Indifferent.
In - diff - er - ent.
Stop being bloody difficult, and start teaching the kids to read again.
It's quite simply pathetic that Grade 6 kids cant read.

If you can't do it someone will create a free ipad app that can, and it will be of more benefit to the kids than your whining.

I want to add further to my previous comment by sharing a story I heard last week from an Aussie truck driver last week who'd been having some drama's with the local primary school and he's son.

They called him into school to talk about his boy.
They said he'd been falling behind in English, and that he needed extra help or else he might fall further behind and have to repeat.
Alan (truck driver) says "Well what other subjects is he doing?" and they must've told him he was also doing German as a subject.
So Alan says "Well why don't you cut back on the lessons in German, and focus more on his English?"
"No sir, we can't do that, it's not part of the curriculum"
Alan "What point is there in him learning bloody German if he's not even learning English?"

I agree with Alan, you people are idiots.

Absolutely agree with Armchair!

Moreover, your opinion remains just that Paul! And even before uttering, has clearly foundered on irrefutable facts and the sheer numbers of kids now leaving school as virtually unemployable illiterates, who all too often go on to become part of the rising divorce rate or prison population statistics.

All we seen from folk with your iron willed obsession is opinion and assumption completely divorced from literal reality!

There's nothing wrong with dream castles in the clouds, except when you move in as permanent residents?

You must be able to take considerable comfort, in the fact you are never ever wrong!
Alan B.

This endless false dilemma: OF COURSE kids should read for meaning, for fun, for exploring. But first they have to know how to read.

My late wife ran a small Indigenous pre-school, where she strove to ensure that the kids LIKED books, she read then their favourite stories, let them browse through any books available, gave them their 'favourite word', Sylvia-Ashton-Warner-style, meaningful words, and let them choose their favourite book for her to read to them. Also a period of 'silent reading', i.e. looking at the pictures of their favourite books - i.e. learning to LOVE reading, to understand that they could get pleasure out of it. Also pre-reading games, singing the alphabet, etc. etc., so even before they went on to school, they had some basic phonics and more importantly, an interest in reading.

OF COURSE, once kids have mastered the basics, they can, at their own pace, move onto reading material etc. that interests them. But why does anybody think that the two processes can't be done alternately, simultaneously, whatever ?

This is a phony argument to absolve lazy and ignorant teachers from what THEY see as boring, i.e. reading the same stories over and over just because the kids like them, going over the same rules - and their exceptions - until the kids are comfortable with them. Boring - so much easier to focus on the really 'bright' kids who get help from ambitious parents at home.

Joe

I cannot understand why they would teach them to read nonsense words.

That defeats and confuses the whole process of learning phonetics to recognise a word by sounding out the letters.

It's simple, there are 26 words in the alphabet and they all have a sound.
Learn the sounds then sound out the letters to recognise words.
Most words in English can be recognised this way.
Words like laugh and a few strangely spelt words are an exception, but about 96%
of words can be sounded out and recognised.

It should start out with very Simple word stories accompanied by pictures.
With words like cat, mat, etc.
There should be nothing hard about it if it is done correctly.
Learning nonsense words is ridiculous. What academic dill thought that one up.

sorry, that should have said. " 26 letters" in the alphabet."