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Welcome, Home Educator!
1-800-640-3607 - info@madsenmethod.com
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This is our forefathers'
method of instruction
Guide every student to
connect his FOUR
NEUROLOGICAL LEARNING AVENUES: He SPEAKS; He HEARS what he said; He DOES what he heard; He SEES what he did! Welcome to English for Life®—The Madsen Method® Home Page. We
are glad to introduce you to our complete (nothing else to buy),
non-consumable, fully scripted, teacher’s English language arts study guide
(all the student needs is paper and pencil).
In our literature, we call our program
a “K-12” course of study.
Using our non-graded, non-age-specific
guide, you will teach all of English in 6 to 8 years. You will lay the complete speaking and
spelling foundation necessary for self-study in the first 3 to 4 years,
teaching yourself and all your children what other language arts
programs (philosophies) do not, even cannot, teach in 12+ years! Our program will guide you and your student(s) to become proficient in all
English language arts content and skills,
verifiable at an earlier colonial proficiency dating from the 1600s up
to 1915. It teaches each student all of English’s explicit language arts
in an “always makes sense,” integrated way, but never as “subjects.” Each will attain an understanding of
phonemic awareness through a multi-sensory study of English phonograms, which
incorporates the inseparable partnership between oral language
(which is speech and speaking) and written language (which is
penmanship, spelling, explicit grammar, all forms of written composition, and
reading). Evolutionary, atheistic
“conditioned response language arts instruction”—called Phonics—never
makes this inseparable connection.
In fact, Phonics guides us to teach our children as if they are
mute and deaf. How The Madsen Method Came to Be and Look and Say
Many students have “holes” in
their language arts armors. When the older* student is for the
first time training his four-member neurological TEAM—his four neurological
avenues—to work together to serve him, and is for the first time being
taught missed content and skills, he is in these situations a “beginning
student.” This writer, with three
degrees and their equivalent government certifications, plus 22 years of
classroom experience, mostly with so-called special education students, was a
“beginning older student” at age 46! How
to Teach Older Students Who Have Not Yet Become Proficient *We define an older
student as someone ten years old or older who is for the
first time instructing his four
neurological learning avenues new knowledge. English for Life®—The Madsen Method®
is a program for all students and teachers—those entering language arts instruction for the
first time, and those who have been in language arts instruction but still have
disruptive language arts deficiencies. Obviously, home schooling teachers
want to start a new student out by teaching him from a curriculum that
guarantees he will learn proficiency so he will never need to deal with
curriculum-caused learning deficiencies. But when a faulty
curriculum has produced a dysfunctional student—one who can’t speak, spell,
write, and/or read with independent proficiency, or whose penmanship is atrocious,
and any who in has been labeled “special education”—with confidence, home
schooling parents may use our curriculum to remediate these problems as well as
teach themselves what is lacking in their language arts proficiency. Supporting this claim is our one-of-a-kind,
100% performance-based money-back guarantee. Guarantee Christian home schooling asks this question: “Can we succeed with teaching English
language arts; and can we do it not just better than public and private
education, but like
our forefathers did it?” They identify this answer: “If we do, we
must rest our efforts solely on two things: we must use explicit
multi-sensory instruction as the method of teaching; and we must base our
English language arts home school program on systematic and explicit phonogram
study, which is the same as phonemic awareness and phonetics.” Most current language arts programs seek relief from their theory-produced
failures by redefining literacy. “Being able to read” has replaced
history’s “being proficient in the inseparable oral/written language
partnership” definition of literacy, and has designated speaking, penmanship,
spelling, grammar, and written composition as “lesser skills.” Phonics
Theory programs seek to teach reading through reading, as if this skill
is learned the same way as riding a bicycle. This way of teaching is
called the Immersion Theory. One may learn to ride a bike without explicit instruction, but one does
not learn to speak, spell, write, read (we define all these using the
historical definition of literacy), become equipped for self-study (II Tim.
2:15), become “apt to teach” (I Tim. 3:2), and personally attain God’s
three-fold goal of instruction (I Tim. 1:5) without it. Evolutionary Phonics intends
none will attain any of these proficiencies!
