**** ETNI on the web http://www.etni.org.il http://www.etni.org **** -------- Original Message -------- Subject: JP article From: "Ronald Green" <greenelt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> From Friday's Jerusalem Post: "...Prof. Yaacov Katz, chairman of the pedagogical secretariat of the Ministry of Education. Katz, currently the most influential pedagogue in the Israeli system, points to reading instruction as a prime example of failure: Instead of phonetics, the country used the US-developed "whole word" reading method, a challenge for all but the top students, according to Katz. It took Israeli schools years - long after the method had been debunked in America - to realize that kids were taking much longer than before to come to grips with reading. 'It was a very bad decision,' Katz says. 'They just took what was fashionable at the time and that was a recipe for disaster.' 'Now,' he says, 'a lot of people have a vested interest in keeping all these failed methods alive.' Teachers, school inspectors and program developers have all made their careers on the failed methods... (Jerusalem Post UP Front, July 23, 2004, p. 14.) Ronald Green ##### To send a message to the ETNI list email: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ##### ##### Send queries and questions to: ask@xxxxxxxx #####