CPS struggles with a low literacy rate among third-graders from low-income families. One reader says CPS should rely more on phonics.
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times file
Regarding the recent op-ed “Many Chicago Public Schools students struggle with illiteracy,” how many times must this confession make headline news, year in and year out, when the way to correct the problem is for Chicago’s harebrained Board of Education to switch to what works in building literacy: Phonics, plain and simple?
Nothing of the sort regarding illiteracy was said of my age cohort, which was weaned and drilled on phonics. Result: We could all read without a problem just by sounding out the letter sounds. Easy as pie. And that was in 1935.
Where did Chicago’s Board of Education go wrong by abandoning that simple teaching expedient, still the norm throughout Western Europe? Americans cast off a winning method of teaching literacy. Replacing it with what?
Whatever they call it, it clearly ain’t working. So for the coming five years, why not revert to what works unfailingly: Phonics? As remedies for failure go, it is so obvious it is painful to cite, but there it is, Chicagoans. A Board of Education too dense to return to what really works, sacrificing class after class of new students to a life of near literacy. What a pity.
Ted Z. Manuel, Hyde Park
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Recalling her days as a tutor
Taal Hasak-Lowy’s op-ed on illiteracy took me back to my volunteering days at my son’s grade school in Rogers Park. The kids I helped tutor ranged in ability; one of them could read like the wind, but didn’t understand a bit of what she was reading. One day this fifth grader asked me in all innocence, “Who puts the stars in the sky? Does someone paint them there?”
I was stunned and totally at a loss for an answer. Where would I even begin? And would science conflict with her home religious teachings, whatever they might be? Professionals were probably trained to cope with that; I was not.
In the jargon of the time, I “finked out.” I laughed sort of weakly and said, “I think you’d better ask your teacher about that. I’m just here to help you read better!”
Looking back, I hope I helped the kids I tutored. But I have no way of knowing.
Bindy Bitterman, Uptown
Biden should issue work permits to undocumented immigrants
Referring to your editorial “Work permits for all undocumented immigrants? That’s asking too much,” presidents have been using the humanitarian parole authority for decades. Indeed, President Biden has used it to admit well over 1 million human beings under this authority through programs such as the CBP ONE process for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans; Uniting for Ukraine, Afghan Resettlement, Ukrainian Border Parolees and Family Reunification Programs. All of this without Congress.
The Editorial Board’s stated fear that granting work permits to longtime residents of the U.S. might motivate more migrants to head north is also unreasonable. The last amnesty program was in 1986, and if President Biden were to grant work permits to the millions of undocumented who qualify, it will have been 38 years between such programs. I don’t think people will be motivated to leave their homes and families to risk their lives and cross the border with the hope of waiting 38 more years for another large-scale program to be passed.
Finally, the board’s statement that “the timing of this push for work permits for all undocumented folks couldn’t come at a worse time” is what the undocumented have been told every year since 1986. Will there ever be a good time to do the right thing?
Chris J. Bergin, immigration lawyer, Portage Park