Sheepfold of Language

For Liberty students, a verdant pasture of phonics is the natural strategy for enriching language and literacy. Meanwhile, like sheep gone astray, regular government-owned schools, including entire Northern Colorado districts, have all but abandoned rigorous phonics and grammar. 

 

The contrast was drawn, this month, by New York Times reporter Sarah Mervosh. Her story entitled “’Kids Can’t Read’: The Revolt That Is Taking on the Education Establishment,” describes how parents are rising up to demand the very kind of phonics instruction that, 26 years ago, cut to the heart of LCS’s Charter. 

 

“A revolt over how children are taught to read, steadily building for years, is now sweeping school board meetings and statehouses around the country,” she writes. From the outset, Liberty’s professional classroom educators have consistently led their flocks to towering heights of phonemic command. 

 

For example, on reading and literacy, LCS’s Policies Manual (7.13) makes clear, in the early grades, our students receive explicit, systematic phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. They are provided deliberate, coherent, direct instruction in letter-sound correspondence. Practices which teach children to rely on word-memorization and guessing are patently avoided.  Learn more about this important topic by clicking here. Liberty’s students are blessed, indeed. 

 

They are lovingly led from the front through the narrow gateway into the thriving sheepfold of inspired language. Their pathway was prescribed by our school’s founders who, many years ago, prioritized intensive phonics instruction and rigorous grammar, and articulated Liberty’s vaunted revolution in public education.