Bibliography (the deliberate
dumbing down of america by Charlotte Iserbyt) Any who “learns to read” through exercising
his natural, “I was born with it,” visual memory talent does not need a
teacher and does not attain phonemic awareness, which is necessary
for literate phonetic speaking, spelling, written composition, reading, and
self-study skills, and which gives him speaking-spelling-writing-reading access
to all English words, not just words he can commit to rote, uninstructed visual
memory. He is caught in a “visual
memory learning trap” which requires him to visually meet and remember all
30,000 commonly used words, and certainly he is put upon by the task of
recognizing (reading) and recalling (spelling) the 80,000 words found in
general texts. To encourage you, we ask you to read these
verifiable statements aloud before you continue: “In
the literate sense, good* spellers invariably are good readers who possess
optimal oral and written language comprehension.” The flip side is this: “Phonics-taught, Phonics-defined readers are not good
readers or good spellers in the literate sense.” Though in a neurologically and
informationally uninformed way—a mindless way—these Phonics-taught
students can recognize and name words, like naming a picture, but they seriously lack oral and written language comprehension which
comes from phonogram study.” *Good means explicitly instructed, knowledgeable, independently
proficient, correct, and able to teach another! A Christian home school program (in fact, any public, private, and home school program) must begin with
instruction in phonetic spelling coupled with instruction in penmanship that
guides students to experience through a full-TEAM, multi-sensory instructional
approach the phonogram base of English language arts, which is what a reliable,
as well as corrective, phonetics-based, spoken language, penmanship, spelling,
grammar, written language, reading, self-study preparatory program must
teach. Learning Is
Neurological “Intensive Explicit Phonics”
is a disconnected and often incorrect study of alphabet letters and
information about alphabet letters, sounds, alphabet letter teams, and
arrangements of alphabet letters it calls words. It
relies on a student’s visual memory of “how each alphabet letter arrangement
looks (alphabet letter configurations)” and requires the student to pre-possess
the ability to “take visual snapshots” of words so he can “recognize
them when they show up again.” If he
does not possess this natural visual memory “snapshot” ability, he needs not
apply for any Phonics-type instruction. Ahead of time, Phonics instruction purposefully
predestines non-visually talented as well as visually talented students to
language arts failure; the former simply cannot “do” the work; the latter can
“do” it but in a neurologically mindless (contrasted with neurologically
mindful) and perfunctory way. The home school educator must
be aware of a language arts program’s content. Phonics language arts programs do not
address the nearly 88 necessary and explicit sound-to-symbol relationships that
make up all English words. The terms “intensive explicit phonics,”
“intensive phonics,” “explicit phonics,” “systematic and intensive phonics” are
not acceptable terms for describing the historically reliable phonogram
approach to teaching speaking, penmanship, spelling, written composition,
reading, and self-study skills. Evolutionary
conditioned response Phonics language arts programs sometimes use
these acceptable terms to further their deceitful and treacherous agenda. The home school educator also
must be aware of a language art’s method of instruction. A program is first a method of instruction, and the method of
instruction predetermines who will learn.
The home school educator must ask this question of every language arts
program, “How (by what method of instruction) will you guide me to guide
my children to learn English?” Additionally, the home school educator must be aware that some language
arts programs use “appropriate phonetic terms” to describe “acceptable content”
but do not guide the teacher to use “neurologically sound teaching
methodology.” If the program says it uses “multi-sensory
instruction,” it may mean that sometime during the learning experience the
student is asked to “speak and hear,” at another time he is asked to “act out”
or “role play,” and at another time he is asked to “see and write.” Thus,
these programs claim the student is asked to use all four of his language-learning
sensory avenues at some time or other in the instructional process.
This Phonics philosophy definition of multi-sensory instruction is not
the historically true definition of Multi-Sensory Instruction. The true test of multi-sensory instruction is
whether all four neurological language-learning avenues (saying, hearing, writing, and seeing)
are used at the same time. The teacher, guided by the
curriculum, guides the student to connect his four language-learning avenues as
he studies each explicit oral/written English element. This is the tried
and true multi-sensory teaching method,
one that duplicates how our forefathers taught, and the one home school
spelling and reading programs should use. English for Life®—The Madsen Method® uses this method of
instruction. We call it Full-Spectrum
Neurological Response Instruction, Explicit Phonetics, as
well as the “Recite As You Write” teaching method, the one our
forefathers used to teach English language arts when all students who were taught learned,
when special education was not in their experience, therefore not in their
thinking, talking
and writing. It is a true saying that special education programs—from
programs for “retardation” to programs for “gifted”—are the result of Fragmented Neurological
Response Instruction. No child can hope to learn optimally
when the teacher’s spelling and
reading program does not guide her to guide her children to use true
multi-sensory instruction as the means by which they and she learn and apply
the phonemic base of English in every spoken and written language arts task. The guidance home educators (and public and private educators) need
for teaching phonetic spelling is missing in today’s theoretical-based,
previously tried and rejected, Phonics-based worksheet, workbook, spelling,
and reading programs. These
programs were thrust upon U.S. children in 1930-31 through the efforts of
William S. Gray, Arthur Gates and John Dewey. The first Phonics program was soundly rejected by the
Boston School Masters in 1844 after for six years
they tried the controlled
vocabulary, sight word memorization, copy and trace program written by Horace
Mann and his wife. Theirs was a theory-based program imitating another
theory-based program written for deaf children in the 1830s by Thomas A.
