vital to promote respect for teachers and educators. Then let them do their job.

Beth Rabb, Retired School Psychologist, Dublin

Leaving abuser is road to recovery for domestic violence victims

“Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.” -- Dorothy Thompson.  (Wikipedia: Dorothy Thompson, 1893–1961, was a prominent American reporter, columnist, and radio personality. Throughout the 1930s and '40s, she urged her fellow Americans to pay attention to the threat that Nazi Germany posed to democracy and to Europe's Jews.)

The fear of the wrath of one’s spouse can destroy one’s life as completely as sickness, accidents and murder. In fact, constantly acting in order to prevent or stall such violence ultimately results, not in safety or self-preservation, but in the dissolution of the self.

In my work in a local shelter for the victims of domestic violence, several victims had described for me the extent that fear of their spouse’s anger had consumed their life. Leaving home, they explained, was a way to recover their former self.

This reaction makes sense since our notion of who we are is, to an extent, a reflection of our own perception of how others see us. Thus, the victim’s awareness that their abuser regarded her as weak, ugly, or stupid and deserving of such abuse may have shaped her self-image. This phenomenon may be similar to “Stockholm Syndrome,” in which a victim’s self image evaporates as the violence continues and may result in their sharing their abuser’s view that they deserve the abuse. Thus, leaving an abuser becomes a route to self recovery.

Aileen Hall, The Plains

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Letters: DeWine should properly fund schools, let educators teach