While I'm on the topic, I also hate this obsession with "learning styles" you're starting to see all over the place. "Oh, my kid's not dumb, he's just a kinesthetic learner. He needs hands-on learning." Well, no shit. Readin' them thar books is hard work, ain't it, Otis? Why the hell do you need school to teach you hands-on learning? What ludicrous crap is that? You go to school to learn how to read and write, and hopefully how to become LITERATE. And don't give me that crap about "different literacies," you can either read at the proper level or you can't. And if you can't, the answer is to work on that skill, not pretend you can somehow get by without it or that it's the teachers fault for emphasizing the need to read.