Gallaudet, a program history says also was rejected. All
of today’s language arts curricula, with only a few notable exceptions, are
designed to teach our children their language as if they, like Gallaudet’s
students, also are MUTE and DEAF! Look and Say,
another name for the sight word memorization, copy and trace penmanship, rote
visual memory spelling and reading
learning method, which is the same as the Phonics-Based
Immersion Theory,
has been mandated for use in public education since the 1930s. It is the same program
design used at large by current private and home school programs. Private
and home school programs, using this theoretical and failed spelling and
reading program design, cannot Christianize it and expect different results
than are being experienced in public education! The truth is, Christian
home schooling programs, just like public and private language arts programs,
are not producing students who are well-spoken and good spellers,
writers, and readers (in the literate sense), students who are prepared for self-study
and are apt to teach others. Two Teaching
Choices Defined: Clerical Teaching or Disciple-Making Teaching Another non-braggable fact is this:
“Whatever claims home school educators make to excellence
clearly are not the results of their language arts curricula.
They could be and should be setting their own standards of excellence for
teaching the English language arts as well as evaluating student proficiency,
not comparing themselves to failed public education in both areas.” Recently the U.S. Department of Education reported that a full 66
percent of our nation’s fourth-graders read below grade level.
Kavan Peterson, Staff Writer for Stateline.org. states: “In the latest
snapshot of how well American schoolchildren are learning, national test
results showed … in the past two years … nearly zero improvement in
reading scores since 1992.
About 70 percent of students nationwide still are scoring below grade
level on … reading tests, according to the latest scores on National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests released Oct. 19, 2005. No state had
a higher average eighth-grade reading score in 2005 than in 2003, and seven
states—Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Utah, and
West Virginia—had significantly lower scores.” NAEP tests are separate from the state assessment tests required by
President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, which requires all students in
grades 3 through 8 be tested annually in
reading and math and penalizes states that fail to improve student scores. "To me, this goes beyond disappointing," said former West Virginia
Gov. Bob Wise, president of the Washington, D.C.-based
Alliance For Excellent Education, an advocacy group that promotes high school
reforms. "It shows that we are failing to gain ground on the very
conditions we need to reverse to improve our graduation rates and produce
more students who are ready for college and the workforce." Question! Does former
Governor Bob Wise not know the Phonics “conditioned response”
visual memory method of teaching language arts is producing the
projected 80% workforce and 20% professional group, just as its Prussian
activists intended? Does he not
know that “population control” and a “global workforce,” not “gaining
ground (academically),” are the intentional purposes and predictable outcomes
of the 100-year Phonics Philosophy of Education experiment? Bibliography (the deliberate
dumbing down of america by Charlotte Iserbyt) Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group, and Jack Jennings,
director of the Center on Education Policy, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit
group that tracks the implementation of No Child Left Behind, agree that the
latest NAEP scores are consistent with other national standardized tests such
as the SAT, ACT, and PSAT, which all have
shown flat achievement rates in reading. “Despite what the (Bush)
administration was claiming, this is an indication that No Child Left Behind
may not have made much of a difference because these are the same results we
saw before the law was in effect," Jennings
said. A. Sharon Madsen of
Line & Precept Education Foundation® says: “Other falsenesses
flourishing in our government’s penchant for testing are: 1) A ‘planned
omission’ to use test results for curriculum and teacher-training improvement;
and 2) A dedicated use of test results by the National Education Association
(NEA) and its favorite politicians to write legislation to increase funding for
the supposed reason of ‘educational improvement’, when the true purpose is that
of keeping schools afloat, teachers employed, and university teacher-training
programs intact, therefore buying its way in the political and economic
marketplace at the expense of citizen literacy. Government, university
educators, and the NEA should never be believed when they use the phrase ‘for
the good of the student’ to propagandize us.
