Learning to read is the key to education. That’s not a new revelation. Reading is the foundation, the entry point for everything else. But English is not easy to master. It has its complex roots in a number of older languages — German, French, Latin and more.
English continues to evolve; it’s fluid and dynamic, its robust vocabulary growing with each new expression in the popular culture and beyond. It is forever expanding.
Pronunciation rules have so many exceptions it’s hard to keep track of them. Grammar niceties are made to be broken. Just take a gander at the work of Jack Kerouac.
Dictionaries have a tough time keeping up. So do young children and folks new to these shores from non-English-speaking climes. How to teach the uninitiated English is a challenge. There has been a good deal of experimentation in this regard through the decades.
We particularly enjoy the robust example of Robin Williams acting in “Good Morning, Vietnam.” He plays the part of an American Army radio DJ who moonlights as a manic English teacher in Saigon. His methods are, to the say the least, provocative.
One mechanism for introducing the basics of the language continues to stand the test of time: phonics. No matter the newest, trendy alternative, we keep returning to the fundamentals of phonics — the learning of English by sounding out letters and words. It’s not rocket science.
Rather tellingly, Sesame Street uses the rudiments of phonics to help kids understand letters and words and read as early as possible. The long-running and lauded children’s TV show, which debuted on PBS, has been emphasizing phonics, after extensive research, for more than a half-century.
This is not to say that all other tools dedicated to learning English are necessarily unhelpful. After all, just paying close attention to English-language TV and movies, in some very real cases, can be a boon in this effort.
Phonics, though, never really gets old. We keep coming back to it. It’s a linguistic constant. The state of California, once again, is embracing phonics and urging its inclusion in curricula throughout its vast academic realm.
It’s technically not a strict mandate; it’s a strong recommendation. So it has some considerable weight. There can be no perfect technique for teaching English. But phonics, when other means falter or fail, is always there to provide a suitable solution for most students, young or old.
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Yes, it can be frustrating at times. Yet it’s somehow comforting to see its usefulness validated once more. Elmo and Cookie Monster and the rest of the gang welcome you back as well.
FOOTBALL AS A MARKETING TOOL: For some time, the lure of playing high school football has been dimming. Changing demographics, enrollment declines, worries about serious injuries (especially the long-term effects of multiple concussions), the sedentary video game culture and other negative factors have tended to reduce roster numbers along the Peninsula.
Just last week, Menlo School, which had been unbeaten until a loss late last month, announced it needed to forfeit its game against Wilcox of Santa Clara because of a lack of available healthy players on the Atherton campus. Cupertino forfeited to Jefferson of Daly City as well.
Years ago, Westmoor of Daly City and Oceana of Pacifica dropped football entirely due to a lack of interest and a paucity of willing participants.
Junipero Serra, however, has seen its football program overflow with eager teens. According to the San Mateo school’s website, 195 boys were listed on its three teams (varsity, junior varsity and freshman) earlier this semester.
That figure — more than the football programs at Half Moon Bay, Terra Nova Pacifica and Mills of Millbrae combined — represented just over 20% of the entire Serra student body.
This circumstance has been ongoing for some time, primarily since the hiring of Patrick Walsh as head coach in 2001. Under his aegis, the sport has boomed, becoming a significant marketing component for the school.
At one point earlier in this decade, Serra, which hosts Riordan of San Francisco (which also uses sports, including football, as a marketing tool) Friday at 7 p.m. in the 2025 West Catholic Athletic League championship game, had the top-rated prep football team in Northern California. The statewide free media exposure was invaluable.
Is it likely that other local schools, both public and private, would seek to mirror the Serra football model? Uncertain. But the challenges and drawbacks of going in that direction are considerable.
And, to be frank, a serious emphasis on the sport may well be unwanted in the first place.
(1) comment
Thanks for your column today, Mr. Horgan, and for the update regarding the state embracing phonics - a tried and true method for teaching people to read. I’d add that an additional teaching aid for reading (and perhaps we can reduce the number of teachers by doing this) is to listen to audiobooks while following spoken words with printed words.
With the advent of AI, perhaps they’d be able to replace the bevy of teachers who have been teaching whatever they’ve been teaching instead of phonics. Seems these so-called teachers would have a learning curve to learn to teach phonics. Instead, we should lay most of them off and institute a better mousetrap using more efficient methods. Regardless, good luck to those learning to read. It is the key to education and a key to untold riches. It is also a key to countering the fake news and lies from mainstream media and Democrat gaslighting.
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