"katysails" reported:
Found this on an educational ng:
Ensgilh 101

Acocdrnig to an elgnsih unviesitry sutdy the oredr of letetrs in a wrod
dosen't
mttaer, the olny thnig thta's iopmrantt is that the frsit and lsat
Ltteer of
eevry word is in the crcreot ptoision. The rset can be jmbueld and one
is stlil
able to raed the txet wiohtut dclftfuiiy.

This is actually a very sophisticated zinger directed at the
(soi-disant "Christian") phonics-only proponents.

For some reason, fundamentalists in the post-WWII era decided that
"whole-language" was synonymous with "secular humanism" and therefore
phonics-only *must* be the only possible God-approved method of
learning to read. Of course, they were unfortunately ignoring the fact
that phonics-only had been tried in the public schools in this country
from the late 1800s through the early part of the 1900s and was
universally rejected after producing a generation of "readers" who
could sound out (most) words, one at a time, but had no comprehension
or retention of what they'd just "read". This is why so many people in
the "education establishment" at the time were opposed to
phonics-only. It had already been tried and found wanting.

Refusing to learn from history, the fundies girded their loins and
engaged in a no-holds-barred battle through the fifties and sixties to
force school districts to adopt phonics-only and reject the
Satan-inspired whole-language methodology. By the time we got to Chall
(et al), the battle lines were so rigidly drawn that genuine
researchers, like Chall, were demonized by everyone. Eventually, IMO,
the fundies just kinda got tired of fighting in the face of
then-current research plus historical evidence.

Since then, the battle cry has changed from "phonics only!" to
"phonics is most important!" You rarely hear about the trench-warfare
kind of pitched battles there used to be back in the heyday of
phonics-only.

Now back to your regularly scheduled troll wars and flamefests...

Sailing-related content: An old college buddy of mine e-mailed me from
Mystic. He's taking sailing lessons there and is interested in buying
a sailing dink or small trailer-sailer. Anybody got any
recommendations?

Frank