Whoever is against God also is against His created ones.” Two research-based statements Christian home education
programs should give complete attention to are: 1)
“Phonogram-taught
spellers are invariably literate readers who also are well-spoken and can give
correct written responses.” 2) “When the ‘Recite As You Write’
method of instruction is used to integrate and teach all oral and
written language components, all children become independently
proficient in all English language arts.” 31 Research-Based Conclusions English for Life®—The Madsen Method® is based on Scriptural
as well as objective, observable, verifiable, historical data supporting the
above two statements, and it produces these results. The above research-based statements pinpoint two central
problems home, private, and
public education have in their efforts to deal students a “proficiency hand”
when it comes to teaching them to speak, write, spell, compose with, read, and
teach English: 1)
Current Phonics and Phonics-type
language arts programs do not teach students the phonemic base of
English as a “means” of accessing all English syllables (English’s frequently-used speaking/spelling
patterns) for the goal of literate speaking, spelling, writing, and reading, which is a failure
resulting from asking students to memorize words while keeping them ignorant of
the knowledge base of English words. 2) Current Phonics and Phonics-type
language arts programs ask students to learn with half their brains tied behind
their backs, which
is a failure resulting from asking students to see and write (copy, trace,
guess, fill in blanks, connect symbolic representations of words with pictorial
representations, etc.) but not asking them to use the “Recite As You Write”
multi-sensory instructional method our forefathers used, which requires
students to exercise and simultaneously connect all four, God-designed,
neurological language-learning avenues when studying. Learning Is
Neurological English for Life®—The Madsen Method® makes these claims: 1) We
replicate the “Recite As You Write” pure, multi-sensory method of
teaching our forefathers used. 2) When
taught by our program, all students become educated in the complete
knowledge base of English language arts in a short amount of time. 3) When
receiving instruction from our scripted study guide, students who are
victims of the “rote visual memory language arts instructional method”
become educated in the complete knowledge base of English language arts. 4) When
receiving instruction from our scripted study guide, young beginning
students become educated in the complete knowledge base of English language
arts and need never suffer the failure, disrespect,
and injustice of Phonics’ evil philosophy of instruction. 5) When
teaching from our scripted study guide, teachers who are victims of “rote
memory language arts programs” educate themselves along with their
students. 6) Our
program is fully scripted for teachers and students. Dear Home Educator Letter 7) Our
program is a field-tested (since 1988 and ongoing), authentic
replication of how our forefathers taught, and yields the same results. 8) Our
program measures spelling, therefore speaking, writing, and reading literacy,
using a 1915 nationally standardized test, the oldest standardized instrument
we have found. 9) We
provide ongoing, on-demand, FREE help to teachers using our program. 10) We
offer a written, performance-based, money-back guarantee supporting these
claims. You have made observations and drawn godly and common sense conclusions (or
as my Dad Wolf says, “Honest to God” conclusions) about how well you have been
taught, how well your student is learning, why he still has problems, why your
curriculum and its method of instruction are not fruitful, and you have
wondered about “home education gurus’ loud and confusing clamor.” You also may have suspicioned us as “just
another language arts program.” Our easy-to-use Bibliography, Articles,
and Letters to Teachers links will further educate and arm you with facts
about: 1) the myth that intelligence is
something fixed at birth; 2) the
fraudulent history of intelligence tests;
3) the truth about special education and its arbitrarily selected list
of 37 terms that supposedly describe students with learning inabilities, and
especially the 99 symptoms selected to characterize one of special educators
favorite terms—minimal brain dysfunction: no one tested for special education is expected to escape; The Truth About
Intelligence Testing and Most Influential
Data Used for Special Education Placement 4) how proficiency tests (standardized
achievement tests) fall short; Illiteracy in the
USA 5) the one and only
good use for worksheets and workbooks;
6) the folly of contrived educational standards; 7) the deliberate dumbing down of America; 8) the mismeasure of man’s
intelligence; 9) the trouble with
testing young children; 10) how typical
children do not learn when taught as if they are mute and deaf; 11) how our forefathers taught so well; 12) why “teaching is the test”; Authentic Curriculum
vs. Invented Curriculum
13) why Phonics is an old
and evil instructional philosophy, as old and evil as Satan himself. Remember, the best read around is the Word of God, and the Holy
Spirit is the best Teacher! Read all the links on our Home Page. They will
further equip you to learn truth that will forever change how you view
educating your child and will give you “encouraging truth” which you in turn
may give others. You can teach your children English, which is the underpinning of
all other learning, but first you must learn. The Madsen Method® was written and
field-tested by home educators who wished to teach themselves along with their
children. By using the fruit of their
labor, you also will teach yourself as you teach your children, and every step
of the way by the help of the Spirit we’ll guide you, guaranteed. God bless you. Call anytime! Testimonials NOTE: Thanks to Sherry Frattini for editing our
Web Articles and Letters to Teachers, thereby
improving my understanding of the inseparable oral/ written English Grammar
partnership. We use our forefathers'
method of instruction. COPYRIGHT
2005-2009. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. "THE MADSEN
METHOD," "ENGLISH FOR LIFE" AND THE SHIELD GRAPHIC AT
THE TOP OF THE HOME PAGE ARE REGISTERED TRADEMARKS OF
THE LINE & PRECEPT EDUCATION
FOUNDATION. |
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