Re: Some grave concerns to the US education

In article <nllsd09e3acqpjfobfrt2n7kgd753st30e@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
toto  <scarecrow@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>On Sat, 26 Jun 2004 12:59:18 GMT, eric blair
><"bordermine(cut)"@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>>Would anybody argue against memorizing the alphabet?

>Actually, yes, people might.

>The fact is that it is the *sounds* of the alphabet and the other
>phonemes that are im****tant in decoding written text not the
>names of the letters at all.

>I'm not against learning the names as an exercise in learning
>the names of *all things,* but memorizing the names is not
>very im****tant.  Of course, knowing the alphabet in order does
>help in sorting things into alphabetical order, but I wonder how
>many people bother with that.  

Also for using a dictionary.

In fact, easier than memorizing the alphabet would be
learning the numerical order of each letter.  In this
way, one only has to learn one number for each letter,
instead of where a letter fits into a sequence, as
the ordering of the decimal numbers is "obvious".


-- 
This address is for information only.  I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
         Phone: (765)494-6054   FAX: (765)494-0558