Can you recall the hit song from decades ago called "The Rhythm of Life" ? I can not remember all the words except "the rhythm of life has a powerful beat. Rhythm in the bedroom rhythm in the street". They forgot to mention rhythm in the classroom.
Earlier generations at school up to the 1970s were used to rhythm in the classroom. They chanted the multiplication tables, sang songs, recited poems and nursery rhymes and danced folk dances.
Then it all stopped in the 1960s and 1970s when some fool teachers decreed that memorization was an inferior way of learning. Noise in classrooms stopped. There is still silence in classrooms as students are not required to recite anything.
Even phonics is silent in modern classrooms with students required to work out the meanings of words by blending - all silent work.
We are bringing back chanting at elementary school. At the Eriku school students love to chant patterns and may well remember these patterns into old age. The phonic patterns bring rhythm memory back to the classroom.
We go
We go
We go to town
We go to town
We go with him
We go with him
We go into the house
We go into the house
Don't go
Don't go
Don't go with them
Don't go with them
Don't go to town with them
Don't go to town with them
Why make young kids focus on intellectualizing words with exclusive focus on sounds and blending? Let them chant and memorize the literacy music of simple words. There is so much rhythm in poetry and nursery rhymes:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water
/ x / x / x /
x / x / x / x
Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow
/ x / x / x /
x / x / x /
Then we have rhythm in the nation
Oh arise all you sons of this land
x x / x x / x x /
Let us sing of a joy to be free
x x / x x / x x /
Praising God and rejoicing to be
/ x / x x / x x x/
Papua New Guinea
/ x x / / x
Listen to kids in the playground. Can you recall the clapping chant. " Down by the river down by the sea, Jimmy broke a bottle and he blamed me. I told mummy and mummy told daddy and daddy got a big stick and bam bam bam" - pure rhythm in the playground.
Teachers have to bring back rhythm to the classroom and phonics will look after itself.
Then it all stopped in the 1960s and 1970s when some fool teachers decreed that memorization was an inferior way of learning. Noise in classrooms stopped. There is still silence in classrooms as students are not required to recite anything.
Even phonics is silent in modern classrooms with students required to work out the meanings of words by blending - all silent work.
We are bringing back chanting at elementary school. At the Eriku school students love to chant patterns and may well remember these patterns into old age. The phonic patterns bring rhythm memory back to the classroom.
We go
We go
We go to town
We go to town
We go with him
We go with him
We go into the house
We go into the house
Don't go
Don't go
Don't go with them
Don't go with them
Don't go to town with them
Don't go to town with them
Why make young kids focus on intellectualizing words with exclusive focus on sounds and blending? Let them chant and memorize the literacy music of simple words. There is so much rhythm in poetry and nursery rhymes:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water
/ x / x / x /
x / x / x / x
Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow
/ x / x / x /
x / x / x /
Then we have rhythm in the nation
Oh arise all you sons of this land
x x / x x / x x /
Let us sing of a joy to be free
x x / x x / x x /
Praising God and rejoicing to be
/ x / x x / x x x/
Papua New Guinea
/ x x / / x
Listen to kids in the playground. Can you recall the clapping chant. " Down by the river down by the sea, Jimmy broke a bottle and he blamed me. I told mummy and mummy told daddy and daddy got a big stick and bam bam bam" - pure rhythm in the playground.
Teachers have to bring back rhythm to the classroom and phonics will look after itself.
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