Answers to Questions About Learning and School
Parents send their children to school and trust that the "magic" of learning happens. Parents often think they know about school because they went to school. People who have worked in school know it is quite different from what they remember from childhood.
When children have no problems in school, parents don't think to ask questions. When children have difficulties, parents often don't understand the situation and try to deal with the consequences of the problems. This page attempts to simply answer common questions that many parents have about school and how their children learn.
Questions about:
- School
- Why don't my child's teachers teach what my child needs to know?
- Who decides what my child will learn?
- What is taught in each level of school?
- What does it mean that my child's school is in crisis?
- Is this a good system of grading schools?
- What are educators doing?
- What is the difference between remediation and intervention?
- Educators
- School Safety
- Learning
- Cognitive Development
- Language
- School Readiness
- Reading
- Math
Information about:
About reading...
- What is reading?
- What is decoding?
- What is phonics?
Most reading instruction currently uses phonics or the sounds that the letter(s) make in a word as part of the instructional process. Phonics has "rules" for letters or letter combinations to make specific sounds. In some languages, the letters always make the same sounds. Unfortunately, English is a language with many exceptions to rules. Children must know when to change the sounds that the letters make. For example, the letters "t" and "h" together make a sound that does not involve the sound of either the "t" or "h".
- What is phonemic awareness?
- What are the steps in learning to read?
- What is reading comprehension?
Click here to listen to recordings of Dr. Jennifer Little discussing various topics relating to education.
