American Idol Fantasia is illiterate

[mum4jenn]

I have a feeling we all know what that poster meant by "typical". They are too scared to come back to write it down but I am sure we all really know what they meant. It is a sad sad thing for them that they feel this way but the also know they will get flamed big time for writing what they really want to say. I think this person should have never come out with that one word but they did. He/she is totally into stereotyping but is too much of a chicken to say anything more.

 

[Alice's Mom]

Social promotion perhaps. More likely, special education student. There are lots of things wrong with No Child Left Behind, but it does specifically address the issue of special education students simply being passed along (many districts felt these students "couldn't learn", so didn't worry about how much they were taught) in that they are now required to show adequate yearly progress. We disagree in how that is measured, but I think it's one of the positive steps. A student could still make it all the way through without learning to read though, it depends on their disabilities. I would think in her case (doesn't seem severely disabled) it might be difficult for her to learn to read, but not impossible. She should've been on at least 4th-6th grade level of reading/writing when she left school. That probably wouldn't have helped with her contracts, but definitely with reading to her daughter.

What DO you mean by typical?

Not to go too off topic, but I have a friend who is a special education teacher in an elementary school and she was saying that the way NCLB determines progress is tests, but unfortunately a lot of these kids can't take a standardized test, which is what she had to give them. If they aren't progressing they aren't funded. She was teaching them valuable life skills and now she has to teach them how to take a test that frustrates them and she did lose funding...this is just a number of areas NCLB needs to address.

Back to the topic, I am glad someone of her magnitude can come out and talk about a problem that plagues this country...this can only help her, her daughter and the people who voted for her.

 

[crazelion]

Typical...

I will be one come say it by she being a black american that is typical of our race to cover up our problems and not do nothing about. Because we all poor and come from the ghetto.

You can make it all way through high school and not be able to read or write even with state mandote testing. I know when high school I take reading and written part of the test 8 times finally past it on the last go around. To get my regular dilpoma.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

Not to go too off topic, but I have a friend who is a special education teacher in an elementary school and she was saying that the way NCLB determines progress is tests, but unfortunately a lot of these kids can't take a standardized test, which is what she had to give them. If they aren't progressing they aren't funded. She was teaching them valuable life skills and now she has to teach them how to take a test that frustrates them and she did lose funding...this is just a number of areas NCLB needs to address.

Back to the topic, I am glad someone of her magnitude can come out and talk about a problem that plagues this country...this can only help her, her daughter and the people who voted for her.

Off topic somewhat but first let me say that she could make it through school and not read because I know lots of kids who have faked it in the past. As much as we would like to think everyone can decode , encode and comprehend some people are not and will not be able to read. If you have a learning disability that prevents you from transferring info from the page to be processed in the brain, if you have long or short term memory problems if you have expressive and receptive language disability you most likely will bottom out at some point.
I am a sped teacher and have spent hours with kids who have exactly these types of problems. I time spend one to one and in groups. Progress in very slow sometimes and by the time the kids get older they realize what they do not know. It then becomes something to hide so peers do not know their secret. The harder reading becomes the more they will not try it. There is something called the Matthew Effect. When a child is in grade one he needs to accomplish certain things to become a reader. If this is postponed to grade two the gap widens and as you go up in grades the gape does not widen proportionally but exponentially.

NCLB is NOT good. It tests kids but does not look at where they started but rather where they are. If you are in grade 4 but started the year reading at a k level and progress to a g.2 level that is a huge amount of progress BUT it does not compute with NCLB. All NCLB does is point out to struggling kids that they know less than they thought and make the problem even more compounded. NCLB IS just plain stupid and impossible to achieve.

 

[Buckalew11]

I think it is great that she is opening up and sharing this info AND doing something about it. I have volunteered in our literacy programs teaching people to read and they aren't stupid. It takes a lot of some sort of life skills to cover it up and fake it and fool people! And believe me, these people fool many! I tutored a school bus driver!!!

By the way, I can read anything and have taught others to read but last year figured out my own problems with reading and am still being tutored to help with comprehension trouble. Reading is power in my book! I wish my teachers would have caught the fact that even though I could read well and was in the high reading groups, that there was trouble and I struggle with knowing what I read and terefore hated reading books (for school or pleasure). Thankfully I have learned that it is never too late to teach an old dog new tricks!

I think Fantasia's story will touch many lives and I am happy for her. A whole new world will open up for her through reading!

