Millions of people who can read today owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Samuel L. Blumenfeld (shown), America’s foremost apostle of phonics over the past half century, who died on June 1, one day after his 89th birthday. I was privileged to know him, as a friend and colleague, for more than 30 years.
I first became acquainted with Sam Blumenfeld’s writings in the early 1970s. I was a college student at the time and had switched my course of study from pre-veterinary medicine to psychology and education. The “reading controversy” that had been launched in 1955 with the publication of Dr. Rudolph Flesch’s best-seller, Why Johnny Can’t Read and What You Can Do About It, was back in full swing, following a period of relative quiescence. Sam’s book The New Illiterates (1973) rekindled the debate, exposing the ludicrous basis of the destructive look-say methodology that was mentally crippling millions of children, and forcefully putting forward the case for restoring intensive phonics in the reading programs of our nation’s schools. Having, myself, been taught to read by the phonics method, and being well aware of the devastating (and growing) illiteracy plague, Blumenfeld’s New Illiterates seemed to me to be spot-on. This led me to his other early books, How to Start Your Own Private School (1972) and How to Tutor (1973). These and his many other books, articles (for this magazine and others), audio tapes and CDs, videotapes and DVDs, online videos, radio and television appearances, and global speaking tours have rightfully earned Sam Blumenfeld the respectful sobriquets “godfather of the phonics movement,” “godfather of the homeschool movement,” and “godfather of the private school movement.”
Read more… “R.I.P. Samuel Blumenfeld: Author, Master Educator, Champion of Freedom”
http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/21006-samuel-blumenfeld-author-master-educator-champion-of-freedom