If there’s one thing we can know without a doubt about Phyllis Schlafly, it’s that she tirelessly advocated for parents to be in the driver’s seat of their children’s education. Parents, after all, know their children best and love them most. So, would it surprise you to hear that Phyllis wrote a column in 1994 titled “Why I Don’t Read to My Children”? Let me explain!
Phyllis criticized what was then a highly publicized campaign to promote the idea of parents reading to their children. Lots of prominent people and news sources wrote and talked about this campaign, but there was one major problem Phyllis saw with it. The children that were being read to were too old! They ought to be reading on their own, she said. “Reading to your child will give you warm feelings,” she wrote in her weekly column, “but you can get those same warm feelings by teaching him HOW to read before he starts school, and then your child will have a skill he can use by himself.”
Well Phyllis knew the public schools then in 1994 weren’t doing an adequate job with children’s literacy, so she took matters into her own hands and developed her own phonics system called the First Reader. Do you wonder if your child is reading well and capable of (as Phyllis said) having the “horizons of opportunity expanded by reading about the noble deeds of great Americans and achievement”? If you know better than to trust the report cards of Outcome-Based Education, we have just the reading test for you.
Email us today if you would like a copy of the First Reading test! Send a message to info@phyllisschlafly.com or give us a call at 1-866-TRY-TURBO! We will be happy to provide you a free copy. It’s a quick and easy test you can print off or administer straight from the screen!
Request a copy of this free First Reading Test today! Call 1-866-TRY-TURBO, send a message at Phyllis Schlafly dot com, or via email to info@phyllisschlafly.com.
This post originally appeared at https://phyllisschlafly.com/family/to-read-aloud-or-not-to-read-aloud/