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

I think it is great that she is opening up and sharing this info AND doing something about it. I have volunteered in our literacy programs teaching people to read and they aren't stupid. It takes a lot of some sort of life skills to cover it up and fake it and fool people! And believe me, these people fool many! I tutored a school bus driver!!!

By the way, I can read anything and have taught others to read but last year figured out my own problems with reading and am still being tutored to help with comprehension trouble. Reading is power in my book! I wish my teachers would have caught the fact that even though I could read well and was in the high reading groups, that there was trouble and I struggle with knowing what I read and terefore hated reading books (for school or pleasure). Thankfully I have learned that it is never too late to teach an old dog new tricks!

I think Fantasia's story will touch many lives and I am happy for her. A whole new world will open up for her through reading!

You have just illustrated a big problem. There is decoding/encoding which is phonetically sounding out words and spelling and then there is comprehension. You do not need to decode every word on a page to comprehend what it means. Some teachers used to think that if a child was fluent he/she also understood what was read and this is NOT the case. Give me a kid who has problems decoding/encoding but can use context clues to figure out words over a fluent reader who cannot comprehend any day!!

 

[swilphil]

It is possible that Fantasia didn't pass any classes in high school, and that's why she dropped out. Some districts don't hold kids back in elementary and middle school. I also imagine with Fantasia's personality, she was able to win over teachers.

I agree with Bella's assessment of NCLB. As nice as it is to think that EVERY child will read at a certain level, it is impossible to achieve. The schools that will lose the most are the ones that need the most help.

 

[mum4jenn]

I will be one come say it by she being a black american that is typical of our race to cover up our problems and not do nothing about. Because we all poor and come from the ghetto.

You can make it all way through high school and not be able to read or write even with state mandote testing. I know when high school I take reading and written part of the test 8 times finally past it on the last go around. To get my regular dilpoma.

I am sorry but you ARE kidding with what you wrote...right???? I had to read this post several times to understand what was being said. I took it to mean you were being sarcastic in the way you put in all the errors. At least I hope so. I am not familiar with your normal postings so I hope this one was a joke.

 

[tiggersmom2]

I am sorry but you ARE kidding with what you wrote...right???? I had to read this post several times to understand what was being said. I took it to mean you were being sarcastic in the way you put in all the errors. At least I hope so. I am not familiar with your normal postings so I hope this one was a joke.

I looked at some past posts from crazelion.....apparently, that is indeed his posting style.

 

[thinkerbell]

Originally posted by Bella The Ball 360:

NCLB is NOT good. It tests kids but does not look at where they started but rather where they are. If you are in grade 4 but started the year reading at a k level and progress to a g.2 level that is a huge amount of progress BUT it does not compute with NCLB. All NCLB does is point out to struggling kids that they know less than they thought and make the problem even more compounded. NCLB IS just plain stupid and impossible to achieve.

AMEN!!!!! AMEN!!!!!

 

[paigevz]

Not to go too off topic, but I have a friend who is a special education teacher in an elementary school and she was saying that the way NCLB determines progress is tests, but unfortunately a lot of these kids can't take a standardized test, which is what she had to give them. If they aren't progressing they aren't funded. She was teaching them valuable life skills and now she has to teach them how to take a test that frustrates them and she did lose funding...this is just a number of areas NCLB needs to address.

That's precisely what I meant about disagreeing how it's measured. For me, why can't adequate yearly progress mean the kid can count change at the grocery store at the end of the year when he couldn't at the beginning? Or, the kid can recognize the brands/stores he most likes (environmental print) now? Or the kid can now respond appropriately to a greeting? Or respond at all? I know that very few of our special ed. kids can pass the tests they want them to pass.........they just want to see if they can get 5 or 10 more than last year..........well, often they will get less, that is the nature of these kids and the nature of the test.

We did need a way to measure what was being done though, as many special ed. classes were being used at "throw away" classes, and no one cared after they got their diagnosis/label and were leaving the regular classroom and given the grades needed based on what they did rather than what they could do.

Not to say I agree with NCLB.........is there an educator who does? It is the wrong way as we all know. It's utterly impossible to do what NCLB wants. I just do agree that we should have someone looking out for the special ed. kids who weren't being educated properly. I am not knocking the educators who were actually educating their charges.

Sorry for the off topic again. It's a sensitive area with many of us.

 

[bcvgal]

Coming from the same town and knowing what high school she went to it don't surprise me that she did slip through the cracks. This school has so many drugs and gangs that the teachers probably passed anyone who didn't cause trouble. I am so glad shes getting help. We are very proud of her.