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Originally Posted by eepster  Nobody does times phonics speed drills. While reading allowed students are encourage to read at a normal speaking pace, not as fast as possible. Nobody will decide that a child, who is more of a sight reader than a phonetic one, has poor reading comprehension skills.
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Actually, they do. And then kids are assessed on their speed (except the assessment calls it "fluency" which I think is a bunch of hooey). The DIBELS assessment is all timed and is an indicator of potential reading issues that may need intervention. Kids who identify and decode letter sounds quickly score way better than kids that don't.
I was just having a conversation with a friend (also a teacher, but in a non-traditional setting) about flaws in math education. I've only been teaching math at the 6th grade level for 3 years now, so I don't feel like I've been at it long enough to know how to improve it, but I know it's not quite right. I get so frustrated being stuck in this trajectory of teaching separate math concepts independent of each other. It drives me crazy that the textbook treats decimals, fractions, and arithmetic as separate entities when they are all doing the same thing. I hate that little kids are taught that x means multiply, but once they get further along, x means something else.
I don't think speed drills are making great mathematicians or even competent users of numbers. But through the continual practice and reinforcement, they do eventually (hopefully) become automatic. I tell my kids that once I know they understand the mechanics of arithmetic, I want them to see simple equations like sight words. They don't need to sound out the word "fourteen" any more than they should be calculating 2*7. I want them to see 2*7 and think 14 automatically. Just like I want them to be able to see 1/2 and automatically know that is the same thing as 0.5 or 50%. It's just practicing using the language of numbers until they are fluent.
