| Show f fn tf n v- v f t v x 4 a ait it I r 4 t t Notes By Dr Wayne Reid held Superintendent READING A NECESSARY BASIC One current national problem which also Is affecting Utah according to a recent report to the State Board of Education is that too many students I still stUl cant can't read anywhere near aswell as aswell aswell well as they should NATIONAL TEST scores show that students cant can't read aswell as aswell aswell well as they used to Th The decline of literacy has been termed a national disgrace Problem areas hampering constructive action are the TV and radio Many announcers and television series heroes and heroines destroy the English language Many mispronounce the acceptable words Television not only corrupts language usage it also produces simplistic thinking through ugh its necessarily superficial approach to problems o of great grea t depth The Uintah Board of Education has attacked this major problem head on with a philosophy of damn the humanists full speed ahead Reading has become one of the major basics to be emphasized in all of the schools throughout the school system John Child Director of Curriculum is launching a wide district-wide workshop to assist teachers in helping correct any educational pitfalls Historian Jacques Barzun concludes We have ceased eased to think with words Lack o of reading skills shows itself with the o of a large fluorescent sign in the breakdown breakdown breakdown break break- down of writing Unfortunately tely many secondary-school secondary curriculums no langer require the wide range o of reading all students must have if they are able to learn to write clearly Educators emphatically agree agre that a student who cannot read with true comprehension will never learn to write well Writing Is after all book- book talk says Ramon Veal You learn book talk only by rea reading ding TilE THE TRUE effect of television on our generation Is yet to be decided but most assuredly students who have been raised in its glare have been conditioned into a passiveness to sit and be en en- This in turn has a markedly bad effect on a childs child's active pursuit of reading and writing skills To combat the effects of television our schools intend to require more reading writing and computational skills so necessary in becoming a productive citizen Creativity will still need to be emphasized but only after the basic objectives objectives objectives ob ob- have been met There needs to be an insistence upon grammer structure and style The colloquial slangy and illiterate language style has very little use in our schools of today To tie these skills together Frank Andreason Director of Student Services is putting together framework for far or competency based work In this approach students must meet at least minimal competency in all academic areas The problem of poor reading and writing skills cannot be thrown exclusively at the doorstep of the educational community however much of the blame needs to be cast in the direction of the home itself The breakdown of the family's amily's rules rules' and r regulations the permissiveness permissiveness per per- to let the child totally relax after a days day's rigors rigors' at school and the integration of of the one-eyed one monster blasting TV shows into our minds have all helped cause the problems in reading and writing that we now face ace America has been built around strong family amily ties the era when Mom sat down and either read a story to the children childre or or had them read one I Oto nto to her This type type of attitude H de should be into our society o n oYet Yet the schools must be accountable for those thos y young ung people during the the time we have them From the outset of kindergarten kindergarten kindergarten kin kin- or or first grade the to read through a fascinating book must be in in- stilled Reading can and must be ex exciting interesting rewarding and with a specific e I in 10 m mind i n d Hlf SIU skills S Sar are ar qin in fact vital for the the pursuance pursuance pursuance pur pur- of all other educational skills When we start at th the basics this is number one |
