‘… traditional skills in reading and writing are fundamental.‘
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Speaking and listening to what, if it has not first been composed and written down? Writing, particularly essay writing or text review, organises thoughts, allows revisions, develops comprehension, trains in use of brevity, succinctness, best phraseology, expands vocabulary and develops communication techniques.
The alternative is just a stream of undisciplined brain to mouth, er, um, you know, shapeless, boring blather.
There is also a huge volume of information from antiquity which is written and minds trained in reading and precis are needed to understand it and benefit.
The proper teaching of English Language declined decades ago with ‘modern’ educational techniques. It shows… just read a Newspaper or listen to the News or a politician. Most young people struggle to speak in whole words, never mind whole sentences.
The National Council of Teachers of English have been up to such anti-literacy shenanigans for a long time. I was reminded of a 1979 article from Richard Mitchell, aka the Underground Grammarian (https://sourcetext.com/grammarian-newslettersv03-html/, skip down to "Three Mile Island Syndrome"). Excerpt:
"The NCTE worries about the “trivializing” of competence tests by persnickety questions on punctuation and spelling, preferring that student writing skills be judged “holistically” and with no “emphasis on trivia.” (College English, March 1979, pp. 827-828.) By that, they mean that student writing should be judged subjectively by members of the teacher club (who else could provide a “holistic rating”?), and that skills like spelling and punctuation, objectively measurable by mere civilians, are to be held of little or no account.
"One NCTEer, a certain Seymour Yesner, a public school teacher in Minneapolis, questions whether spelling or capitalization “is as important as presenting ideas in logical sequence.” Sure. There must be millions of kids who haven’t been taught too much about the relatively undemanding skills of spelling and punctuation but have nevertheless mastered the rigorous discipline of “presenting ideas in logical sequence.”'
‘… traditional skills in reading and writing are fundamental.‘
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Speaking and listening to what, if it has not first been composed and written down? Writing, particularly essay writing or text review, organises thoughts, allows revisions, develops comprehension, trains in use of brevity, succinctness, best phraseology, expands vocabulary and develops communication techniques.
The alternative is just a stream of undisciplined brain to mouth, er, um, you know, shapeless, boring blather.
There is also a huge volume of information from antiquity which is written and minds trained in reading and precis are needed to understand it and benefit.
The proper teaching of English Language declined decades ago with ‘modern’ educational techniques. It shows… just read a Newspaper or listen to the News or a politician. Most young people struggle to speak in whole words, never mind whole sentences.
The National Council of Teachers of English have been up to such anti-literacy shenanigans for a long time. I was reminded of a 1979 article from Richard Mitchell, aka the Underground Grammarian (https://sourcetext.com/grammarian-newslettersv03-html/, skip down to "Three Mile Island Syndrome"). Excerpt:
"The NCTE worries about the “trivializing” of competence tests by persnickety questions on punctuation and spelling, preferring that student writing skills be judged “holistically” and with no “emphasis on trivia.” (College English, March 1979, pp. 827-828.) By that, they mean that student writing should be judged subjectively by members of the teacher club (who else could provide a “holistic rating”?), and that skills like spelling and punctuation, objectively measurable by mere civilians, are to be held of little or no account.
"One NCTEer, a certain Seymour Yesner, a public school teacher in Minneapolis, questions whether spelling or capitalization “is as important as presenting ideas in logical sequence.” Sure. There must be millions of kids who haven’t been taught too much about the relatively undemanding skills of spelling and punctuation but have nevertheless mastered the rigorous discipline of “presenting ideas in logical sequence.”'